Kher, Bharti

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Kher, Bharti

Bharti’s bindis go for a jumbo Rs 7cr

Neelam Raaj

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/welcome.asp?skin=pastissues2&QS=skin%3Dpastissues2%26enter%3DLowLevel[ The Times of India]

New Delhi: Bharti Kher has become the country’s top-selling woman artist, with her celebrated elephant sculpture fetching $1.5 million (Rs 6.9 crore) at a Sotheby’s auction in London on Monday night.

Kher, who is one half of the capital’s No. 1 Power Art Couple, not only set a new record for a female contemporary artist, she also surpassed the auction record of her husband Subodh Gupta which stands at $1.4 million.

The record didn’t come as a surprise as ‘The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own’ is an iconic work. It portrays a lifesize fibreglass elephant, awkwardly and almost heartbreakingly sprawled on the floor, seemingly dying, and covered in sperm-shaped bindis. Peter Nagy of the Delhi-based Nature Morte Gallery, who took the work to Art Basel in 2007, said it had generated an emotional response with viewers at the art fair. ‘‘It is Kher’s most important work. It has resonance with people,’’ says Nagy, who has a long association with the artist.

The work at Sotheby’s is one of three elephants that Kher created. One of them was purchased by UK collector Frank Cohen, the second is displayed in an Australian gallery and the third came under the hammer from the Pierre Huber gallery in Geneva. James Sevier, director and specialist in contemporary art at Sotheby’s, said Kher created the work in her Gurgaon studio over 10 months.

Every fold and recess of the form is embossed with Kher’s trademark bindis. In the elephant work, the bindis work almost as a second skin. Many have taken the work to represent India, combining two well-known Indian symbols of elephant and bindi.

THE SKIN SPEAKS... Bharti Kher’s fibreglass elephant is embossed with sperm-shaped bindis, the artist’s trademark