'Very Hungry God', 2006, outside the Palazzo Grassi in Venice
Whilst the skull on everyone's lips of late has been Damien Hirst's diamond-encrusted 'For the Love of God', the skull exciting many peopel at the Venice Biennale is by Indian artist Subodh Gupta. 'Very Hungry God', an enormous skull made out of stainless steel utensils, was first exhibited in Paris in 2006 and is now in the collection of Francois Pinault. 'Very Hungry God' is currently on view by the Grand Canal outside Pinault's Palazzo Grassi in Venice. Subdoh explains here the background to this work.
The piece in Venice, "Very Hungry God", was made in 2006 for the Nuit Blanche annual all-night festival in Paris. My work was conceived to be shown in a church in Barbes on the outskirts of Paris which is largely inhabited by an immigrant population.
I made the work in response to the stories I read in the news about how soup kitchens in Paris were serving food with pork so that Muslims would not eat it. It was a strange and twisted form of charity that did not continue for long but raised conflicting ideas of giving and the way we have become now.
Outside the church I served vegetarian daal soup as a form of "prasad" (in India when you go to a temple or a guduwara you are offered food with the blessing). I liked the mix of the Catholic church and my intervention using a symbol that many artists have used before - the skull - and its many connotations.
'Very Hungry God' is like a vanity, but also the idea of food and the utensils is very much part of my language dealing with ideas of the everyday and turning them into iconic symbols.
'Very Hungry God' installed in the Eglise Saint-Bernard de la Chapelle et Square Saint-Bernard in Barbes, Paris in 2006
(Photo: Marc Domage)
Subodh Gupta
Subodh Gupta is represented by Nature Morte in New Delhi and will be having a solo show in New York at the Mattress Factory in September 2007.
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