ART CITIES:Dubai-Sudarshan Shetty

Sudarshan Shetty initially trained as a painter, later turning to sculpture and installations which now account for all of his practice. A conceptual artist, he is renowned for his enigmatic and often mechanized sculptural installations, Shetty explores the fundamental ontological challenges presented by our immersion in a world of objects.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: : Leila Heller Gallery Archive

Sudarshan Shetty’s hybrid constructions question the fusion of Indian and Western traditions as well as exploring domestic concerns and the notion of movement. His installations are developed around a rigorous grammar of materials, mechanical exposure and unlikely juxtapositions of things that may belong to culturally distinct spheres. Moreover, Shetty’s object language eschews narrative as well as established symbolism. Sudarshan Shetty in his  solo exhibition “A Song, A Story and The Empty Vessel” at Leila Heller Gallery presents two distinct bodies of work “A Song, A Story”, and “The Empty Vessel” including 2 central installations, video pieces, and works of recycled teak wood and found ceramics. “A Song, A Story” comprises a two-channel film anchored by two installations of hand-carved wood, an allegory for artistic expression and the need to tell the stories we carry within us. Ostensibly, the narrative is simple, drawn from a popular South-Indian folktale, narrated by a vocalist in Braj Bhāshā (a Western Hindustani language). A woman has held on to her song and her story for far too long, and they escape her breath in rebellion. Assuming the form of a man’s umbrella and a pair of shoes, they station themselves outside her door. When her husband returns at dusk, stunned by the signs of another’s presence, he gets suspicious. Unsatisfied with her answers, he leaves the house and finds shelter in a public place. Alone, he hears voices conversing in the darkness, gradually realizing that the voices belong to the lights from different homes that are extinguished as people fall asleep. Eavesdropping on the conversation amongst the lights as they slowly brighten the darkness, he learns that the umbrella and the shoes belong to no one, they were merely the forms taken by the song and the story submerged within his wife’s silence. He brings back this story to his wife who is surprised by their provenance for once they have escaped her, she can no longer claim any knowledge or connection to them. This story is told and retold in multiple screens: the two channels of the video as well as the television screen in front of which the woman has fallen asleep. The two buildings that frame the space and contain time, one domestic, the other public, contain the action but only nominally. What is the relationship between an object and consciousness? Shetty showcases “The Empty Vessel”, an installation of hybrid crockery, broken china vases and plates that have been put back together with fragments of teak, a wood that is typical of India. Called matkas, hand-made domestic pots are traditionally used to store and cool water, as well as being used in death rituals, symbolically representing the physical body; the corporeal vessel that carries life. This suite of works is an exploration of the internal states of being through memory and the familiar world of domestic objects.

Info: Leila Heller Gallery, I-87, Alserkal Avenue, Al Quoz 1, Dubai, Duration: 21/1-12/3/18, Days & Hours: Sat-Thu 10:00-19:00, www.leilahellergallery.com