CHINTAN UPADHYAY BETWEEN TIME & CULTURE - ZORLU PERFORMANS SANATLARI MERKEZI

CHINTAN UPADHYAY BETWEEN TIME & CULTURE - 5 MART NİSAN M A R C H 3 A P R I L2015 ZORLU PERFORMANS SANATLARI MERKEZI

CHINTAN UPADHYAY BETWEEN TIME & CULTURE - 5 MART NİSAN M A R C H 3 A P R I L2015 ZORLU PERFORMANS SANATLARI MERKEZI

Gerçekler Polİtİkası Transjenik gerçekler, sanal olanaklar, hologram ve lazer görüntüleri, foto-koagülasyonlu kumaş baskılar, yapay döllenme ve embriyo transferleri gibi olanaklara sahip çağımızda gerçekleri dönüştürmek ve onları istediğimiz gibi kullanmak yeni dünya düzeninin kurulmasına olanak sağlıyor. Chintan, bu yeni dünya düzeninin tartışmak istiyor. I çinde yaşadığımız bu kapitalist tüketim cennetinin hem oyuncuları hem izleyicileri olduk. Gerçekliğin yeni boyutunu oluşturan hiper-gerçeklik veya onun yerine geçen taklit, sanatçının Smart Alec heykellerinde ortaya attığı polemik tartışmanın konusudur. Chintan ın Smart Alec/ukala olarak adlandırdığı boyalı bebeklerden oluşan resim ve heykellerinin gövdelerinde yer alan Rajastan ve Moğol minyatür süslemeleri ve Kamasutra imajları, sanatçının çalışmalarının ana temasını oluşturmaktadır. Gerçek kavramının asıl gerçekten uzaklaşması, on yılı aşkın bir süredir çağdaş toplumsal yaşamımızı etkileyen kaygı verici bir olgudur. Her şeyi, bio-teknolojik olanaklarla, genetik ve nörolojik olarak kopyalama, programlama ve yönetme imkanını sağlayan Klonlama yı örnek aldığımızda, kendi çeşitliliğimizle başa çıkma yetersizliğimizi ve kopyalanan hücrelerle, cinsiyetsiz ve ölümsüz yaratıklar olarak, patolojik bir sonsuzluğa doğru yol aldığımızı görüyoruz. Bu gelişme, insanlık tarihini anlamsız sözcükler karmaşasına dönüştürerek, yaşamımızı bir hücre çürümesine veya organik gübre makinesinin etkinliğine indirgemeyi amaçlıyor. Chintan, son yıllarda, gerçeğin katledilmesi konusundaki kaygılarını özellikle vurgulamaya çalışıyor. Maya ve Clone Vitthala özel tasarlanan bir galeri mekanında düzenlenen bir tekrarlama çalışması. Maya nın sergilendiği, duvarları ve halıları kırmızı renkte olan galeri, ana rahmini andıran bir mağarayı andırıyor. Clone Vitthala ise gösterişli ve çok yüzeyli bir alan yaratan aynalı bir galeride sergileniyor. Kültürel bilgi birimlerini ve tekrarlanan siyasi görüşleri yansıtan Chintan ın heykel ve resimleri, siber saldırı sembolleri, siber oyuncaklar, maddesiz ve atıl nesneler olarak, içinde yaşadığımız tinsellikten arındırılmış çıkarcı evrenimizi temsil ediyor. Sahte krallıklarda oluşan Gerçek olmayan gerçekler Lacan ın tabiriyle sahte bir gösteride SERGI LENME olgusunu hatırlatıyor. Chintan ın vurgulamak istediği konulardan biri, insan bedeninin, kendisinin yerine geçecek suni bir aygıta dönüştürülmesidir. Jean Baudrillard in ifadesiyle Her hücredeki genetik formül bedenin gerçek bir protezine dönüşmekte... Protez, genellikle, çalışmayan bir organın yerine geçen yapay bir doku veya bedenimizin bir uzantısı ise, vücudumuzla ilgili