Shreyas Karle Art Basel 2020 Works

Proposed Installation | Art Basel, Basel | Statements | June 19 - 26, 2020

Shreyas Karle
The two sides of a conversation
2019 - 2020
Two identical cotton blankets, one folded on its right side, the other folded on its wrong side.
Dimensions variable
Variation 1/4
Identical blanket sheets, folded inside out and outside in, stare at one another’s unequivocal resemblance.

Shreyas Karle
The two sides of a conversation (detail)

Shreyas Karle
Look alike
2019-2020
Serigraph on cotton shirt
63.5 x 44.45 cm
The display of the fabric island integrates the eccentrically stitched shirt from the artist tailor, who believes design is a challenge, not a job.

Shreyas Karle
Look alike (detail)

Shreyas Karle
Stay home (incense powder): Found Object I
2019
incense powder
9 x 5.55 cm
The incense powder believed to domesticate women is purchased from a local store in Detroit. It further ornaments the narrative of domesticity and its perceived maker behaving to the problematic norms of the patriarchal society

Shreyas Karle
Terrazzo conundrum
2019-2020
Terrazzo tile with cut fingernails, collected stones, seeds and a gold earring.
30 x 30 x 2.54 cm
The terrazzo tile camouflages the chipped fingernails; the artist daughter’s stone & seed collection and a lost gold earring simply by embedding them within its surface.

Shreyas Karle
Terrazzo conundrum (detail)

Shreyas Karle
..and it spat out its interior
2019-2020
Terracotta & industrial blue adhesive tape
60 cm x 40 cm x 30 cm
Variation 2/2
The terracotta house hides behind the table after spitting out the display objects tapped on its bottom end to prevent further excretion.

Shreyas Karle
..and it spat out its interior (detail)

Shreyas Karle
House matchbox: Found Object II
2019
matchbox
36 x 29.6 cm
The framed image is a loose page from the album of a collection of matchboxes (accidentally arranged in a form of the cross) by the artists’ mother-in-law as a pass time activity of a house maker. The framed matchbox covers juxtaposition the idea of Bombay as a city and the disparity of its dwellings.

Shreyas Karle
House matchbox: Found Object II (detail)

Shreyas Karle
Second-hand shop (Poems for Zurich)
2012
Typewriter, paper
20.34 cm x 15.24 cm
Second-hand shop also written during the artist’s first visit to Zurich (2012), speaks about Brockiland. It is framed and displayed in the artist house as a representative of the mundane objects and actions that form a part of everyday life

Shreyas Karle
Second-hand shop (Poems for Zurich) (detail)

Shreyas Karle
Extended Play
2019-2020
Kitchen cups and saucer-stand made in metal coated with plastic
51 cm x 54 cm x 9 cm
The dysfunctional hooks of the cup-stand are used by the artist daughter for arranging the miniature dollhouse cups from thus dissolving the interiority of her play area into the larger domestic space.

Shreyas Karle
Extended Play (detail)

Shreyas Karle
‘I wish I could show your works on your walls’
2019-2020
Archival print on Banner paper (350 gsm)
304.8 x 91.44 cm
Wallpaper roll fixed on the makeshift walls of the fair booth, imitates the cemented walls of the artist house, acting as a pacifier for the displaced objects. The length of the wallpaper dissolves on the cemented floor dismissing the vertical in the horizontal highlighting the temporality of the display walls.

Shreyas Karle
Bell Poem - Who pressed my button (Poems for Zurich)
2012
Typewriter, paper
15. 24 cm x 10.16 cm
Who pressed my button? Is a poem written during the artist’s first visit to Zurich in 2012. It is dedicated to the Tram door (STOP) button. The poem now hangs next to the artist apartment doorbell.

Shreyas Karle
Bell Poem - Who pressed my button (Poems for Zurich) (detail)

Shreyas Karle
Switch
2019-2020
Plastic switch and bulb holder mounted on a wooden base with a LED bulb
15.24 x 15.24 cm (switch board)
The problem pertinent in the switchboard becomes relevant when viewed through its site specificity of the artist’s home in Bombay. The work contains four inverted switches, bulb holder, a two-pin plug socket and a bulb

Shreyas Karle
Switch (detail)

Shreyas Karle
Fingerprint drawing
2019-2020
Bevelled round mirror with fingerprints
46 cm in diameter
The work gets produced at the moment of its installation in the display space. The mirror when handled with bare hands while displaying it on the wall leaves traces of the fingerprints on its clean surface. Because of the subtle nature of the handprints they become clearly visible in the reflection of the Roller blind work displayed opposite it.