Subodh Gupta (b.1964)

These canvases are in good overall condition, as viewed. There is light scuffing and wear, particularly along the edges as the works are not framed. Very minor spots of accretions are present across the surface, only visible upon very close inspection.
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In 2003, Subodh Gupta produced Saat Samundar Paar (Across the Seven Seas), a series of large-format oil paintings that depict taxis and airport trolleys laden with the odd assortment of baggage that often accompanies migrants—overstuffed duffels, cardboard cartons secured with packing tape, and bulging gharti, traditional rope-tied bundles. Although this painting was not among the seven paintings that were exhibited that same year at Nature Morte Gallery (New Delhi), it is thematically and stylistically identical. According to Gupta the series continued, but without the original title. In this painting (and those in the Saat samundar paar series) Gupta's formal concern is the object and, with particular consideration of technique, he compels the viewer to focus on his chosen inanimate subjects. Gupta works from his own photographs, which may be deliberately overexposed to create an ephemeral quality. He mimics the overexposure by rendering the people and the airport environs in flat areas of paint. However, the taxis, trolleys and their contents are painted with hyper-realistic attention to detail. This dual technique reinforces the three-dimensional quality of those objects, visually propelling them off the two-dimensional canvas and into the viewer's space. Gupta's concern for dimensionality in paint parallels his being a sculptor and installation artist. In 2004, he continued with sculpture his discourse on the thematic concerns—migration and global displacement—that he had addressed earlier in the Saat samundar paar paintings. Vehicle for the Seven Seas (made in an edition of two) is a gilded bronze airport trolley and three aluminium valises—a standard suitcase, a large duffle bag and a gharti. It is a monument to transience, exemplifying Gupta's now-trademark glorification of the quotidian elements of life in India. By showcasing them in paintings and gilding them in sculpture, Gupta has positioned the most mundane objects in the sanctuaries of our times: art galleries and museums. These newly-sacred relics also can be found in latter day domestic shrines: private collections. The traditional tied bundle is a gharti, an object from Gupta's childhood in Bihar. His father was a railway guard who often rode with such bundles in the cargo car. Gupta revisits and memorializes this youthful memory through his celebration of gharti. Teetering on the luggage rack of a yellow-roofed taxi, the humble baggage is nonetheless elevated to the status of a ceremonial icon carried in procession. Its physical placement symbolizes the intimate reverence inherent in its personal—and hidden—contents. The taxi is the ubiquitous Ambassador, manufactured by Hindustan Motors. It is the first car of independent India, a national icon to which Indians aspire and remain sentimentally attached. It is the "peoples'" car that, like the elephant, is the workhorse and the palanquin of India. Ruggedly designed for Indian roads, its boxy shape can accommodate five adults, and, as we see here, abundant cargo. As the late photographer Raghubir Singh (1942-1999) wrote, ''As I journeyed all over India, I came to understand that if one thing can be singled out to stand for the past 50 years of India ... it has to be the Ambassador.'' (Quoted by Sarah Boxer in the New York Times, 29 June 2003). Gupta recognizes the beloved Ambassador's iconic status, and with hyperbolic reverence has re-consecrated this modest vehicle. Here we see the omnipresent black and yellow Ambassador taxi, laden with a bulky suitcase and an even larger, misshapen, full-to-bursting bundle. It is situated in an airport parking lot amid empty baggage trolleys. Will the unwieldy rooftop cargo be unloaded onto those carts, or has it just been loaded into the luggage rack? Ultimately, it makes no difference whether this is the beginning or the end of the journey; it is but a point in the continuous cycle of migration. The taxi is the vehicle of transport; the wrapped packages, the collected goods of that mobility. Similarly, in 2004, Gupta produced the life-size sculpture Everything is Inside. As in the paintings, the top of a black and yellow taxi is laden with bundles, secured to the luggage rack with rope. For this sculpture, Gupta has used a real taxi, sawed off just below the hood and windows. It is parked on the floor and appears to be sinking under the weight of its rooftop load. Or is it metaphorically mired by the aspirations embodied in its heavy cargo? This installation has been displayed both indoors and out. The change of venue adds another dimension to interpretation: outdoors, it reads as a real local taxi, still capable of moving, even if only to be pushed from its sunken position; indoors, its position seems firmly cemented, having settled into the global world. The airport, although background in this painting, is another important factor in Gupta's examination of migration. He observed the familiar airport sight of migrant workers returning home to India from the Gulf States, their luggage full to bursting with newly purchased consumer goods (even refrigerators are now sold in international airport duty-free shops) and was impelled to consecrate the vehicles of migration—airport trolleys and taxis——and their bulging baggage as monumental pilgrimage souvenirs. Gupta and many of his fellow Indian artists have much in common with migrant workers. Their global fame has hurled them into the international art circuit and, like contemporary migrant workers, they travel abroad and return home financially rewarded. They spend hours in airports—the way station of migration. Gupta acknowledges this and has insightfully produced gleaming tributes to India's shifting society—and to his own migration from rural roots in Bihar to urban Delhi, from local India to global art community.