This cast of a helmet belongs to a series of sculptures inspired by everyday Indian objects. Gupta calls them “monuments out of common objects” which “represent the hopes, dreams and struggles of life in today’s India”.

The helmet was made in connection to the project This side is the other side. The theme is the collision between the big city and the village. Gupta talks of a “cannibalisation of the traditional by the contemporary”. In the present-day urban landscape, the milk sellers and the meal deliverymen no longer travel by bicycle, but by motor scooter. However, they still balance the same dinner containers on their heads with the same meals as ever, going through the blocked-up streets of an Indian megacity. The helmet symbolises the competence of professionals, but also their yearning for a shinier world.

Other sculptures from the series, cast in either aluminium or bronze, show a full-size scooter with milk churns, an Ambassador – an Indian make of car – with suitcases and sacks tied on top, or bamboo canes as those used in India for (apparently fragile) scaffolding.

Subodh Gupta belongs to the growing group of Indian artists who consider themselves citizens of the world, but who do not want to refrain from engaging with the processes of social transformation in their country – with migration, precarious conditions of employment and alienation. Gupta, who comes from Bihar, a state with extremes of poverty, and who now lives in a high-rise block of flats on the outskirts of New Delhi, began his work with theatre projects and performances. He also works with video and photography.

Wolfgang Kos, 2005 (translation: Tim Sharp)