tüm bilgileri içeren DNA molekülleri vücudumuzun sonsuza kadar uzanmasını sağlayan en iyi protezdir; bu durumda vücut sonsuza kadar uzanan bir dizi protezden başka bir şey olamaz. Baudrillard simulacra (benzer, taklit) kavramını post-modern çağımızın yarattığı bir görüntü olarak kullanıyor. Baudrillard a göre gerçek ve öz kimlikler artık yok oldu ve onların yerini, aşırı derecede metalaştırılmış çağımızın gerçekle bağlantısı olmayan kopuk, yabancılaşmış ve soyutlanmış taklidin taklitleri aldı. Clone Vitthals enstalasyonunun şeytani mekan ortamı ve izleyicilerin galerinin sonsuza uzanan yapay alanındaki heykel kopyalarıyla karşı karşıya gelmesi, varlığımız konusunda duyulan endişeyi ve gizli tehlike uyarısını yansıtmaktadır. Tüketicilik, aşırı zevke yöneltme mantığını içerir ve hiper-gerçeklik hiçbir zaman var olmamış bir şeyin taklididir. Hiper-gerçeklik, bilincin, duygusal bağlılıklardan uzaklaşarak, yapay bir öykünüm ortamında, temelden yoksun görüntülerin sonsuza dek tekrarlanmasını içeren bir boşluğa düşmesine yol açar. Memnuniyet ve mutluluğun hiper-gerçeklik ortamına yansıması, bireyin baskı altında kalmasına yol açar ve hiper-gerçeklik, kendi yapay dünyasında, gerçeği ortadan kaldırmayı başarır. Şehvet, Chintan ın eserlerinde her zaman özel bir konuma sahiptir. Maya, Mutant ve Clone Vitthala (geçen sergiler) de bu niteliği yansıtır. Biyolojinin ideolojik boyutu ve şehvetin siyasi ifadesi çağdaş sanatın son yıllardaki akımlarında yer almakta. Chitan ın bebeklerinin adı olan Smart Alec sözlükte ukala, kendinden çok emin bir kişi olarak tanımlanıyor. Smart Aleck ayrıca ilk yeni akım pornografik filmlere verilen isimdir. Cinsel ilişki ve oral seks sahneleri içeren bu kısa film çok popüler olmuştu. Pornografi, Chintan ın, çağdaş hiper-tüketim toplumu konusundaki görüşlerini vurgulamak için kullanmayı tercih ettiği bir yöntemdir. Sanatçı, cinselliğin nedenini ortaya çıkarmak amacıyla cinsel imgeler kullanır. Smart Alec in resim ve heykellerindeki bedeni, Kamasutra ve diğer erotik Hindistan minyatürlerinden esinlenen çizimlerle süslenmiştir. Cinsel arzunun monografisini oluşturan bu çizimler kırmızı renkte bir galeride sergilendi. Sanatçının, tüm eserlerinde, orijinal bir bakış açısı ve mimari boyutlar kullanarak vurguladığı çocuksu ifadelerde, şeytani şişman kafalar ile çarpıcı cinsel organlar arasındaki muhteşem ilişki vurgulanır. I zleyicinin bakış açısının sınırlarını anladığımızda, bu eserlerin kapitalist tüketim toplumundaki ideolojik ve hayali boyutları vurgulanır ve yerlerini bulur. Orijinal olmayan yenilik ve gerçek bir kopyanın kopyası olan Smart Alec, Yeni I nsanın biyolojisi ve cinselliğinin sembolü olarak, maddi bir huzursuzluğun mantığını sorgular. Smart Alec, bir çıkmazı ve ikilemi, arzu ve ölümü yansıtır. Smart Alec, Chintan ın yarattığı yeni bir mitos olarak, modası geçmiş bir algılama yenileme ütopyasını oluşturan unsurdur. 4 Sanjeev Khandekar (şair, yazar ve sanatçı)

