The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

65 ARTISTS Top: 24:00:01 (installation view) 2010–12 Motion flapboard: 30 minutes, ed. 5/5 / 32.5 x 198.5 x 20cm / Purchased 2017 with funds from Tim Fairfax ac through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / Image courtesy: The artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA (San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Habana) Below: For, In Your Tongue, I Can Not Fit (installation view) 2017–18 Site-specific sound installation with 100 speakers, microphones, printed text and metal stands / Installed dimensions variable / Co-commissioned by Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku and Edinburgh Arts Festival with additional support from QAGOMA / Courtesy: The artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA (San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Habana) / Photograph: Pat Verbruggen SHILPA GUPTA Born 1976, Mumbai, India Lives and works in Mumbai A framework of astute questioning underpins Shilpa Gupta’s practice. Described ‘as props or devices in a theatre of disclosure’, her works prompt viewers to consider their own biases through subjective, self-reflective and poetic encounters. 1 It is an art configured around daily life — relying on our everyday responses, conditioning, prejudices and language to consider the contexts in which these everyday acts operate. Gupta belongs to the first generation of Indian artists to fully embrace the potential of new media, performance and public participation, at a time when there were few platforms for such practices in the country. Her works draw on common technologies — recorded sound, public signage and consumer objects — to subtly manipulate how these devices normally operate. She identifies the fissures and ambiguities inherent in various forms of public communication, particularly in relation to authority, mobility and security, stating: ‘I have always been intrigued by the urge to authenticate, duplicate at will, and control. Technology has been at the forefront of mirroring such disquieting cravings’. 2 As a platform for exploring social conditioning and the divisive issues of a globalised world, Gupta’s works reveal the societal divisions of borders, religion, language and censorship, and how we develop fears and confront perceived threats. Through installations of recorded poetry and song, signage and instructional texts, she exposes the implications and connotations of language in personal and public situations. These scenarios allude to power hierarchies and biases inherent in certain rhetoric, with messages conveyed with poetic syntax, or in simple, but powerfully suggestive, phrases such as: ‘My East is Your West’ and ‘I live under your sky too’. An ensemble of voices in For, In Your Tongue, I Can Not Fit 2017–18 uncovers a range of political imbalances and histories. 100 hanging microphones — the instrument of vocalisation for politicians, dictators, activists and revolutionaries alike — deliver poetic verses in multiple languages drawn from different points in history. The work relays words penned by the accused and incarcerated, from the eighth-century Persian poet Abū Nuwās, jailed for witty poetry about urban life and homosexual love; to the sixteenth-century Italian polymath Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in 1600 for astronomical theories considered at odds with Roman Catholic doctrine; to more recent voices, such as Allen Ginsberg, who was accused of obscenity for his 1954–55 poem Howl , or the young Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, imprisoned since 2015 for a poem in Arabic posted on YouTube. The chorus of voices unveils instances of censorship and suppression throughout history, shining a light on those who have made sacrifices for their freedom of speech, and giving a voice to those who were not meant to be heard. 24:00:01 2010–12 uses a mechanised split-flapboard, technology once common to train stations and airports around the world, in which words and phrases gradually emerge and letters continually change, switching between the decipherable and indecipherable. Misspelled and disjointed words unsettle the reader as the text transitions from one utterance to another, rapidly transforming the meaning of the narrative. Without a distinct subject or context, a fragmented story evolves beginning with an introspective phrase — ‘I look out and wait for the train to go by’ — and continues through suggestions of belonging and nationhood, and evocations of personal relationships, fear and terrorism. The work subverts both the immediacy and the objective role of public signage as it poetically and elusively builds layers of subjective meaning. Ultimately, Shilpa Gupta’s art leads us to inquire how we formulate emotional and intellectual positions, and how these inform definitions and perceptions. She invites us to question how we form relationships, fears and desires — and to interrogate why we ask these questions at all. Tarun Nagesh Endnotes 1 Nancy Adajania, ‘Darkness is what light will never be: Shilpa Gupta’s experiments with truth’, in Nancy Adajania (ed.), Shilpa Gupta , Prestel Publishing, Munich, 2009, p.138. 2 Shilpa Gupta, quoted in Vandana Kalra, ‘Shilpa Gupta' [interview], 17 January 2016, Indian Express , <https://indianexpress.com> , viewed June 2018.