Everything Is Inside

Entitled Everything Is Inside, an exhibition at Frankfurt’s Museum of Modern Art is showcasing works by the Indian artist Subodh Gupta that have been inspired by everyday life in his home country. Portraying a society that is changing rapidly due to the economic boom in the past few decades – a process that contrasts sharply with the people’s traditional values, spirituality and religious beliefs –, he thematizes the resulting tensions in his highly original sculp- tures, paintings, videos and installations. The floor of the museum’s central hall is covered with a plethora of metal ware. A number of faucets protruding from a heap of simple cookware worn by use serve to irrigate the This Is Not a Fountain installation (2011–2013). The individual elements of this creation, which refers to a painting by Matisse, have been collected by Gupta himself. Nearby, there is a pair of golden-colored bicycles complemented by several milk cans. The title, Two Cows (2003–2008), refers to one possible connotation. The question is whether this excess of apparently mundane elements can also be inter- preted as criticizing our modern consumerism, i.e. whether Gupta’s oeuvre can also be regarded as a documentation of human egotism and megalomania. What he certainly does is staging evidence of people’s satisfying their needs.