Tarika Agarwal of Saffronart contemplates what to expect from the upcoming exhibition ‘Every Day Matters’ at Faurschou Foundation in Copenhagen

Mumbai: ‘Every Day Matters @ Fairschou Foundation Copenhagen’ is a group exhibition of international contemporary artists. The exhibition will run for a period of three months starting from 14 March, 2013. If any of you are in Copenhagen during this time and have the opportunity to visit the show, I think it’s a definite must-see. I know I would.

The Faurschou Foundation is a privately funded art institution in Copenhagen that was established by Luise and Jens Faurschou. For 25 years now, they have presented exhibitions of internationally recognized artists both in Denmark and abroad. This exhibition represents artists from the Middle East, USA, Europe, South America and Asia. Among these are Shilpa Gupta and Raqs Media Collective.

Shilpa Gupta is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Mumbai. She studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts here, and is currently one the most respected contemporary women artists living and working in India today. She is an interdisciplinary artist who works with sound, video, photography and performance to capture, explore and understand themes like desire, religion and security (nations, militarism and identity).

Raqs Media Collective on the other hand is a group that was founded in the early 1990s by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. They enjoy playing around with a plurality of roles often appear as artists, though sometimes also as curators and other times as philosophical agent provocateurs.

The title of the exhibition ‘Every Day Matters’ gives away a lot of what one can expect from this exhibition. It forms a framework for the artists to play with the idea of the fundamental condition that every day is important and that reality has forced its way into our lives and the artist’s lives as a necessity. In places with political unrest or socioeconomic turmoil and challenges that we face on a day to day basis, art is often influenced by these external factors. An artist’s individual needs and social commitments have a crucial influence on their works – through art they express themselves from the past and the present. I think it would be interesting to view the world from an artist’s perspective. Also, to see how their creativity and imagination works to create a masterpiece.

Since the works are not up for viewing on the Foundation’s website yet, I have picked a few interesting pieces by both the artists to give an idea of what you can expect from them while attending the exhibition.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.