Ishara Art Foundation supports public sculpture commission by Shilpa Gupta

About the Artist:

Shilpa Gupta (b.1976) lives and works in Mumbai, India where she has studied sculpture at the Sir J.J. School of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997. She has had solo shows at the Contemporary Arts Centre in Cincinnati, Arnolfini in Bristol, OK in Linz, Museum Arnhem, Voorlinden Museum and Gardens in Wassenaar, KIOSK in Ghent, Barbican in

London, Dallas Contemporary and the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, Bielefelder Kunstverein, La synagogue de Delme Contemporary Art Centre and Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi. In 2021 she

had a survey show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp curated by Nav Haq. She presented a solo project at ‘My East is Your West’, a two-person joint India-Pakistan exhibition, by the Gujral Foundation in Venice in 2015.

Gupta’s work has been shown in leading international institutions and museums such as Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, Serpentine Galleries,

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Mori Art Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, ZKM,Ishara Art Foundation, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Devi Art Foundation.

Shilpa Gupta has participated in 58th Venice Biennale (2019) curated by Ralph Rugoff, Kochi Muziris Biennale (2018) curated by Anita Dube, Göteborg Biennial (2017) curated by Nav Haq, Berlin Biennale (2014) curated by Juan Gaitán, New Museum Triennial (2009), Sharjah Biennial curated by Yuko Hasegawa (2013), Lyon Biennale curated by Hou Hanru (2009), Gwangju Biennale directed by Okwui Enwezor and curated by Ranjit Hoskote (2008), Yokohama Triennale curated by Hans

Ulrich Obrist (2008) and Liverpool Biennial curated by Gerardo Mosquera and Manray Hsu (2006).

Her work is in the collections of the Tate, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Centre Pompidou, Mori Art Museum, M+ Museum, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Deutsche Bank, Daimler Chrysler, Louis Vuitton Foundation, ZKM, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Fonds national d’art contemporain, Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain, KOC Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Canada, Museum Voorlinden, Art Now, Cincinnati Art Museum, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Art Jameel, Devi Art Foundation, and the Ishara Art Foundation and the Prabhakar Collection, among others.

Ishara Art Foundation

Ishara Art Foundation was founded in 2019 as a non-profit organisation dedicated to presenting contemporary art of South Asia. Located in Dubai, the Foundation supports emerging and established practices that advance critical dialogue and explore global interconnections.

Guided by a research-led approach, Ishara realises its mission through exhibitions, onsite and online programmes, education initiatives and collaborations in the UAE and internationally. The Foundation facilitates exchange between South Asian and international artistic networks that

include museums, foundations, institutions, galleries and individuals.The Ishara logo, a synthesis of a square and circle, is based on an ideogram by Zarina to convey the

word آﺳﻤﺎن (‘Aasman’), sky. It forms one of 36 images from ‘Home is a Foreign Place’ (1999), a work in the collection of Ishara’s Founder and Chairperson, Smita Prabhakar. Ishara signifies a gesture, a signal or a hint, and is a word common to several languages including Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Bengali,Swahili and Urdu.

Ishara Art Foundation is presented in partnership with Alserkal.

Website: www.ishara.org

Smita Prabhakar, Founder and Chairperson

Smita Prabhakar is an entrepreneur, collector and art patron who has been based in the UAE

for over four decades. She is the Founder and Chairperson of the Ishara Art Foundation. Smita is also a member of the International Acquisitions Committee at Tate Modern (London), the Middle Eastern Circle of the Guggenheim Museum (New York), and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection(Venice).

Smita’s collection, The Ishara Art Foundation and The Prabhakar Collection, focuses on South Asian contemporary artworks that reflect diverse voices and shared histories from across the region. She has supported the V.S. Gaitonde exhibition, ‘Painting as Process, Painting as Life’ in New York and Venice in 2015-6, a workshop around Shilpa Gupta’s artwork, ‘For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit’,

organised at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018, and the seventh and eighth editions of the

Colomboscope Festival in 2022 and 2024.

Sasha Altaf, Director Sasha Altaf is the Director of the Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai. Her longstanding curatorial practice of more than 20 years is dedicated to shaping the discourse around feminism in the contemporary and visual arts of India.

Sabih Ahmed, Projects Advisor

Sabih Ahmed is Projects Advisor at the Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai and the curator of ‘Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight’. His work focuses on modern and contemporary art mapped through diverse itineraries and inter-disciplinary formations.

Alserkal Avenue

Alserkal Avenue was established in 2008 by Alserkal Initiatives following the visionary thinking of its founder, Emirati businessman and cultural patron Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal, who sought to cultivate a vibrant creative community and support cultural production in Dubai. The Avenue is a lively

cultural district in the Al Quoz industrial area of Dubai, and is home to a community of over 70

contemporary art galleries, visual and performing arts organisations, designers, homegrown and entrepreneur-led businesses, and community spaces. As one of the region’s foremost destinations for contemporary art, and home to Dubai’s risk-takers, makers and wide-ranging creative communities,Alserkal Avenue provides cultural experiences for local, regional and international audiences through it’s extensive year-round programming.