998.9 by Shilpa Gupta

Venice, 2015

The work 998.9 by artist Shilpa Gupta addresses the more than 3,400 kilometer-long barbed wire border between India and Bangladesh. This fence attempts to shield India from terrorism and smuggling, but also creates a potentially lethal boundary for the population of a volatile environment. 

To draw attention to this little known border conflict, Gupta created 998.9, which consists of 3,394 meters of Kvadrat-sponsored hand-woven cloth by the people of Phulia. The piece was shown during the Venice International Art Biennale 2015 as part of the exhibition My East is Your West, presented by the Gujral Foundation.

In 2016 Kvadrat donated 998.9 to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.

Shilpa Gupta (b.1976) lives and works in Mumbai, India where she has studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997. The artist has had solo exhibitions in Asia, Europe and the United States, especially, in recent years, at: Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem; MAAP Space, Brisbane; Arnolfini, Bristol; and the OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz. Her work has been shown at the Tate Modern (London), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Louisiana Museum (Humlebæk), Mori Museum (Tokyo), Dhaka Art Summit and the Devi Art Foundation (New Delhi). Gupta has taken part in the New Museum Triennale, New York; the Lyon Biennale, curated by Hou Hanru; the Biennale of Gwangju, directed by Okwui Enwezor and curated by Ranjit Hoskote; the Triennale of Yokohama, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Biennale of Liverpool, curated by Gerardo Mosquera; and more recently at the Biennale of Sharjah, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, and the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, curated by Juan Gaitán and with artistic team member Natasha Ginwala. From 2002–2006, Gupta co-facilitated Aar Paar, a public art exchange project between India and Pakistan, with Lahore-based artist Huma Mulji.