Titled ‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’
,the work will launch on 13 April 2025
The sculpture will be located at The Yard in Alserkal Avenue
Ishara Art Foundation supports ‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’, a public sculpture
commissioned by Alserkal Arts Foundation as part of ‘Between a Beach and a Slope’ curated
by Fatoş Üstek
• The sculpture is presented in parallel with ‘Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight’,curated by Sabih Ahmed, currently on view at the Ishara Art Foundation until 31 May
• ‘Lines of Flight’ features a diverse selection of artworks from almost 25 years of Gupta’s
practice, including works from the ‘Untitled (Jailed Poet Drawings)’ series, and ‘Listening
Air’
Ishara Art Foundation is pleased to support ‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’ by Shilpa Gupta, a light-text sculpture commissioned by Alserkal Arts Foundation. The work is set to launch during Alserkal Art Week, running from 13 to 15 April 2025, and forms part of a series of public art commissions curated by Fatoş Üstek under the theme ‘Between a Beach and a Slope’. The sculpture will be located at The Yard in Alserkal Avenue.
Exploring the nature of self within a world marked by inequity, control, and surveillance, ‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’ presents its text in reverse, challenging viewers to rethink everyday spaces and movements. The work interrogates how language both represents and obscures human history
and memory, exploring the power of symbols in shaping identity and collective memory.
The sculpture is presented in parallel with ‘Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight’, the artist’s first solo exhibition in West Asia, currently on view at the Ishara Art Foundation. Sabih Ahmed, Projects Advisor at Ishara and the curator of the exhibition, said: “Ishara is proud to support Shilpa Gupta’s ‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’ presented by the Alserkal Arts Foundation. The work continues
the artist’s play with language as a tool for control on the one hand, and a medium of resistance on the other. The sculpture extends the exhibition’s exploration of ‘poetic justice’ and how poets and writers navigate what can and cannot be spoken.” ‘Lines of Flight’, curated by Sabih Ahmed, features a diverse selection of artworks from 2006 to the
present that include a new sound installation, site-specific interventions, sculptures, drawings, prints and videos, foregrounding Gupta’s longstanding critical engagement with narratives of mobility, control and acts of resilience. The exhibition includes artworks that regard poets and the ramifications of their poetry in the face of rising intolerance, such as ‘A Liquid, the Mouth Froze’,works from the ‘Untitled (Jailed Poet Drawings)’ series, and ‘Listening Air’.
Commenting on the rising popularity and momentum of South Asian art internationally, Smita Prabhakar, Founder and Chairperson of the Ishara Art Foundation, said: “As a dedicated member of the South Asian art community, I feel that art from the sub-continent is finding its rightful place. The
magnitude of artworks both in scale and relevance offers not only a view into South Asia but to issues that are of importance to all of humanity.”
Speaking on Ishara’s role as a base for South Asian art in the diaspora, she added: “With the UAE and especially Dubai serving as a hub and transit for international visitors both from the art community and beyond, Ishara is place where contemporary art practices from South Asia can find an international platform.”
‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’ is presented as part of ‘Between a Beach and a Slope’ curated by Fatoş Üstek alongside works by Nujoom Alghanem and Kirstine Roepstorff, commissioned by Alserkal Arts Foundation.
‘Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight’ at the Ishara Art Foundation runs until 31 May 2025. The exhibition has been generously supported by Carl F. Bucherer, with insurance support from Emirates Insurance Company, and logistical support from Galleria Continua, neugerriemschneider, and Vadehra Art
Gallery.
For press requests for Ishara Art Foundation, please contact
menaka@artfervour.com | +91 98300 43238
About the Artist:
Shilpa Gupta (b.1976) lives and works in Mumbai, India where she has studied sculpture at the Sir J.J. School of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997. She has had solo shows at the Contemporary Arts Centre in Cincinnati, Arnolfini in Bristol, OK in Linz, Museum Arnhem, Voorlinden Museum and Gardens in Wassenaar, KIOSK in Ghent, Barbican in
London, Dallas Contemporary and the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, Bielefelder Kunstverein, La synagogue de Delme Contemporary Art Centre and Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi. In 2021 she
had a survey show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp curated by Nav Haq. She presented a solo project at ‘My East is Your West’, a two-person joint India-Pakistan exhibition, by the Gujral Foundation in Venice in 2015.
