On the occasion of the awarding of the Possehl Prize for International Art, the Kunsthalle St. Annen is the first german museum to present a major solo exhibition of the Indian artist Shilpa Gupta. The exhibition presents an overview of her oeuvre, which spans several decades of her work and a variety of artistic approaches.

With the Possehl Prize for International Art, the Possehl Foundation honors pioneering representatives of international contemporary art for their life's work or an outstanding work or group of works. The price is awarded by the Possehl Foundation. It consists of a prize money of €25,000 and an exhibition in Lübeck. The prize is awarded in the categories of sculpture, installation, new media, performance as well as art intervention. Shilpa Gupta is the third winner of the Possehl Prize for International Art after Doris Salcedo and Matt Mullican.

Exploring borders with the means of art

In her artistic work, Shilpa Gupta addresses important issues in today's society such as belonging, security, censorship, religion, freedom of expression and human rights. The issue of borders is particularly central. For over two decades, Shilpa Gupta's artistic work has dealt with the effects of borders and the drawing of borders by state apparatuses on societies, which, especially in border regions, define themselves by far more than national affiliation. Her works bear witness to a deep examination of the issues of social, geographical and psychological border demarcations and their influence on public life, which are particularly relevant in times of increasing political tensions in Germany, Europe and the world.

With her artistic work, she addresses the ever-growing national public sphere in India, which is characterized by gender and class barriers, religious differences, the continuing power of repressive state apparatuses and deceptive notions of public consensus. Language and its inherent power is a focal point in her artistic work.

Her oeuvre comprises various new media, such as robotic works, photographic light images, interactive sound videos, motorized mechanisms, found objects, computer-aided installations and public performances. This makes Shilpa Gupta one of the most important contemporary media artists. Shilpa Gupta's oeuvre makes clear references to Western conceptual art of the late 1960s and expands it with a perspective that moves outside of Eurocentric art historiography. With this approach, she provides decisive impulses for the emergence of contemporary art in the sense of a global art history.

Shilpa Gupta's works offer the opportunity to take another look at topics of global relevance through the prism of art in the light of local conditions. Due to its geographic position on the Baltic Sea, in the shadow of the former inner-German border, Lübeck is particularly familiar with the inclusion and exclusion created by boundaries and with transnational connections. As a city located in the former border zone between East- and West-Germy, Lübeck is characterized in a special way by the experience of the border. What experiences do people have in these sensitive border areas? How do they still affect the neighboring areas today, but also the identity and sense of belonging of the people living there? The exhibition allows themes of global relevance to be linked with aspects of local history and identity. Shilpa Gupta's works provide important impulses for reflection on universal themes that connect societies, transcend borders and break down Eurocentric narratives.

Biography

Shilpa Gupta (*1976, Mumbai) lives and works in Mumbai. From 1992-1997 she studied sculpture at the Sir J.J. School of Fine Arts in Mumbai. Gupta’s works have been exhibited internationally, including in the Tate Modern and Serpentine Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk. Shilpa Gupta is one of India’s most important media artists and has influenced several subsequent generations.