Shilpa Gupta | Bikaner House, Centre for Contemporary Arts, New Delhi, through 14 February
The works of Mumbai-based artist Shilpa Gupta centre around speech, as well as its limitations – be it habitual or enforced. In her For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, first installed at the Venice Biennale in 2019, she suspended 100 microphones in the gallery room, each reverse wired to work as a speaker playing words by poets who have faced political persecution. On the floor below, sheets of paper containing the same lines have been pierced by metal spikes, reminding us that voices can permeate imposed boundaries, that the act of speaking itself can be monumental. Similarly in the series Listening Air (2019–22), on view at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, protest songs from different moments in history emanate from similar microphones-turned-speakers. While Untitled (Spoken Poem In A Bottle) (2021–23) displays a series of glass bottles, into which she had spoken lines of poems then sealed them in with lids, questioning whether voices can be contained or preserved – or whether they can resonate without a sound. Coinciding with India Art Fair this February, as well as another solo exhibition at Ishara Foundation in Dubai, the show will explore the limits of borders that are simultaneously rigid and porous.
