Subodh Gupta’s Cosmic Battle casts a spell as you draw into the physical sensation of a circle in a spiral, says Uma Nair
At Nature Morte, the visitor’s eyeballs are grabbed into a sensorial symphony; you step in and gaze in awe at the sculptural intensity and identity of Cosmic Battle, Subodh Gupta’s piece de resistance in a solo show that says seven works can spell a solo in a world that has depleted itself from conspicuous consumption.
Three handis and a stone of mortar welded hung and beaten into gorgeous gravitas tell us about Gupta’s love for cooking, his understanding of the fabric of cultural connotations and his continuous process of exploring everyday objects to create a corollary of cosmic consciousness.
The blackened insides and the brass limned gold all cast a spell as these draw you into the physical sensation of a circle in a spiral, a wheel within a wheel, perhaps like an ever spinning reel. The suspended sculpture moves on its axis in a motion that is slow timed, reminding us of the galaxy and planetary motion. Sir Isaac Newton would have loved Gupta’s take on gravity and anti-gravity.
But then the vessel, the humble handi, brings back Nirgun poets of the Bhakti movement in 15th century India; the ardour and lacing of purity in the words of Sant Kabirdas. Sitting in front of the installation Cosmic Battle on the eve of his opening he recites Kabir with elan.
Iss ghat antar baag bagiche
Iss hi mein sirjanhaara,
Iss ghat antar saat samundar
Iss hi mein nau lakh taara,
Iss ghat antar paaras moti
Iss hi mein parkhan haara,
Iss ghat antar anahad garje
Iss hi mein urat phoohaara
Kahat Kabir suno bhaai saadho
Iss hi mein saain hamaara.
(In this vessel lie groves and gardens
In it, too, lives the creator,
In this vessel lie the seven seas
In it, too, the nine hundred thousand stars,
In this vessel lies the philosopher’s stone
In it, too, the appraiser,
In this vessel unstruck sound reverberates
In it, too, bursts forth the fountain
Says Kabir, listen, dear wise men,
In this, itself, is the Supreme Being we seek.)
Kabir identifies a humble vessel, a trope for the human body, to be the carrier of everything — the earth, the universe, and the divine. When Gupta takes the vessel and creates this installation, it is a meditative exploration of the literal and metaphorical implications of these verses. The humble handi sculpted in its glory reflects how the quotidian pantry has long been Gupta’s artistic realm where he finds material and meaning. The monumental brass handi with its inner details took one year to be cast.
To the viewer, it feels as if Gupta is expressing an earth song, as he captures cosmic notes in the everyday. The beauty of the impact is that it is simultaneously minimalist and born of exaggerated exultation. For Gupta, the sculpture is pregnant with celestial currents. In the humble handi Subodh superimposes the domestic on the cosmic and subtly tells us, the viewers, that the astrophysical can be minimised to the mundane, and mundane earthly objects like the handi, when created in the language of the installation, can eke out into inter-stellar awe.
The phrase paaras or paarasmani, mentioned in the verses by Kabir, refers to an oddly universal mythological object that can transmute ordinary materials into precious metals or imbue them with extraordinary powers. This is what happens in this installation which is at once open-ended and filled with majestic beauty, cosmic significance, and astrological import. Subodh Gupta, the star of contemporary Indian, makes mirages for the senses and fills our mental chambers with memories. His materials are cultural signifiers ubiquitously rooted in his biography.