Gupta’s work has been shown in leading international institutions and museums such as Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, Serpentine Galleries,
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Mori Art Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, ZKM,Ishara Art Foundation, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Devi Art Foundation.
Shilpa Gupta has participated in 58th Venice Biennale (2019) curated by Ralph Rugoff, Kochi Muziris Biennale (2018) curated by Anita Dube, Göteborg Biennial (2017) curated by Nav Haq, Berlin Biennale (2014) curated by Juan Gaitán, New Museum Triennial (2009), Sharjah Biennial curated by Yuko Hasegawa (2013), Lyon Biennale curated by Hou Hanru (2009), Gwangju Biennale directed by Okwui Enwezor and curated by Ranjit Hoskote (2008), Yokohama Triennale curated by Hans
Ulrich Obrist (2008) and Liverpool Biennial curated by Gerardo Mosquera and Manray Hsu (2006).
Her work is in the collections of the Tate, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Centre Pompidou, Mori Art Museum, M+ Museum, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Deutsche Bank, Daimler Chrysler, Louis Vuitton Foundation, ZKM, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Fonds national d’art contemporain, Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain, KOC Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Canada, Museum Voorlinden, Art Now, Cincinnati Art Museum, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Art Jameel, Devi Art Foundation, and the Ishara Art Foundation and the Prabhakar Collection, among others.
Ishara Art Foundation
Ishara Art Foundation was founded in 2019 as a non-profit organisation dedicated to presenting contemporary art of South Asia. Located in Dubai, the Foundation supports emerging and established practices that advance critical dialogue and explore global interconnections.
Guided by a research-led approach, Ishara realises its mission through exhibitions, onsite and online programmes, education initiatives and collaborations in the UAE and internationally. The Foundation facilitates exchange between South Asian and international artistic networks that
include museums, foundations, institutions, galleries and individuals.The Ishara logo, a synthesis of a square and circle, is based on an ideogram by Zarina to convey the
word آﺳﻤﺎن (‘Aasman’), sky. It forms one of 36 images from ‘Home is a Foreign Place’ (1999), a work in the collection of Ishara’s Founder and Chairperson, Smita Prabhakar. Ishara signifies a gesture, a signal or a hint, and is a word common to several languages including Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Bengali,Swahili and Urdu.
Ishara Art Foundation is presented in partnership with Alserkal.
Website: www.ishara.org
Smita Prabhakar, Founder and Chairperson
Smita Prabhakar is an entrepreneur, collector and art patron who has been based in the UAE
for over four decades. She is the Founder and Chairperson of the Ishara Art Foundation. Smita is also a member of the International Acquisitions Committee at Tate Modern (London), the Middle Eastern Circle of the Guggenheim Museum (New York), and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection(Venice).
Smita’s collection, The Ishara Art Foundation and The Prabhakar Collection, focuses on South Asian contemporary artworks that reflect diverse voices and shared histories from across the region. She has supported the V.S. Gaitonde exhibition, ‘Painting as Process, Painting as Life’ in New York and Venice in 2015-6, a workshop around Shilpa Gupta’s artwork, ‘For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit’,
organised at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018, and the seventh and eighth editions of the
Colomboscope Festival in 2022 and 2024.
Sasha Altaf, Director Sasha Altaf is the Director of the Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai. Her longstanding curatorial practice of more than 20 years is dedicated to shaping the discourse around feminism in the contemporary and visual arts of India.
Sabih Ahmed, Projects Advisor
Sabih Ahmed is Projects Advisor at the Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai and the curator of ‘Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight’. His work focuses on modern and contemporary art mapped through diverse itineraries and inter-disciplinary formations.
Alserkal Avenue
Alserkal Avenue was established in 2008 by Alserkal Initiatives following the visionary thinking of its founder, Emirati businessman and cultural patron Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal, who sought to cultivate a vibrant creative community and support cultural production in Dubai. The Avenue is a lively
cultural district in the Al Quoz industrial area of Dubai, and is home to a community of over 70
contemporary art galleries, visual and performing arts organisations, designers, homegrown and entrepreneur-led businesses, and community spaces. As one of the region’s foremost destinations for contemporary art, and home to Dubai’s risk-takers, makers and wide-ranging creative communities,Alserkal Avenue provides cultural experiences for local, regional and international audiences through it’s extensive year-round programming.
EmoticonEmoticon