Asian Age
A work by India’s foremost contemporary artist Subodh Gupta has been installed in front of the Rockefeller Centre in New York to mark the Asian Art Week.
The Spill, which consists of a stainless steel bucket spilling over in excess with lunch boxes, glasses and bowls, is estimated at $300,000-500,000 by Christie’s auction house.
The installation, was set up for the preview of the South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art sale by Christie’s on March 18. The sculpture, installed in the prestigious Manhattan complex since March 11 will be at the spot till the day of the sale. Gupta’s Spill was the first work of the Southeast Asian art sales to be installed outside Rockefeller Centre, according to Christie’s.
“To have major works outside of Rock Centre is a huge responsibility and not done on a regular basis. In the past, we had works by Jeff Koons, Henry Moore and Eduardo Chillida in front of Rockefeller Centre but never before a work by an Indian artist,” the auction house said.
Gupta’s mid-career retrospective is currently on view at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. “How can you not love this work — it is so simple, playful and honest and yet poignant. It is an iconic emblem of Subodh Gupta’s artistic vocabulary,” says Deepanjana Klein, vice-president and senior specialist modern and contemporary Indian art, who describes the work as “an overt icon of Indian vision.”
“Always finding tension and irony in the mundane, the artist regularly employs the stainless steel bucket and cooking implements in both paintings and sculptures. Here Gupta has magnified the pedestrian milk pail as it spills over in excess with lunch boxes, glasses and bowls,” she said.
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Indian artist’s artwork installed at Rockefeller
