The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

86 Subodh Gupta Cold war kitchen New York’s World Trade Center — billowing smoke and flames and in various stages of terrifying and devastating collapse — on September 11 2001 is a defining image of this decade. Up to and during the twin towers’ construction, between 1970 and 1977, a similarly defining image of the twentieth century — the ‘mushroom cloud’ — was circulated, reproduced and repeated so many times it became commonplace, even clichéd. Associated with atomic explosions and, specifically, the bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the mushroom- shaped cloud was instantly recognisable and largely symbolic. In 1991, American literary critic Peggy Rosenthal defined the power of this image: . . . a quarter century after the nuclear mushroom cloud has been seen in real life, it remains the unchallenged symbol of the nuclear age because its name, shape and size carry all the meanings we need for it to bear’. 1 Today, the cloud’s dissociation from history is complete. Available in thousands of permutations as ‘stock’ imagery on various websites and image banks, it has been, to a large extent, neutralised. It will be some time before the imagery of the Twin Towers gains such mainstream currency. Gallerist Peter Nagy has said of Subodh Gupta that he is ‘very good at selecting icons and symbols’. 2 Gupta’s five-metre-high Line of Control (1) 2008 adopts the image of the nuclear cloud as a potent vehicle for investigating the geopolitics specific to his region. The disputed Kashmir border region between Pakistan and India (a border known in military parlance as the Line of Control) is a focus for the renewed fear of nuclear conflict. In 1998, India detonated three nuclear devices, emphatically declaring its status as a nuclear weapons state, followed weeks later by similar tests in Pakistan. Line of Control (1) is constructed from brass and copper vessels, pots, pans, candle holders, decorative details, urns, trays and goblets — patinated with use and time. Dented, bent, crushed and corroded, they form an oddly ‘historic’ armature for such a loaded image. While the work is predominantly a sculptural form, the mushroom cloud also exists essentially as image: Gupta reinvests this familiar symbol with a quotient of contemporary tension and gravity. The use of pots, pans and vessels as the essential units in Line of Control (1) compresses history, tradition and change, forming an intimate dimension of domestic religious and cultural practice, one which is played out in millions of Indian kitchens on a daily basis. While these domestic wares add a vein of cultural meaning to the image, they are also analogous to the essential atomic units that make up both the cloud and the diabolical energy of nuclear fission. In recent years, Subodh Gupta has gained international attention for works that have their genesis in the local traditions and materials of his Indian home state of Bihar, but also project a compendium of ideas with a global reach. His quirky and often anecdotal takes on the cultural, social and political influences of global economies and technologies on the Indian subcontinent find expression through painting, video, performance and sculpture. Gupta’s work Bullet 2006–07 also reinvests a familiar, and considerably less menacing, image with a residue of cultural meaning and memory. The 350cc Royal Enfield ‘Bullet’ motorcycle was selected by the Indian government in 1955 as the vehicle of choice to patrol its national borders. Hundreds were purchased from British engineering firm the Enfield Cycle Company (founded in 1893), which also manufactured armaments for the Royal Small Arms Factory. The brand name ‘Royal Enfield’ emerged with the motto ‘made like a gun’. Enfield India was established in 1955 to assemble the bikes with British components in Madras (now Chennai), and by the early 1960s both the manufacture and assembly of components was completed in India. Enfield India purchased the rights to the brand Royal Enfield in 1995, and the Bullet continues to be produced there, making it the oldest motorcycle company and the longest running production model in India. Gupta’s Bullet is cast in brass with a cargo of beaten metal milk cans lashed to a pannier frame adapted for carrying them. Royal Enfield motorcycles played significant military roles in both World War One and Two, but here the Bullet is rendered bovine in its capacity as a carrier. The end of the first decade of the twenty-first century is on the horizon, providing an occasion to review, reminisce and look forward. At such times, amid a fathomless ocean of media, certain images rise to the surface, fixing particular events and moments indelibly in our minds. The power of such images may reside in the inimitability of the events they represent. David Burnett Endnotes 1 Peggy Rosenthal, ‘The nuclear mushroom cloud as cultural image’, American Literary History , vol.3, Spring 1991, p.88. 2 Peter Nagy, quoted in Christopher Mooney, ‘Subodh Gupta: The idol thief’, Art Review , no.17, December 2007, p.54.