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Review
Hitting at the Right Place
Ved Gupta, a new and promising name in the market is having a solo show at the Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre. The show is organised by the Threshold Gallery. Ved was surrounded by fans and buyers at the opening, which itself says the story of success of the show. Rikimi Madhukaillya reads his work and had a quick look at the journey of the artist so far.
Thinking of seeing Ved's sculptures in the Visual art gallery space at Habitat Centre was difficult to digest for me before going to the show. But once again I was proved wrong by the atmosphere at the opening.
The show had accommodated Ved Gupta’s recent paintings, sculptures at the Visual Art Gallery space and an installation at the Palm court gallery. In the introduction piece Deeksha Nath has written, Ved Gupta's works in oil and acrylic on canvas reflect the intrinsic inequalities of the class- structured society of present day India. The Powerful and the corrupt are portrayed as dwarfed caricatures while the oppressed figure of the labourer is made idealised in his sensual beauty. While capitalists wear twisted masks painted in garish colours, the workers on whose backs are built the much-loaded symbols of modernity are faceless highlighting their disempowerment. The Themes of gluttony, corruption and oppression caused by unchecked power are pervasive in these socially relevant works.
The most spectacular at the opening was the real capitalists with their wine glasses in their hands watching Ved’s dwarf capitalists, almost as if they were looking at a mirror. Most of the real ones were so busy talking about their business and doing PR that they, missed the mockery of these dwarves at them.
The show looks stunning and the installation at the palm court has become one of the finest displays at the space in my recent memory. Few paintings at the show was looking a bit out of place as his sculptures are more than enough to convey what the artist wants to say.
Ved, like another giant Gupta in the market is hailing from a small town called Chambaner of the feudal state Bihar. Aspired to become an engineer a very bright student Ved had to run away (with his fathers support) from homeland being a victim of the class-caste discrepancy. Initially had earned well by doing commission work at Delhi Ved had decided to unlearn everything and start with academics. This wish of him led him in M.S.U, Baroda. Towards the end of his course at Baroda, he was swayed by a kind of cheekiness in his work which was according to him had maddened the teachers. After that he did whatever he felt like doing. Beginning with feminist works Ved has reached a stage where he is directly addressing or rather hitting the social systems and the capitalists’ masqueradeness. He is playing with the physical structure of these classes in his works. The capitalists are fat, dwarfish and disproportionate of their life style, whereas the worker is tall, thin and idealised because of its enormous physical labour.
The almost nude tall figure at the central space was introduced to me by Ved as a recent passed out of some sophisticated institution. He said there is a probability of this figure being Ved himself. Being asked if he is also going to be a dwarf in the future (of course he is earning a lot), Ved said, “I don’t know. May be! I can’t deny the probabilities.”
