Subodh Gupta: A glass of Water at Hauser & Wirth New York, 32 East 69th Street, New York City, (212) 794-4970, May 5 to June 18, 2011
Subodh Gupta has been dubbed the Damien Hirst of India, a fair marker, perhaps, of the sculptor’s meteoric ascent in the last few years, but not, surely, to the sober and dignified integrity of his work. Gupta is enjoying his fourth New York solo show – previous outings were at Bose Pascia and Jack Shainman – at Hauser & Wirth, with a simultaneous show of outdoor sculptures at that gallery’s Amsterdam branch. A Brit who does come to mind in comparison with Gupta is Tony Cragg, but less for the latter’s work per se than for its reception when toured by the British Council in India in the early 1980s. Cragg had gained his first foothold in art world attention with arte povera appropriations of detritus. What had seemed so chic and poignant in the white cubes of the west suddenly looked forlorn, even transparent amidst the quotidian mess that is India’s normality, leaving locals to feel, if anything, satirized. Gupta occupies an opposite corner of the post-Duchampian ring, eschewing poverty of forms in favor of the magnification and rendering precious of the discarded or the inconsequential. A familiar strategy, for sure, but given a postcolonial twis when, for instance, he sprung the ubiquitous tin wares of the thali set into splashily dazzling, resplendent art installations. His neo-pop aesthetic sounded a metaphysical note in a key remote from the vintage pop of Claes Oldenburg, or even the vintage neo of Haim Steinbach. In purely formal terms, Richard Artschwager might be a better call, but Gupta always seems more concerned with the intrinsic value of an original, with its spirit, rather than the absurdity of relocation of the found as art, or the purity of a new surface. The opposite of an iconoclast, Gupta is a priest in the service of the god of small things. DAVID COHEN
Subodh Gupta, Repose, 2011. Stainless steel, 29 x 102 x 50 inches. Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth New York.