The Art Of Subterfuge: Slipping Past Borders

Artist Shilpa Gupta’s recently concluded solo exhibition Drawing in the Dark alludes to clandestine movements and practices in borderlands, and to the metaphor of the line or threshold that links several of her works. The show is part of Gupta’s ongoing investigation into interrelations between structures, specifically those of the state and the individual, and their rescaling as encountered at, what is both frontier and periphery.

- Shilpa Gupta, Nancy Adajania

A smooth, dark mild-steel bar slices the air diagonally. You have to dip your head ever so slightly to pass through. Shilpa Gupta often phrases her works as obstacles, riddles or occlusions. You find yourself adjusting your vision, rewiring your viewing reflexes to experience her work. ‘Drawing in the Dark’, on view at the Kiosk, Ghent, is an assemblage of found objects, remnants, traces and tremors that the artist has picked up from her extensive research on the Bangladesh-India border – the fifth longest land border in the world.

“He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect, But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot, And a bout of dysentery kept them constantly on the trot, But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided, A continent for better or worse divided.”