Shilpa Gupta's Someone Else: Concern Meets Circuitry

Shilpa Gupta: Someone Else
Chemould Prescott Road
21st January - 16th February, 2012

This was a show about identities, boundaries, conventions and struggles, about lines that are drawn but must be crossed, about selves that are hidden, made and unmade, about compromises that are imposed on individuals. It was coherent and cohesive, with each art-work clearly articulating these themes.

But it was more interesting when read as a show about technique in the service of expression, about science and technology enabling art. Whether it was an interactive installation ordering the viewer to move backwards, forwards and stop! along a brick line facing a blank wall; whether it was a book heated to several hundred degrees Celsius and emitting a warning red glow; an airport flap-board asking tricky questions on loop -  neither of these works would have been as effective without all the wiring underpinning them.

The centre-piece of the show was an eponymous work comprising a hundred stainless-steel books, hollowed out with only the covers left behind. These covers were replicas of literary classics, with one small intervention - an explanation of why the author chose (?) to assume a pseudonym or camouflage some aspect of their selves. It's sobering to think of the price we continue to pay to be able to express an opinion or even a talent. The work I responded to most was 'Singing Cloud,' a massive form constituted of over 4000 microphones emitting a single sing-song lament. It loomed, exuding an energy of its own. And it must have taken a substantial amount of effort and skill to build and suspend.  

A show where concept met concern met circuitry. I left lugging a soap-bar embossed with the legend 'THREAT.' It now sits innocuously in my home, which is of course the point.