Saffronart’s contemporary south asian sale ( 21st – 22nd 0ctober ) of 55 lots raises a toast to some of the finest names in the present day contemporary art circuit. On the covetous cover is Subodh Gupta’s Other Thing ( Chimta ) a stainless steel installation which was made as a series as far back as 2003 in a number of editions. Two other steel sculptures create a symphony of the many uses of steel as a medium in contemporary choreography in the art world even as it presents an investigation of techniques in steel.

Subodh Gupta’s other thing 

Amongst India’s greatest contemporary stalwarts, Subodh has an intriguing auction history and his mother’s kitchen has been his muse. He has important collectors in Asia, Europe and the U.S. At the 2005 Venice Biennale he had a tower of stainless-steel cooking pots, Titled Curry, 2005. In 2006 at Christie’s, Curry fetched $144,000. Bought by Contemporary art collector Ranbir Singh (NYC ), the estimate was a humble $30,000.

His exhibitions in London, Moscow, Miami,Seoul and New York have added to the demand for his pieces over years. An edition of this work at the Saffronart Sale was exhibited at the New York Jack Shainman Gallery, Still, Steal, Steel, March – April 2008.

Few of Subodh’s works have appeared at auction, with $480,000, earned for the 21-foot-high sculpture Giant Leap of Faith, 2006, at Christie’s, which exceeded the auctioneer’s $200,000/300,000 estimate.

Over the years Saffronart, has produced a strong , secondary-market interest in the works of Subodh Gupta and The Other Thing is an example of the humble, found object in an Indian kitchen, turning into avant garde art.

Anju Dodiya census, 2016

Anju Dodiya’s Census is a work that continues to explore the creative process in a manner of narratives. Created for her exhibition at Galerie Templon in Paris (2016) this acrylic and gouache on printed paper pasted on mount board is more like a testimony to the past created in contemporary character of the present.

In an era marked by violence and political uncertainty, she questions the challenges artists have to face. With her large-scale work has sombre colours teeming with detail and meticulously executed miniatures based on Bible reproductions, Census is an elegantly and subtly constructed imagery that brings forward ancient and archival stories.

For the last fifteen years, her paintings have used forms to explore the conflicts between inner life and external reality. She dramatises private emotions with a reinterpretation of historical sources as varied as medieval tapestries, Italian Renaissance painters, Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints and newspaper photographs. Census at Lot 1 in the Saffronart Sale is an epic work that exemplifies the brilliance of Indian contemporary women artists in the South Asian scene.

Bharti Kher untitled 2005

Bharti Kher’s bindis on paper pasted on board is a whirl of the humblest cultural idiom the bindi in India which has become one of her mediums to create an uncanny narrative of human characteristics.

Kher, who has recently starred at Yorkshire Sculpture Park with a historic solo exhibition, frequently employs found objects, manipulating them and combining them so as to reflect her own position as an artist located between geographic and social contexts. Her way of working is exploratory: surveying, looking, collecting, and transforming, as she repositions the viewer’s relationship with the object and initiates a dialogue between metaphysical and material pursuits.

The bindi loaded with symbolism is amongst Kher’s signature materials. First appearing in her work in 1995, she has since inherited its aesthetic and cultural dualities, using it to mix the everyday with the sublime. Kher explains: ‘the bindi to me represents the third eye – one that forges a link between the real and the spiritual/conceptual/other worlds.’ Used to articulate and animate her themes, the bindi acts as a raw material, much like paint or clay, but with an inherent narrative linked to consciousness.

From its aura of the mystical, her creations in contemporary leanings create a kinetic energy, taking on the attributes of language in the process of translation.

Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi

Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi’s butter buttercup yellow Bougainvillea is part of his series that reflects his love for the hardy, humble flower seen along Delhi’s and Uttar Pradesh’s roads. In a conversation to this critic he says: “ To see a host of bougainvillea flowers in any colour on a hot summer’s day is the most refreshing sight to human eyes.I have always loved their full blossom vitality, it is a feast to the senses.”

Planted in a terracotta square shaped clay pot it is the choreography of miniature human characters that add to the magic and caprice of this work that engages and brings back botanical history.

The first European to discover these bougainvillea plants was Philibert Commerçon, a botanist accompanying French Navy admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his voyage of circumnavigation of the Earth, and first published by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789.They were brought to India by the British who distributed them in their colonies all over the world.

Valay Shende’s goat 

Valay Shende’s Goat is a metallic disc beaded wonder that draws our attention to the beauty of the animal even as it makes us ponder about the meaning and vitality of animals in the ecological structure of life in the universe.As a sculptor he creates works that echo universal attributes of man and nature and exploitation.

Inspired by his surroundings, Shende uses his body of work to capture the challenges and dichotomies that characterise India today, particularly the striking divide between modern and industrial views on one hand, and traditional religious ones on the other. His Goat sculpture is unique in both its process and scale, and is intricately built out of minute metal discs, copper-plated fiberglass and other non-traditional materials. The combination of contemporary character adds to the signature of sculptural practice in a unique manner , adding an entirely new dimension to modern ideas of sculpture.

Tayeba Lipi 

Internationally renowned Bangladesh artist and sculptor Tayeba Begum Lipi’s stainless steel blade dress, the last lot in the auction is a statement in the modern day attributes of a woman in a fast paced life.

This dress with its sheen explores the tension between society’s violence against women, as well as women as a source of a community’s power and strength. In an interview she stated that being a woman, she connects more with the condition of women in a male-dominated society. “ I can feel and relate to those conditions, and understand what many women in our society go through. I would like to see myself sharing their pain and agony through my artwork.”

Yet the shiny reflection of superficiality in her sculptures depict the hardships faced by women as alluring. She draws our attention to the manipulation of violent materials that women may use daily.

While the blades are diabolical the statement itself is a showcase of strength and resilience which is revolutionary. It provides a glimpse of the disguised mettle in us to brave current circumstances. The blades have multiple meanings.

Despite personalising the objects for so many years, Tayeba states: “…I have been working with objects that I feel to be really intimate yet are not intimate to me…There is a distance between me and the object, yet at the same time, I feel close to them.”

Indeed, this dress demonstrates a unique balance of strength and delicacy. Furthermore, the politics of distance and intimacy are projected by showing the interior lives of women yet maintaining a metal exterior that restrains closeness. Coincidentally, the viewer is tempted to touch the fragile surface of the artwork yet keep away from its sharp edges, in the same way, we feel like escaping self-isolation and feeling the outside world, but we are trapped in fear.

IMAGES: SAFFRONART