Politics of Real Our new world of transgenic realities and virtual possibilities, hologrammatic existences and laser images, photo-coagulative tissue fixing, in vitro fertilisations and ex vivo zygote building, possibilities of manoeuvring and choreographing realities has made it possible to have a new order for the world. What is this new order is precisely the contestation that Chintan wants to put forward. The new order has to be necessarily viewed in the context of late capitalist consumerist paradise, that we are part of, as a players and as viewers simultaneously. Hyperreality is the new order of the real, or imitation is the new real, is the polemic that he offers through his Smart Alec sculptures. Chintan s paintings and sculptures are painted designed babies, what he calls the Smart Alecs, their bodies wearing extracts from Rajasthan and Mughal miniature paintings, in many works highlighting the typical Kamsutra images, as a underlying motif of the works. The announcement of Real,of its divorce from the real has been a concern for the contemporary social life for almost a decade or more. Take one simple example of Cloning, one of the bio technological means that has enabled man to subject everything to the process of simulation, programming, and manage everything genetically and neurologically. The process shows an incapability of braving through our own diversity and reducing our existence to pathological eternity of self replicating cells to our viral origins as sexless immortal beings. It reduces history of mankind to a meaningless clutter of words and abates it to a meiotic decay or to an activity of composting machine. The very murder of the real, is the concern that Chintan is putting forward through a series of his efforts for last few years. Maya and Clone Vitthala is another ingemination that he lays out as if nestled meme machines in a specially designed gallery space. In case of Maya the gallery is painted red, carpeted red to create a womb like cave while clone Vitthala is staged in a mirror gallery to create multiple spaces in a spectacular way. For Chintan, the sculptures and his paintings serve as units of cultural information, symbols of political memes, they look like cyber blitzes, kind of cyber game objects, substance-less, disinvested of material inertia, they represent the utilitarian de-spiritualized universe and open up the possibilities of new realms of reality. The realities here are not real realities and their domains are nothing but false kingdoms, to STAGE it in a fake spectacle as Lacan calls. Subjecting of body as an artificial device to replace the body, is one of the concerns that Chintan has in his mind. Jean Baudrillard has defined the problem as, It is a genetic formula inscribed in each cell that becomes the veritable modern prosthesis of a body,.. If the prosthesis is commonly an artifact that supplements a failing organ, or the instrumental extension of a body, then the DNA molecule, which contains all information relative to a body, is the prosthesis par excellence, the one that will allow for the indefinite extension of this body by the body itself - this body itself being nothing but an indefinite series of prostheses.. Baudrillard uses concept of simulacra to describe the state of image and representation which our postmodern moment has created, For him, there are no longer any true or essential identities, instead by virtue of our state hyper commoditization we are left with series of detached, distanced, alienated and isolated images which are merely copies of copy holding no claims to the essential truth. Creation of demonic space is a primary disposition of his Clone Vitthals installation. And demusculinization of fantasy kernel of our being is an underlined alarum that the viewer perceives when he encounters the copies of copy sculptures arranged in unending false space of the gallery. The logic of consumerism is to initiate luxuriation, and hyperreality provides for a smooth wallowing. The hyperrality is a simulation of something that never existed. It tricks the consciousness into detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance. Fullfillment and therefore happiness finds their reflection in hyperreality, by overpowering an individual. Hyperreality thus swallows reality into its not real world. Libidanility has been always a characteristic trait for Chintan s works. Maya, Mutant and Clone Vitthala (past exhibition) are not exceptions. Biology as an ideology and libidinality as a political expression has been a trend for some time in contemporary art. Chintans babies are titled as Smart Alec, the dictionary meaning of Smart Alec is an impudent person, obnoxiously self assertive. Smart Aleck, is also the name of one of the most widely circulated of the early underground pornographic films. The short film has scenes of sexual intercourses and fellatio, which became popular. Pornography has been always Chintan s first preference to comment on contemporary hyper consumer society. He uses sexual imagery to unearth the reason of sexuation. The skin that the Smart Alec bears in his paintings and sculptures is a selection of leafs of Indian miniature paintings, often personating Kamsutra pictures or related elite erotica, a kind of a monograph on desire. They lurk voluptuously on the bodies of his works, and sneak into the gallery hall that is filled up with red colour. All of his works strike a strange angle, as a built in architecture, or as if default system, what hits your eyes every time is the infantile visage, almost theatrical and Mephistophelean, with the globus fat head, and then the inbuilt angle ushers viewer vision leading him to confront with the conspicuous genitals of the body, making a weird and wonderful relationship between head and genitals apparent. Once we understand the limits of viewer s gaze, the ideolological and fantasmatic coordinates of his works in the matrix of the late capitalist consumerist contemporary society get denoted, and find their location. Smart Alec is his new real, a copy of the copy, without an original, It stands for a symbol of New Man, his biology and his sexuation entails a logic of deprivation of material languor. Smart Alec is predicament and a dialema, his desire and death. Smart Alec is new myth that Chintan is building, predicative of outmoded utopia of renewal of perception. Sanjeev Khandekar (poet, writer and visual artist) 5

