| Shilpa Gupta Untitled 2000, Video Duration , 2 minutes Shilpa Gupta, in her video piece Untitled, engages with the idea of the gaze and viewership in the age of information manipulation by media. Attempting to reverse /suspend the mundane act of watching television, the artist takes on the role of a performer, engaged in an everyday act of watching TV, as well as swapping roles with the soap opera stars by becoming one herself. In Untitled the two monitors, positioned to face each other, present seven avatars of the artist watching television, making the artist her own audience and reflection, in the process cutting the viewer out of the spectatorial loop. By giving television its own life, Shipa comments on the enigma of the middle-class Indian viewer who feels trapped in the everyday routine , offering an opportunity to escape reality by taking on different persona�s or identity. Shipa by the reversing the notion of the artist and the viewer, suspends the relationship between the real and the unreal, commenting on the ubiquitous manipulation of imagery and information by the media, and thus raising the question �Is TV based on me or am I based on TV'. Shilpa Gupta (b.1976) lives and works in Mumbai where she has studied at the J J School of Fine Arts in 1997 and had residency in Kanoria Centre Studios, 1999 Ahmedabad and at Unesco-Aschberg residency at CYPRES, Aix en Provence 2001. She has participated in shows in Mumbai at Gallery Chemould, Lakeeren Art Gallery, and National Gallery of Modern Art and at Sakshi Gallery. In 2001, her work was shown in the Century Cities at the Tate Modern in London, Trash by Experimenta in Melbourne in solo shows by Mercer Union (Toronto), Gallery 4A and Artspace (Sydney), Moving Image Centre (Auckland) and at the Art School of Aix en Provence. In 2002 her work was shown at Site+Sight, La Salle Gallery, Singapore, New Territories, Glasgow, Wayside Diety at Art Inc, New Delhi, New Indian Art : Home Street Shrine Bazaar Museum at Manchester City Gallery, Self at IMA, Brisbane, Mango at Talwar Gallery, New York, Moist by MAAP in Beijing and in the Upstream project in Hoorn and Amsterdam. In 2003, her work was featured The House of World Culture (Berlin) Indonesian National Gallery (Jakarta) Video Brasil (Sao Paulo) Peace Taxi (Toronto) and Video Art Road Show (Mumbai), NGMA (Mumbai) and launched a Net Art Commission with Tate Online, London. And in 2004, she showed at Oxford Bookstore (Mumbai), Fukuoka Asian Art Gallery (Japan) Borusan Art Gallery (Istanbul) and at the Transmediale (Berlin). |
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