New Delhi – The Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, in collaboration with the British Council, hosted an evocative evening of art and culture in continuing with its Artecinema Film Festival. The event featured the screening of two insightful documentary films: Anish Kapoor – Descension (directed by Matteo Frittelli) and Shilpa Gupta (directed by Alyssa Verbizh), showcasing the brilliance and depth of two internationally acclaimed contemporary artists. […] Directed by Alyssa Verbizh (2009), a documentary profiles Shilpa Gupta, a Mumbai-based artist whose multidisciplinary works probe themes of identity, societal power structures, and global conflicts. The film follows Gupta through the bustling streets of Mumbai—her eternal muse—and offers a behind-the-scenes look at her installations and performances showcased internationally in Paris and Lyon.

Five poets gathered at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) on Thursday evening. The group consisted of two University of Wisconsin professors, Erika Meitner and Timothy Yu. Other poets included Natasha Oladokun, a queer Black poet and essayist from Virginia; Nicholas Gulig, a Thai-American poet from Wisconsin; and Steven Espada Dawson, a poet from Los Angeles. They were gathered as part of the Monsters + MMOCA poetry reading to share their experience after visiting New York artist Shilpa Gupta’s current MMOCA exhibit, “I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt.” (until April 28). The exhibition focuses on state-sanctioned censorship and violence against free speech.

“Shilpa Gupta: I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt” is on view at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art through January 14, 2025. Gupta’s work takes all that we know about identity and breaks it apart, dispersing the elements until they’re abstract. In other works, she takes apart elements that represent countries, such as all the stars featured in various flags. They are relinquished to the floor, where visitors can pick up a wax star and take it home with them. I was reminded of Sylvia Plath’s poem “Candles,” when I picked up a star among other stars, and felt the wax in my hands [...] The exhibition is also a way to honor those who succumbed to censorship and a memorialization of all the important writers and artists who aren’t able to show their work freely. We take their names home with us, and remember them.

Standing before his unflattering portraits of Spanish royalty, I was struck by how Goya’s art transcended traditional representation to challenge authority and reveal deeper truths. [...] His portrayal exposes the vanity and moral decay of the royals, turning a conventional portrait into a powerful critique. This act of artistic rebellion was a courageous statement, urging viewers to confront uncomfortable truths about their leaders and the nature of power. [...] This courage to confront authority is mirrored in Shilpa Gupta’s recent installation, “Sound On: Untitled, 2023.” Exhibited at Amant Art Center as part of "I Did Not Tell You What I Saw, But Only What I Dreamt," Gupta’s kinetic installation uses reverse-wired microphones to create an immersive auditory experience. The installation features a rotating voice reciting the names and detention dates of poets who have faced imprisonment, exile, or execution, including the grim fate of fourth-century poet Imadaddin Nasimi. A solitary lightbulb and evocative soundscape underscore the humility and resilience of these censored voices.

Art021 Hong Kong will feature 73 galleries and projects from 13 countries and regions, spanning five sections. The Galleries sector will showcase established and emerging artists from 40 galleries at Phillips Asia’s headquarters in the West Kowloon Cultural District. [...] Art021 Hong Kong will host a solo exhibition by Iranian-born American artist Amir H. Fallah, presented by Los Angeles- and Shanghai-based Gallery All. Additionally, the noncommercial curatorial project “One Thousand and One Nights,” inspired by Middle Eastern folktales, will feature works by artists from Western Asia, including Tala Madani, Shilpa Gupta, Mandy El Sayegh, Alia Ahmad, and others.

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to present "The Objects We Choose", curated by Pedro Alonzo, an exhibition featuring important work by Meschac Gaba, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Shilpa Gupta, Brian Jungen, Kimsooja, Laura Lima, Patrick Martinez, Moris, Rivane Neuenschwander, Clarissa Tossin, Marie Watt, and Héctor Zamora. As consumers who navigate existence through a continuous process of selecting one thing over another, we know that objects have meaning that transcends their utilitarian and material value. The items that surround us, some of which we choose to use or wear, say a lot about us.

"I Live Under Your Sky Too" is a moving presentation of recent work by Shilpa Gupta (Mumbai, 1976) where voice and poetry fill the exhibition space reclaiming the existence of people who have been muted, isolated or relegated to the edges. As embodied by the animated LED light installation with the exhibition´s title phrase – written in English, Spanish and Urdu – this exhibition (presetend at Centro Botin, until September 8, 2024) stages a clear assertion of presence. Shilpa’s insistence on filling empty spaces with voices from diverse communities in a huge variety of languages is a natural consequence of her life in Mumbai, in an extraordinary multicultural and polyphonic environment, immersed in a sea of languages, religions, cultures and beliefs.

"The exhibition "I Feel You" (March 8–July 14, 2024, PinchukArtCentre) invites the viewer to listen to experiences, memories, and testimonies from different places around the world, including Ukraine. Landscapes emerge, carrying scars of human tragedy while bearing the seeds of hope. Unsilenceable voices sound free and loud, despite the repression of authoritarian regimes. Human anxieties and utopian dreams are eclipsed by the political manipulations that affect reality today. The exhibition presents works by many artists, including Shilpa Gupta."

“The ground slips between us” (Workshop by Shilpa Gupta in collaboration with Renata Cervetto, March 11-16, 2024. Fundación Botín) is a workshop that encourages the sharing of practices and experiences in art and education based on the work of the artist Shilpa Gupta. The workshop invites artists, curators, cultural agents and mediators working within institutions or community projects to rethink their current processes and challenges based on the themes and methodologies that traverse the artist’s work. Topics such as strategies of creative resilience in the face of censorship and repression; the ideological and geopolitical barriers that cross our bodies and systems of thought-action-mobility; and imagination and radical listening as tools of resistance and community building will be exercised by contemplating the working contexts of the people participating in the workshop.

“I am intrigued by how we look, register, remember and what we see—in the gaps and fractures between the image, eye and the invisible nerve endings which retain and transform it over time. I am interested in visibility and invisibility; notions of reality, truth and definitions; in sound, silence and silencing and in the possibilities of listening.” In her own words this is indeed the inspiration for Shilpa Gupta. As an Indian artist of international repute, she has been a significant part of the Art movement in the UAE, an enabler in the confluence of South Asian & Middle Eastern Art. She will keep inspiring the younger generations in the times to come.

Edited by the artist Shilpa Gupta and the writer Salil Tripathi, the anthology borrows its haunting title from a medieval Azeribaijani poet, Imadeddin Nesimi, invoking the many dimensions of the incarcerated imagination. At the same time, the book’s stark subtitle – “Encounters with Prison” – suggests the brutality of imprisonment. Traversing diverse mediums and genres – poetry, illustrations, sculptures, installation photographs, self-accounts, interviews, reports – the book offers a multi-sensory window into prison experience. It includes short profiles and the works of over 60 poets and writers who cover many aspects of imprisonment, as well as of exile.