Upadhyay in İnsanlığa Seslenen Bebeklerİ Yaşamını ve çalışmalarını Hindistan ın Mumbai şehrinde yürüten sanatçı Chintan Upadhyay (1972), kendi ülkesinin güncel sanat ortamının önde gelen ismi olmakla birlikte, uluslararası sanat ortamının da aşina olduğu bir isim. Sanatçının işlerinin Türkiye deki ilk gösterimini ise I stanbul Zorlu Performans Sanatları Merkezi nde düzenlenen kişisel sergi ile Beyaz Art üstleniyor. Upadhyay in resimlerinde, heykellerinde ve mekana özgü yerleştirmelerinde bebek figürlerine sık rastlanır. Alışılagelmişin dışında bir yaklaşımla betimlenen bu bebekler sanki sizinle iletişim kurmaya, bir tür işaret dilini kullanarak size bir şeyler anlatmaya çalışıyor, adeta ikinci bir kişiliği açığa çıkarıyorlar. Hatta kimi zaman doğrudan gözlerinizin içine bakarak size meydan okuyorlar. Sanatçı bir bakıma bu bebekler aracılığıyla insanlara sesleniyor. I şlerinde göz alıcı renkler kullanmak konusunda son derece cesur ve cömert davranan sanatçı, yarattığı bebek, kadın ve erkek figürlerini kendi doğalarından ve ortamlarından kopararak zamanla mekanın önemsiz olduğu bir yere bırakıverir. Sanatçının minyatür sanatından esinlenerek çizdiği desenler ve geleneksel tasvirler, bu bedenlerle yüzleri dövme gibi sarar. Upadhyay in kendine has bir üslupla işlediği bu unsurlar eleştirel, ironik ve sorgulayan ifadelere dönüşür. Onun bu tavrından ataerkil toplum yapısı da, cinsiyet ve cinselliğe dair tabular da, güncel politikalar da nasibini alır. Upadhyay in sanatsal pratiğinin temelinde resim yer alsa da, heykelleri ve mekana özgü yerleştirmeleriyle zaten tuvalin dışına çıkmaya her an hazır gibi görünen figürlerinin üçüncü boyuta adım attığını görüyoruz. Bilinmeyen bir faktör nedeniyle mutasyona uğramış, vücutları deforme olmuş veya fazladan organlar geliştirmiş bebek heykelleri, sanatçının resimlerinde yakaladığı etkiyi bir adım ileri taşıyor. 2004 yılında Charles Wallace Vakfı Ödülü nü kazanan sanatçının yapıtları, içerisinde yaşadığı kültürün melez yapısıyla benzerlikler gösterir. Upadhyay in çalışmalarında gelenekselle çağdaş, geçmişle gelecek ve Doğu yla Batı gibi birbirine zıt unsurların iç içe geçtiği gözlemlenir. Ve sonuçta ortaya çıkan işler, Hindistan ın yerel kültürüne dair izlerin yanı sıra daha geniş coğrafyalarda karşılık bulan bir yaklaşımı barındırır. Tuba Esen 6

