The Great Grand Mirage

source: saffronart

Designer and artist duo Thukral & Tagra’s works are executed in a wide variety of media including graphics, videos, music, interiors, product design, paintings, sculpture and installations. Their quirky, kitsch, pop art-like works focus on the influence of popular western ideologies on India’s deep-rooted cultural heritage. However, the duo’s approach to the subject is refreshingly stylish. Although vibrant and energetic, their compositions raise serious questions about the loss of identity experienced by Indians in their own sub-continent and its repercussions worldwide.

Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, branded as Thukral & Tagra, have worked as a team since the turn of the millennium. Born in 1976 in Jalandar, Thukral completed his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at Chandigarh College of Arts, and his Master’s degree in the same at the Delhi College of Art. Tagra was born in New Delhi in 1979. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at the Delhi College of Art and then went on to postgraduate studies in Communication Design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad.

Amongst their solo shows are ‘Somnium Genero’ at Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, in 2008; ‘Thukral & Tagra’ at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, in 2008; ‘Put It On’ at Bose Pacia, New York, in 2007; ‘Everyday Bosedk’ at Nature Morte, New Delhi, in 2007; ‘Bosedkdesigns.com’ at Nature Morte, New Delhi, in 2005; and ‘Its About the Art Which Is Behind and Around the Art’ at Nature Morte, New Delhi, also in 2005. Some of their most recent group shows include, ‘Passage to India’ at Initial Access – the Frank Cohen Collection, Wolverhampton, in 2008; ‘Imaginary Realities: Constructed Worlds in Abstract and Figurative Painting’ at Max Wigram Gallery, London, also in 2008; ‘Animamix: From Modernity to Eternity’ at MOCA Shanghai; ‘Pink’ at Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai; and ‘Does Size Matter?’ at Art Konsult, New Delhi, all in 2007.

The duo has also received numerous awards and was recently singled out by Wallpaper Magazine as one of the 101 best emerging international designers.
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source: naturemorte

Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra work collaboratively in a wide variety of media including painting, sculpture, installation, video, graphic and product design, websites, music and fashion. Thukral & Tagra blur the lines between Fine Art and Popular Culture, product placement and exhibition design, artistic inspiration and media hype. Their works comment on the globalization of consumer culture and the repercussions of this as it is being experienced in Indiatoday. While both playful and humorous, their works express thoughtful questions about the nature of Indian identity as it is articulated by Indians themselves and projected on to Indiaby the rest of the world.
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source: artsynet

Working collaboratively to produce exuberant and darkly humorous works in a dizzying range of media, including painting, installation, and video, Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, known as Thukral & Tagra, simultaneously send up, criticize, and participate in the globalized, rampant consumer culture in India. Like their older contemporary Takashi Murakami, Thukral & Tagra blur the lines between high and low, commercial and artistic, product placement and exhibition design, and artistic inspiration and media hype. Their practice encompasses museums and galleries as well as graphic and product design. In works like Wonder Woman II (2011), for example, Thukral & Tagra mix iconic Indian motifs—lotus flowers—with iconic images from Western pop culture—of Superman—to explore the juxtapositions of East and West, traditional and new, enduring and ephemeral in Indian culture and identity in the 21st century.