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The first installation along Vancouver Skytrain’s brand new Canada Line is entitled History of Loss by Indian artist Sudarshan Shetty. You can find this piece in the parking lot behind the new Canada Line station at Cambie Street and King Edward.
Although inspired by VW Beetle childhood toy cars, the reference here is multitudinous; iconic combustion engine vehicles entombed and dated as artifacts, reflecting the consciousness and worldliness of young Contemporary Indian artists. Shetty makes his Canadian debut in the 2009-2011 Vancouver Biennale.
The casts of model aluminum Volkswagen Beetle cars are displayed in clear plexiglass boxes stacked in repeated rows, each marked with a date. The replicas are miniature, mimicking children’s toy cars, a reference to a childlike desire, and nostalgic memory. Shetty diligently cast each individual car, identical, perfect and pristine, and then deliberately dropped them one by one from around 300 feet with the sole purpose to damage each one, thereby making each one individualistic.
Sudarshan Shetty is part of a growing number of young contemporary Indian artists who are garnering international attention for work that breaks with traditional religious iconography, or uses it in new ways. Shetty makes his Canadian debut in the 2009-2011 Vancouver Biennale.
[All Images: by Sean Cranbury]
Text ad-libed from the vancouver biennale blog - written by Sean Cranbury
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