Cast in Ruins
Shaurya Kumar

As a visiting artist, Indian artist Shaurya Kumar developed a series of activities at ´ace which included an exhibition of his recent pieces and encounters with emerging Argentinean artists.

Kumar’s research is focused on creating works which appreciate and appropriate new media while highlighting the dangers of its longevity; and the disconnect between the virtual and the real. His work is an investigation of art and technology, and the rift that lies between. Ultimately, his work is a dialogue about site, how site effects and affects data and therefore a society, a culture, a people and ultimately a person.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Much of my work, thought and research in recent projects has been a response to the contemporary state of ruinous affairs. Reflecting on loss, destruction, iconoclasism and marginalization my work addresses how our understanding of history, culture and religion is constantly reinterpreted and distorted.

Employing diverse sets of tools, media, techniques and processes including print, drawing, sculpture and installation, my oeuvre focuses on a phenomenological understanding of object and space, while revealing a labor-intensive process in my art making. Indicating notions of presence and absence, these works play with architectural ruins, transient ephemera, and contextual displacements.

Synced to the vicissitudes of time and organic growth, drawing inspiration from classical texts and poetry to new media and ethnographic studies, my work addresses the loss of aura when the original is transformed in its meaning and narrative due to transposition, marginalization and destruction. It addresses the new world of non-objects and questions the role of individuals and institutions that assign them their new meaning.