At a single booth at the India Art Fair 2026 two international sculpture heavy weights rubbed shoulders with each other. India’s international star Subodh Gupta rubbed shoulders with the world renown Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, as well as activist Ai Weiwei at Nature Morte Booth B1.
In a world of men there were also two women artists who created their own stirring with ingenuity and transformative narratives. India’s Vibha Galhotra with her bee hive ghungroo sculptures and Alicja Kwade the Polish-German contemporary visual artist whose sculptures and installations focus on the subjectivity of time and space.
Both artists have a distinctive artistic language which involves reflection, repetition, and the deconstruction and reconstruction of everyday objects and natural materials in an effort to explore the essence of our reality and to examine social structures. Uncanny how in both their works they seemed to be silently commenting how we often veer towards the absurd even as we transform commonly accepted assumptions into open-ended questions.
Subodh Gupta’s cascade of vessels
Gupta’s cascade of tiny vessels stumbling out of a large brass handi manifested a spiritual yet poetic connection with nature as well an appreciation of India’s subtle beauties belonging to everyday idioms and the common man.The cascade of small stainless steel gleaming pots and pans, tumbling down from a large brass handi is Subodh’s vernacular take on the vessel of plenty. His creative process explores specific objects, places, memories, senses, and experiences. His visual expression of these memories investigates ways to transform silence, minimalism, form, line, structure, and visual aesthetics through ordinary objects, revealing the inner qualities of natural elements.
His guiding principle is being the most ordinary is the most sacred, he transforms familiar objects into monumental forms that resonate with the global art community. This singular work delves into themes like rapid urbanisation, globalisation, and cultural hybridity, offering profound reflections on these issues.
Ai Weiwei’s old root
Close by within whispering distance was Ai Weiwei’s old root standing in silent testimony to an ancient civilisation that is steeped in history. Modelled on a rare, old root, for his India debut at Nature Morte , Ai Weiwei’s work pays tribute to the power of nature and extends an invitation to reflect on the role of man in the earth’s fragile and changing natural balance.Rustic ,rough hewn and born of botanical bravura here was a work that spoke in its aura of resonance.
Through explorations of the interactions between humans and natural phenomena on the one hand, and digital technologies on the other, these two sculptures at Nature Morte presented an opportunity to meditate on the human condition. The artist’s use of everyday objects including steel utensils, and earth materials—presented a rare and reflective probe of profound yet deep existential questions.
Vibha Galhotra’s Bee Hives of ghungroos
Vibha Galhotra’s trio of hybrid sculptures titled Echoes of the future 2, imagine present day debris getting intertwined in new organic growth, the juxtaposition of materials acting as a visual metaphor for the collision between nature and urban environments. Topped with stone and below sits a fascinating Beehive, made of ghungroos (small bronze ankle bells worn by Indian dancers), it seems to buzz with a botanical and zoological new sound. Here within the white cube is an extraordinary expression of the nature-culture binary in the urban Indian art space. Not only does she brilliantly transform function she also upturned your senses and created a sound symbol into an aesthetic skin and a palette. She not only covered sculptural forms with ghungroos but created narratives of surreal splendour.within a careful and charismatic orchestration she cast a quiet spell on viewers.
Nature Morte’s press release said : Vibha Galhotra’s sculptures imagine present day debris getting intertwined in new organic growth, the juxtaposition of materials acting as a visual metaphor for the collision between nature and urban environments.In this age, approximately a quarter of the species of plants and animals are under the threat of extinction, at an unprecedented rate in history with the obvious alteration by human action. This work looks at the post-human cyclical process of nature by reconstruction, by repairing itself, where a man-made construct is taken over by an organic construction of a beehive. It is a reminder of our mortal beings and immortal ecosystems.
Alicja Kwade stele
Alicja Kwade’s stele titled Principium is a tall patinated bronze cast wonder that sat in stoic silence as it reflected her brilliance at how she is able to seamlessly combine raw material with everyday objects. In her stele she emulates human DNA but ingeniously unites stacked smartphone casts, implying that today, a phone stores more intimate information about a person than their own genetic material.In more ways than one she creates a tall work that reminds us of the power of transformation as well as rare realms of thoughts that propel our attention towards everyday idioms and technology.
This single sculpture was a brilliant example of how a sculpture can transcend the ordinary and inspire profound contemplation about our human experience and our position in the universe, while highlighting the constraints and limitations that shape our perspectives and inform our truths and opinions. In a quixotic and quaint way she creates a poetic and mesmerizing sculpture with smartphone casts and tells us how our everyday usage disrupts familiar systems even as we continuously search for new explanations to comprehend our world.
IMAGES NATURE MORTE DELHI
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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