Shilpa Gupta | 2009

Edited by Nancy Adajania

Text by Nancy Adajania, Shanay Jhaveri, Quddus Mirza and Peter Weibel

Published by Vadehra Art Gallery and Prestel, 2009

Softcover, 248 pages

27.8 x 22.8 x 2.2 cm

This book presents a richly informative and analytical account of the work of the artist Shilpa Gupta, her ideas and projects, and the global political contexts in which she situates them. Poised at the intersection of art and technology, the sacred and the secular, Gupta's work occupies multiple contexts: post-feminist art, technology-enabled art, and trans-cultural art. The most significant feature of her new media works – which deal with themes such as body piracy, the politics of the sacred, securitisation and surveillance – is that they are universally readable, which makes them accessible and relevant to both local and international audiences. And yet, Gupta’s works retain a reserve of ambivalence, secrecy and dynamic paradox.

This monograph features essays that discuss Gupta’s work from the perspective of new media, religious politics, the critique of the nation-state, and global violence. It has an interview with the artist by German theoretician Peter Weibel, who is a central figure in the international media art. He is the Chairman of the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe. Other writers include Nancy Adajania, Pakistani art critic Quddus Mirza and young Mumbai based writer Shanay Jhaveri.