Written by Pooja Pillai |Updated: June 12, 2019 8:22:20 am
The body electric
Bhupen Khakhar had worked out that he was gay fairly early, but it wasn’t until he travelled to the UK in 1979 that he became aware of the gay rights movement.
On June 10, Bhupen Khakhar’s Two Men in Benaras (1982) sold at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art sale for Rs 22.39 crore ($3.2 million), setting a new auction record for the artist. Of course, it’s just a co-incidence that June is Pride Month this year, and Two Men in Benaras is considered one of the most important modern South Asian artworks to depict homosexuality, and also that Khakhar was India’s first openly gay artist. Still, the role of this work, and much of Khakhar’s oeuvre, centring around human body, in all its miracles and failings — especially that of the gay Indian man — cannot be overlooked.
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