Upadhyay s babies, a call to mankind Chintan Upadhyay (1972) who lives and works in Mumbai, India, is the prominent figure of contemporary art in India and is also well known in international art circles. The first exhibition of the artist s work in Turkey is organized by Beyazart, at Istanbul Zorlu Performing Arts Center. Chintan s paintings and sculptures are unusually designed babies which try to transmit a message using some sort of sign language to communicate a dual personality and looking into your eyes in a challenging way. The artist calls out to mankind through his babies. Upadhyay is very bold and generous in the way he uses bright colors in his work; he tears away the female and male dolls from their own natural setting and transports them to an environment where time and space are irrelevant. His designs and traditional depictions inspired from the art of miniature, cover bodies and faces like tattoos. These components of Upadhyay s original style are transformed into critical, ironic and questioning expressions which criticize patriarchal society and sexual taboos as well as current politics. Although painting is at the root of Upadhyay s artistic practice, we can see that his sculptures and figures which seem ready to jump out of the canvas at any moment, are setting into a third dimension. The sculpted dolls which look deformed and mutational with additional members, allow the artist to make a strong impact on the viewer. The works of the artist, who won the Charles Wallace award in 2004, have a hybrid dimension which reflects his native cultural environment. Opposing trends, such as traditional and contemporary, past and future, East and West, are combined in his works which reflect local Indian culture mingled with wider horizons. Tuba Esen 7

8

KNOWN - UNKNOWN 30,48 x 30,48 cm. dijital baskı, 1/5 edisyon + 2 A.E. digital print on paper, edition 1/5 + 2 A.E. 60 lık set / set of 60 2014 9

10

GOLMAL (CHEAT) 92 x 92 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2009 11

THEIR CARRIER YOUR DESIRES LEFT ME ALONE IN THIS SCARY WORLD WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MY MUTATION 215 x 305 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2006 12

13

14

VISARJAN 213 x 305 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2008 15

16

A TRAVEL BETWEEN TIME & CULTURE 183 x 214 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2013 17

18

BRAHMA 92 x 92 x 92 cm. fiberglas, ahşap ve akrilik fiberglass, wood and acrylic 2008 19

OLD GAZE AND NEW ACTOR 213 x 305 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2008 20

21

22

TOUCH OF YOUR HAND AND I AM READY 92 x 92 x 92 cm. yağlıboya, akrilik, ahşap ve fiberglass oil, acrylic, wood and fiberglass 2008 23

24

SMART ALEC 183 x 245 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2007 25

26

I AM FIXED 92 x 92 x 92 cm. yağlıboya, akrilik, ahşap ve fiberglass oil, acrylic, wood and fiberglass 2008 27

28

TREE OF LIFE 60 x 45 x 45 cm. altın varak, fiberglass ve ahşap gold leaf, fiberglass and wood 2012 29

BETWEEN TIME & CULTURE 122 x 153 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2014 30

31

32

GAME 183 x 183 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2009 33

SCARY WORLD 153 x 153 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2010 34

35

36

CHINTU 183 x 122 cm. tuval üzeri yağlıboya ve akrilik oil and acrylic on canvas 2009 37

