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A monumental sculptural installation by Indian artist Subodh Gupta - a 10-foot tall tower of copper cooking vessels - is to go under the hammer at London auctioneers Sotheby's.
Gupta's 'Untitled (9 Units)', one of the highlights of Sotheby's series of contemporary art sales Feb 10-11, has been priced at 200,000 to 300,000 pounds. Gupta stacked traditional Indian copper cooking vessels one on top of the other for his 2006 sculpture that Sotheby's described as "one of the most important works by the Indian artist to come to the market in over a year."
Sotheby's said the copper vessels were "a metaphor for the upwardly mobile aspirations of India's newly wealthy middle classes as much as a reminder of the daily poverty hanging over the country's rapidly expanding urban population."
"His choice of this traditional cooking vessel - as opposed to their cheaper, more readily available stainless steel counterparts - has added symbolic connotations too, specifically the rapidly changing cultural values in Indian society and the way in which modern techniques and mass-produced products are frequently replacing the country's traditional practices and objects," it added. The copper vessels, said Sotheby's, are presented as "sentimental relics of the 'old' way of life."
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