Ohne Titel (Column)

Materials: steel wire, painted. Dimensions: 354 × 70 × 55 cm.
b. 1979 in New Delhi, India; lives in Mumbai, India.
Lender: evn collection, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria

In her works, Sakshi Gupta uses found materials, often industrially recycled metal, to create large-scale installations. Transformed through artistic means, the meaning of the materials changes, creating spaces for contemplation and awakening new associations. One example of this is Sakshi Gupta’s sculpture Untitled (Column), presented in Paper, Rock, and Scissors. From a distance, it resembles a shimmering gray column of smoke, but it has been created out of metal spiral elements, like those used in commercially available desk calendars. Sakshi Gupta transforms heavy materials into their opposite. (1) This is reminiscent of the English painter William Turner, who radically disintegrated representational elements—such as an approaching train—infusing them with atmosphere via painterly means and dematerializing them as “sound and smoke.” (2)

Focusing on scrap metal offers Sakshi Gupta the opportunity to work with materials that have their own history and which evoke ideas of transience and resilience. “The works are deeply influenced by the environment and physical contexts in which they are produced; for it is not only the sculptural form, but also its relation to the space it occupies that my practice seeks to highlight. I see my practice as an immersive journey through form and material, towards the non-material and experiential,” says Sakshi Gupta, in describing her working method. (3)

Mona Jas

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