THIS BABY IS NOT A BABY Sanjeev Khandekar who began to produce in the periods where weight began disappearing. Chintan has worked in variety of mediums. Drawings, painting, sculptures, installations, performances, public art, printmaking, collaborations, -what not is left out? Initially intrigued by genetic revolutionary inventions, and feared by growing capitalistic consumerist never satiating desires, his expression chose to make designed babies, and remained his signature work. Local being threatened, be it be a crop, or be it the food, he understood that the language of life is being uprooted. His computer programmed drawings of babies when became paintings or sculptures began wearing natural and human forms depicted in miniature paintings well known world over as Mughal paintings of Jaipur, Bikaner, Amber, Kishangarh, Ajmer and several such small Rajput States of Rajstan. Miniatures became his moral choice, kind of an immediate recluse for an artist to meditate upon. Baby s head at Nariman Point in Mumbai, public project Chintan Upadhyay is one of the important contemporary Indian artists because he is one of those few artists who could bring the traditional indian craft blended with the contemporary concerns and issues in the most pleasant artistic forms. Indian craft has a long sociopolitical history. And it is the history that has been evolved through indian crafts and art over a long period of last few thousand years. Art has been always a product of the history. History is constructed by several points of political events that coerce and obligate marriages of cultures. Culture is a language & a Language is an art and or craft that mirrors nothing but our own history. Chintan s fundamental concern, and therefore interest is the language of art, therefore, his art, is often a product of his continued anxiety of and about the history. History of his people, history of his region, it s geopolitics, and noesis of his own roots is his constant yearnings. He was born and brought up at Rajastan, one of the regions known for its historical monuments rich in art & craft. From the local vesture to its architecture and from food preparations to music recitations Rajstan is not only brightly colourful,but also displays a passion for a prominent exhibition of colour structures. The syntax and the cytoarchitectonics of his artistic compositions therefore consciously and unconsciously remind us of his regional concerns of local artefacts. He began his art career in early 90s, when the world was changing. Change was humongous. Politically it was being organised as a unipolar new world, Cold War was over, capitalism had reinvented itself into a new form of crony and carnivalised outlook. Philosophy had begun to think about non metaphysical and beyond human possibilities. Technology of information,digital and genetic invention had created another world within the human world, altering the concerns of body and mind. Virtual was replacing the Real silently. Economies were rebuilt, new money and new rich were appearing on horizon. Sociopolitical plates were shifting, a new tectonic movement had begun. World was metamorphosing. This metamorphosis was hitherto not seen by human history, Kafka or Dali, modern or post-modern, Woodstock or Rage Against Machine were seen as a deficient and not helpful enough to explain the tensions of new world. Burden of the history and its awareness was reducing thinner, weightless and blurred. Living in a space, where Gravity is not felt is not easy. Lightness has become new property of the emerging world. Chintan is a product of the generation of artists, writers and thinkers, activists, musicians and poets Dichotomy and duality is what contemporary times present before us again and again as an identity of our existence, where virtual real presents itself as a real. Real blurs or deforms. Not mere contradictions, but the dichotomies of present living in every aspects have been nightmarish blessings in disguise for the new man. He is torn and rebuilt by their repelling forces constantly. Chintan, like a few others of his contemporaries realised it, his designer Babies, born out of some repetitive computer generated drawings avtared with the skin of five hundred years old decorative miniatures. These miniatures though produced by humble artists & craftsmen were always remained in palaces of nobles, Royals and aristocrats. They bear the signature of feudal past and an aesthetic of Mughal Power.Chintan uses them as a skin -strategically and intelligently almost like a decoy to lure the viewer, the way packaging and advertisements function in the society of consumerism. Many a times, therefore, when he is charged by a section of critics, as a painter of decorations, I am sure he must be feeling happy inside and laughing mirthfully. Designer Baby, as he rightly calls it, is a saga, a narrative of an absurd repetition, a gemination deliberately effected to achieve an effect of a rhetoric, a ploce to gain its special emphasis. He began his narrative in 2004 producing a few canvasses of these babies and then till today his factory of making babies has not been shut down. He refers to his studio as a factory, not exactly in the same way how Andy Worhole called it; May be something similar to what Hirst practices. The studio factory has several craftsmen each possessing special skills, who work together to produce the design into a piece of art. He produced several hundreds of them in the form of paintings and sculptures in last ten years. The beauty of an art object is vested in several factors,one of them is its not being what it is called or what it is seen as. Placing a smoking pipe in front of you and not calling it a pipe is one of the extreme examples. Chintan employs the same principle in more dramatic way. Whenever we have encountered his Baby, the first response of the viewer is of that, it is not a baby. It does look like a baby however has been consciously deprived of its babyness. So what we have before us is a baby, that does not read as a baby- A baby without a baby in it. First its supersize alienates it from its being a baby, then comes sometimes an army or a swarm of supersized baby like objects coloured in bright gold or silver, bearing images of ancient miniature paintings showing animals, gods, goddesses, couples copulating, Kings hunting, or women dancing so on and so forth. Each baby having a oversized head on its shoulders, busy doing some meaningless act and wearing a cold, demonically beautiful and therefore discomforting smile on its face greets the viewer to its world of wicked absurdities. His babies not just surprise you, they create a subtle

