THUKRAL & TAGRA: WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY at Art Plural Gallery
Art Plural Gallery is pleased to announce Thukral & Tagra: Windows of Opportunity, a solo exhibition featuring the latest works of Indian artist duo Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra. The exhibition will run from 22 March to 25 May 2013.
Thukral and Tagra, alias “T&T”, have been collaborating since 2004 and are now widely recognized in the international contemporary art scene. Influenced by contemporary life in all its diversity, T&T boast a rich body of work in painting, sculpture, installation and product design. Their art appeals to a global audience addressing universal themes of identity, consumerism and change.
Thukral and Tagra’s humorous yet provocative works address the harsh realities of Indian societytoday while mirroring its fantasies and aspirations. The prolific duo combines graphic design with high art references and fuses international popular culture with cliches of the rising Indian Middle Class. They most famously created the fictitious brand “BoseDK”, in fact a rude word in Punjabi, and various pseudo-commercial products under its name. Socially conscious, the artists’ “Put it On” series raised awareness of HIV and safe sex practices for the upwardly-mobile urban Indian youth. Thukral and Tagra’s fantastic universe is a dreamscape based in the everyday world, where man’s heroes and vices collide. Playful paintings in their signature saccharine colors tease our ideas of reality and desirein today’s technological context. Rife with meaningful paradoxes, the art of Thukral and Tagra pullsthe issues of our time out from under the carpet and throws them into the open, creating an experience that is both aesthetic and reflective, both tongue-in-cheek and brazenly seductive.
For this exhibition, Windows of Opportunity, a new series of paintings and wall reliefs will explore the socio-political issues behind the Punjabi diaspora, a subject of which the artists know first-hand as many of their own peers have migrated out of India in recent years. As in the past, the youth of India today desire to escape their nation and live out their fantasies in America, Europe or Australia, fantasies perpetuated by the mass media. The ‘windows of opportunity’ they seek are referenced in portraits of young individuals framed in airplane windows, waiting patiently for escape. Another witty choice of imagery hints that a difficult reality belies this dream: these portraits look to be encased in pinball machines, likening the process of getting a visa or living abroad to a never-ending game where one is thrown back and forth, jostled between reality and fantasy.
“Most of our works address the issues, cultural shifts, problems and beliefs of people living in India today. We grew up with the general acknowledgement that most Indians dream of leaving India and moving abroad,” say Thukral and Tagra, “albeit a dream that is laced with anxiety and insecurity.”
For an added element of fun characteristic of Thukral and Tagra, a site-specific installation of a running track will meander through the first storey of the gallery. Not only will it tease viewers’experience of the gallery space but will expand on the idea of “gaming” to also include the act of viewing contemporary art.
