Shilpa Gupta: Drawing in the Dark | 2021

Published by Hatje Cantz

Texts by Sunil Khilnani, Anushka Rajendran and Thomas Thiel
Graphic design by Bureau Mario Lombardo

Hardcover, 264 pages, 160 illustrations 

16.70 x 23 cm 

Shilpa Gupta is interested in the threshold and liminal spaces, where distinctions are complicated. Refusing to be restricted to any identity, style or medium, Gupta has constantly probed and expanded the notions of borders, those on paper and within art practice. In the book 'Drawing in the Dark', we deep dive into her series on the Bengal Borderlands where she traces clandestine routes and flows that persist, despite the near completion of the world’s longest border fence between India and Bangladesh. Through interviews, photographs, records with incisions, smuggled everyday objects and drawings made from prohibited cough syrup and marijuana, Gupta’s incisive and poetic works unravel stories of desire, mobility, and ethics in the face of laws and censorship.