Shilpa Gupta

Shilpa Gupta (b.1976) lives and works in Mumbai, India where she has studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997.

Gupta creates artwork using interactive video, websites, objects, photographs, sound and public performances to probe and examine subversively such themes as desire, religion, notions of security on the street and on the imagined border.

In February 2010, she will have her first museum solo at Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati. Later in the year, she will have solo show at Castle Blandy in France and a mid career retrospective at the OK Center for Contemporary Art in Linz.

Her project ‘While I Sleep’, where she worked alongside psychologist Mahazarin Banaji (Harvard professor) on the reception of images exploring fear and prejudice and interviewed Noam Chomsky, opened at Le Laboratoire in Paris in mid 2009, after which it travelled to theLouisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and will be shown next at the Auckland Triennale 2010. 

In 2009, she had solo shows at Gallerie Yvon Lambert in Paris, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano and at the public gallery 'Lalit Kala Akademi' in New Delhi hosted by Vadehra Gallery.

Previously she has shown at 'The Generational: Younger Than Jesus', the first Triennale of the New Museum, New York; ‘Everyday Miracles – Lyon Biennale 2009' curated by Hou Hanru; ‘Gwangju Biennale 08’, directed by Okwui Enwezor and curated by Ranjit Hoskote; ‘Yokohama Triennale 08’ curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist; ‘3rd Seville Biennial’ curated by Peter Weibel and Wonil Rhee; ‘Zones of Contact – Biennale of Sydney 06’ curated by Charles Merewether and ‘Liverpool Biennale 06’ curated by Gerardo Mosquera and has participated in Asian Art Triennales in Manchester and Fukuoka and Biennales in Linz, Seoul, Havana and Shanghai.

Her work has been shown in leading international institutions and museums such as the Tate Modern and Serpentine Gallery in London, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Torino, Daimler Chrysler Contemporary in Berlin, Mori Museum in Tokyo, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New Museum and Queens Museum in New York, Chicago Cultural Center, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk and Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon amongst others.

She has initiated the Aar Paar - a public art exchange project between India and Pakistan and the Video Art Road Show, screenings of video art on streets in Mumbai and Delhi. In 2005, she is co-facilitated Crossovers & Rewrites: Borders over Asia for the ‘World Social Forum’ in Porto Alegre, Brazil and in 2008 initiated ‘Making Art Public’ in which prints by artists, graphic novelists and photographers were distributed in Timeout Mumbai.

Gupta has received the Transmediale 2004 Award, Berlin and Sanskriti Prathisthan Award, New Delhi. Her work is the collections of Asia Society, Daimler Chrysler, Mori Museum, Fukuoka Museum, Hauser & Wirth, Kramlich Collection, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Caixa Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art – Val De Marne, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Devi Foundation besides other public and private collections in India and abroad.

In 2010, a 248 page monograph will be released by Prestel Publishers and Vadehra Bookstore, with texts by Nancy Adajania, Peter Weibel, Shanay Jhaveri and Quddus Mirza.