Shilpa Gupta

- Born in 1976 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

- Lives and works in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Shilpa Gupta's works appear in varied spaces-from museums to the streets - she is interested in the relationship between the object and the viewer, and in the artwork moving away with the viewer and entering their own spaces of the home where other members of the family can view it. Besides showing in Indian as well as international galleries, public/state run institutions or contexts, Gupta has also explored public spaces such as streets, shops, trains and other privately run institutions. 

Shilpa Gupta’s work blurs the boundary between the artist, the viewer and the artwork, and this shared responsibility alters the perception of the work. For her, the artwork is not what the artist creates and thinks but something that facilitates an interaction between the audience and the artist. The viewer is not passive; instead becomes an active agent in the process of creating meaning. 

As an artist, Shilpa Gupta is interested in showing work in spaces where there is an audience besides the one coming to a private art gallery. In order to reach out to a larger audience, she deliberately uses visual codes and interface which the audience is familiar and at ease with. Gupta believes that media work is more accessible and democratic- they can be mass produced, are easily transportable and can be seen and shared by several people. By doing so, Gupta inevitably challenges the capitalist structure of the art world that emphasises uniqueness and not-shared nature of the art work. 

Gupta’s works engages with the political and cultural world around her thereby taking upon the role of an art activist of sorts. In the aftermath of the Gujarat pogrom, the artist distributed bottles of blood on crowded local trains asking people to separate blood by religion or race.  

Shilpa Gupta, Untitled, 2015, wood, glass, bone china ceramic, 13 × 44 1 by 10 × 15 9 by 10 in

Shilpa Gupta, Untitled, 2012, single channel video projection, 3min 42sec video loop, 18.3x10 in

Shilpa Gupta, Untitled, 2008-09, heat book, mild steel, heating element of 2000 watts+, pedestal, 44x17.5x13 in

Shilpa Gupta, Untitled, 2005, interactive video projection and sound, projector and computer, 8 minutes interaction loop, 263.2 x 315 in

Shilpa Gupta, Untitled (There is No Border Here), 2006, wall drawing with self adhesive tapes, 118 x 118 in

Shilpa Gupta, Threat, 2008-09, bathing soaps, 5.9 x 2.5 x 1.6 in (each soap), 28.5 x 90 x 42in(stack of 4500 soaps).

Shilpa Gupta, There is No Explosive in This, 2007, site-specific interactive installation

Shilpa Gupta, There is No Border Here, 2006, self-adhesive tapes

Shilpa Gupta, 2652-2, 2010, diasec mounted photograph, 37.5x61.4 in

Shilpa Gupta, 100 Hand drawn Maps of India, 2007-08, still from a single channel video projection, 3 minutes 42 seconds video loop, 22.2 x 17in