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| Bhupen Khakhar, Injured Head of Raju |
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| Vasudha Thozhur, Secret Life I |
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| Nalini Malani, Hamletmachine |
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The exhibition is curated by the renowned Indian art critic Geeta Kapur. It takes the city as the main subject and is realised through sixteen contemporary artists’ interpretations. subTerrain translates social and political issues of the Indian megalopolis as punctual and direct statements.
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“subTerrain” shows current works by 16 artists, including large-format oil paintings and watercolours from the past four years by painters Bhupen Khakhar, Vasudha Thozhur and Jitish Kallat, as well as photo series by the prominent photographer Raghu Rai, examining the Bhopal poison gas catastrophe and its consequences for the city. In her complex video space “Hamletmachine” the artist Nalini Malani creates a striking metaphor for the religious riots which rocked Mumbai/Bombay in January 1993. The multi-part spatial sculpture “New New Delhi: Room with Bed”, by Vivan Sundaram, reflects the lives of five artists in contemporary Delhi: the architect Romi Khosla, the photographer and designer Ram Rahman, the Raqs Media Collective and the visual artists Shantanu Lodh and Manmeet. Eyewitness accounts of recent events in Gujarat form the focus of the video installation “Lacuna in Testimony”, by Navjot Altaf. The poetic video works by Ranbir Kaleka, “Man Threading Needle” and “Man with Cockerel”, exemplify a more introspective position in contemporary Indian art. While the sculpture “Speaking Stones”, by N.N. Rimzon, deals primarily with individual recollections, Atul Dodiya’s space installation “Broken Branches” foregrounds the critical examination of collective memory. The multimedia installation “Neelkanth: Poison/Nectar”, by Sheba Chhachhi, takes uncontrolled urban growth and the destruction of the environment as its points of departure. Subodh Gupta’s photo installation “Vilas” plays with gender stereotypes and social taboos. In her sale installation “Hand-picked Rejects”, Sharmila Samant offers an ironic interpretation of global market mechanisms, an issue that also plays a central role in the interactive website “Xeno.Bio.Lab” by Shilpa Gupta. The installation “Untitled“, also by Shilpa Gupta, points out the connection between prejudice and social aggression, while Sonia Khurana’s video works “Bird” and “Meat” examine her identity as a woman in contemporary India and the mood of urban life. The search for one’s own identity as provoked by experiencing foreign surroundings is the focus of the multimedia work “Black to Play and Draw” by Anant Joshi.
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