Cool Hunting

by Laura Neilson

New Delhi-based artists Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra have found themselves at the forefront of a burgeoning Indian art movement that's not only fresh and suddenly noteworthy to Westerners (as well as the rest of the world), but to Indians alike.

The award-winning duo collaborate on an exhaustive range of mediums including painting, sculpture, installation, video, graphic and product design, Web sites, music and fashion. Their vivid, color-charged work typically exhibits a whimsical fascination with consumerism—not unlike Murakami— blurring the lines between fine art and popular culture, product placement and exhibition design, artistic inspiration and media hype. Despite the global nature of consumerism and its prevalent existence, the pair display the subject through a distinctly Indian lens. Given the extremely diverse stratification of Indian classes, lifestyles and the country's economy, the result is a harmonious and beautiful clash of sorts.

In addition to a show at Nature Morte in Berlin, running through 14 February 2009, Thukral and Tagra are currently showing works in the exhibition "The Audience and the Eavesdropper," with nine other influential Indian and Pakistani artists at Phillips de Pury in New York. Their work, "Now In Your Neighborhood," on display at Phillips, explores the issue of mass cultural consumption (pictured above).

The Audience and the Eavesdropper: New Art from India & Pakistan - 28 January through 14 February 2009
Phillips de Pury & Company
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011 map
tel. +1 212 940 1200