Shilpa Gupta

One of the most influential voices in international contemporary art, Shilpa Gupta explores language, censorship, mobility and the structures that shape individual lives and freedom.

Working across sculpture, light installations, video, sound, and performance, Gupta creates works that move between territories and languages, and between singularity and collectivity, intimacy and public life.

The exhibition presents a series of new productions designed specifically for the museum’s space and explores the pivotal themes of Gupta’s work, offering a glimpse into the inquiry she has been conducting for over twenty years.

The Shilpa Gupta exhibition forms part of the long-standing partnership between Fondazione Furla and GAM – Galleria d’Arte Moderna, which since 2021 has presented a new annual exhibition project, aimed at creating dialogue between contemporary art and the gallery’s historic spaces and permanent collection.

The Furla Series is the project through which, since 2017, Fondazione Furla has organised exhibitions in partnership with leading Italian art institutions, with an all-female programme designed to highlight and valorise women’s fundamental contribution to contemporary culture.

Shilpa Gupta (born 1976) lives and works in Mumbai, India, where she studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997. She has held solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the Centro Botín in Santander, the Arnolfini in Bristol, OK in Linz, the Museum voor Moderne Kunst in Arnhem, Amant in New York, the Voorlinden Museum and Gardens in Wassenaar, the Barbican in London and the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi, among others. In 2023, she held a joint solo exhibition with Marisa Merz at MAXXI L’Aquila, and in 2021, a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp. 

Shilpa Gupta has participated in numerous international exhibitions, including the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2018), the Gothenburg Biennial (2017), the Berlin Biennale (2014), the New Museum Triennial (2009), the Sharjah Biennial (2013), the Biennale de Lyon (2009), the Gwangju Biennale (2008), the Yokohama Triennale (2008), and the Liverpool Biennial (2006). She has also exhibited at biennial events in Auckland, Melbourne, Seoul, Havana, Sydney, Yogyakarta, Echigo-Tsumari, Shanghai, Houston and others.

Her works are to be found in major collections, including: Tate Modern, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Centre Pompidou, Louisiana Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, National Gallery of Canada, ZKM, Voorlinden Museum, Mori Museum, M+ Museum, Astrup Fearnley Museum, KOC Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Ishara Art Foundation, Jameel Arts Centre, Burger Collection, Kiran Nadar Museum and Devi Art Foundation
Her solo show What Still Holds is currently on view at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.

Cover photo by: Andrea Rossetti / Héctor Chico. Courtesy of the artist and Fondazione Furla.