In Shilpa Gupta’s StillTheyKnowNotWhatIDream (2021), two suspended flapboards deliver a frenzied stream of oracles. Their letters clatter nervously, forming brief, broken, and poetic, if not occasionally unsettling, messages—“MORE POWER/MORE FEAR,” “RAID HISTORIES/ERASE VOICES”—before the next alphabetical convulsion begins. The motion-based work was part of Gupta’s first solo exhibition of the year, “Lines of Flight” at the Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai, which exemplified the Mumbai-born artist’s interest in power structures that tacitly define and erode our existence—whether through technology, surveillance, demarcation, or language.
Gupta had a busy year, taking part in more than a dozen international group exhibitions, unveiling a permanent light installation in Doha, and contributing to festivals in Canada, the UK, and Macao. In February, she was the subject of two solo shows: one at New Delhi’s Bikaner…