sense of fear, ringing an alarm in your senses that something unnatural is on your way to meet you. Each baby is produced out of a calculated computer program, which facilitates artist s ability to bring about numerous and subtle anatomical changes without disturbing its overall appearance as a baby. Therefore the viewer experiences an aberrant and anomalous movement (in the baby as an art object before him) which is capable of producing even a vicarious pleasure or a feeling of an urgent anxiety. Each movement is mechanical, each gesture is coded with robotic appearance and each baby representing an alien extraterrestrial being is what Chintan wants us to encounter with? Interestingly Chintan s each baby is a male child. It playfully brandishes its male genitals. Question is why does he not create a female form of baby? One of the explanations has its roots in Chintan s political position and the other originates from the indian mythological traces that he might be carrying with him. Hybrid Trends, Seoul artcenter in Korea Rajstan, the region from where chintan comes from is known for a high number of female foeticides. If a child is identified as a female while doing sonographic tests many families abort the foetus itself. Many incidents are reported where new born baby daughters are destroyed by the families in most gruesome manner by drowning or poisoning. Chintan had devoted a separate large solo show coupled with a performance to underline the evils of patriarchy and female foeticides. In this sense of social practices, Chintan s emotional world has no place for a female (child). The demand for a male child and its delivery through medical science and genetics by charging huge price in terms of money and in terms of resources might have made him create a beautifully ugly and mechanically insane unending narrative of a male Designer Baby. The second reason can be mythological. One of The most popular indian Gods, across the casts, the creeds and classes, that has even crossed indian borders to reach and spread in western world is Krishna. The popular household image of Krishna as a child, standing, creeping, crawling or dancing, killing, playing or suckling, swimming, jumping, stealing, or playing flute and even wearing a female clothing to look like a drag queen is found everywhere and all over in India. They are worshiped and celebrated forms. Krishna as a super child is an accepted cultural form. We do find its mirror images further deformed and reformed in the construction of the designer babies that he makes. Hybrid Trends, Seoul artcenter in Korea Several Gigantic and phantasmagoric or even pythonesque forms of gods and demons have been appearing in various Indian temples and shrines. They are celebrated, masks of surreal faces are worn and dances are performed as rituals, supersize human forms are symbols for worship. Like any other Indian Chintan too grew up with them. His creative urge and energy transformed them into various new objects, one of them is Designer Baby. (Sanjeev Khandekar is a well known Indian visual artist, poet & writer. He lives and works at Mumbai. Here is his response to Chintan s works. Sanjeev Khandekar thanks Smita Ray for her help in editing his response.) Solo show, Museum of Contemporary art in Taipei, Taiwan

