Futility and Enchantment: A Conversation with Sudarshan Shetty
by Chitra Balasubramaniam
“The setting of the installation plays out the falseness and futility in the objects, the artificial. Our engagement with the world of objects is very connected to our own mortality. In our making and gathering of objects, there is a sense of futility. And we continue to engage in this futility knowing full well it is not real. The market plays on this notion. Enchantment and disenchantment can happen at the same time,” says Sudarshan Shetty. Unedited reality, tinged with philosophy, forms the conceptual basis of his sculptures and installations—so much so that the objects themselves can become incidental in the face of the thoughts, emotions, and connotations that they reveal.
Untitled, from “Love,” 2006. Stainless steel, fiberglass, auto paint, motor, and mechanical device, dinosaur: 202 x 106 x 85.5 in.; Jaguar: 172 x 60 x 50 in.
“The setting of the installation plays out the falseness and futility in the objects, the artificial. Our engagement with the world of objects is very connected to our own mortality. In our making and gathering of objects, there is a sense of futility. And we continue to engage in this futility knowing full well it is not real. The market plays on this notion. Enchantment and disenchantment can happen at the same time,” says Sudarshan Shetty. Unedited reality, tinged with philosophy, forms the conceptual basis of his sculptures and installations—so much so that the objects themselves can become incidental in the face of the thoughts, emotions, and connotations that they reveal.