BIOGRAPHY / BİYOGRAFİ Born18th August 1972, Partapur, Rajasthan, India. He lives and works in New Delhi. EDUCATION / EĞİTİM 1997 MFA (Painting) Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda. Gujarat, India. 1995 BFA (Painting) Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda. Gujarat, India. Founder of the Artists initiative Sandarbh in 2003. Sandarbh is a non-profit initiative providing new contexts by organising workshops and residencies mostly in rural India. After a successful decade, Sandarbh is bridging Urban and rural contexts. AWARDS / ÖDÜLLER 2014 Artrist of the year award, by Hello House of Fame awards, India. 2008 Taj Gourav India. 2005 Awarded Charles Wallace Foundation Award for a residency In Bristol UK for 2000-1 Gadi schloarship, NLKA, New Delhi. 1998 Rajasthan lalit kala Academy for out standing drawing in all India drawing exhibition. 1995-97 Rajasthan lalit kala Academy for out standing Painting in annual exhibition 1997 All inida Avantika art exhibition, New Delhi. 1996 Gujerat lalit kala academy for outstanding panting in the annual exhibition. 1996 S.C.Z.C.C. for outstanding panting in the annual exhibition, Nagpur, Maharastra. Museum collections / MÜZE KOLEKSİYONLARI Roundabout collection, Tel Aviv Museum Museum of Contemporary Art,Taipei,Taiwan Seoul City collection, Korea Royal academy of fine art,copenhagen Mori art museum collection, Tokyo,Japan Pompidou museum collection,paris,france Moma Museum Collection, New York 40 Private collections / ÖZEL KOLEKSİYONLAR Beth. Rudin de Woody collection, New York, Whitney Museum board member David Teplitsky and Peggy Scott collection, New Zealand Natalie and Lucien Seroussi collection Paris Jean Pierre Salanic, collection Paris Alain Elcabas, collection Paris Prajit Dutta collection,new York Rajshree Pathy, collection New DElhi Mukesh and Neeta Ambani collection,mumbai Micky Tiroche collection, London SOLO EXHIBITIONS / KİŞİSEL SERGİLER 2014 Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron Redux, Gallery Espace. New Delhi. India. 2010 Nature God, Sakshi Gallery, Taipei. Taiwan 2009 Mistake, Inda Gallery, Budapest, Hungary 2009 Khatti Mithi, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India 2009 Iconic shrine, Gallery Soulflower and Roundabout, Jaipur, India 2008 Mistake, Aicon Gallery, London, India 2008 Pet Shop, Ashish Balram Nagpal Galleries, Mumbai, India 2008 New Indians, Gallery Seroussi Natalie, Paris, France. 2008 Metastasis of signs, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India 2007 Tentuaa Dabaa Do (Kill her), Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur, India 2006 Mutants, Sarjan Art Gallery, Baroda, India 2006 Maya, Ashish Balram Nagpal Gallery, Mumbai, India 2006 Clone Vithalla, Ashish Balram Nagpal Gallery, Mumbai, India 2004 Designer Babies, Ashish Balaram Nagpal Gallery, Mumbai, India 2003 New Breed/ Hybrid, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. India 2002 Commemorative Stamps, Ashish Balram Nagpal Gallery, Mumbai and Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur, India. 1999 So What, The Fine Art Company, Mumbai, India 1998 This has been done before, Shahjehan Art Gallery, New Delhi, India 1996 Desirable Objects, Leela Kempenski Art Gallery, Bombay, India PERFORMANCES / PERFORMANSLAR 2014 Black current at caves in Nosvas, Hungary. 2010 Silent Protest a collaborative performance with farmers of Hatholiapada village, Rajasthan. India. 2012 Monkey Business site specific performances. Jaipur. India. 2012 Force site specific performances. Neerja Modi School. Jaipur. India. 2012 Fear-control-punishment a collaborative performance. 3331 Arts Chiyoda. Tokyo. Japan. 2011 Fucking Hell, Produced during residency organised by Hybrid project. San Salvador. 2010 Vagad Tea Stall a Site specific Collaborative performance. Partapur. India. 2010 mix match a performance produced in performance festival. EX TERESA, Mexico 2009 Memory of a dead car Parformance Belper, Derbishire, UK 2006 I want to be an international artist, solo performance Seoul Art Center, Seoul, Korea 2006 Public Sculpture Solo Performance, part of a workshop in collaboration with Asa Sonjasdotter, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen,Denmark and Ven Island, Sweden. 2005 You Have to decide Solo Performance, Chiksardar,Romania. 2005 Baar Baar Har Baar Kitni Baar?, Installation and Performance, Sarjan Art Gallery, Baroda, India VIDEO / VIDEO 2014 Silent Protest 2014 Strong Gaze and blind eyes 2012 TokyoNama 2008 Silence 2009 New Indian Porn PROJECTS-INSTALLATIONS / PROJELER-ENSTALASYONLAR 2013 children library a sculptural installation part of 16th International Sculpture Symposium In I Icheon. S.Korea. 2010 A memorial in memory of a dead car, Garten Kunstsommer, Wiesbaden, Germany 2010 Iconic Shrine A special public sculpture project part of Finding India, Museum Of contemporary Art (MOCA Taipei). Taiwan 2010 Car Garden, Nature Art Biennale, Yatoo, Korea 2008 Kai Awase Nature Art Exhibition, Abiko Japan. 2008 Keep drawing Curated by Chintan Upadhyay, Gallery ESPACE, New Delhi. 2008 Curated Sandarbh US, Moultry, Georgia, USA. 2007 Keep drawing conceptualised by Chintan Upadhyay, Pandol Art Gallery, Mumbai.