It takes two to tango or double the trouble – pick out any cliché, it amounts to just one thing – in contemporary India, we have finally discovered potential inheritors to Andy Warhol’s legacy. They are young at art and cheeky to boot. You may double up with laughter when you realise that the dinosaurs in their mammoth canvas are made up of plastic dispensing bottles and laughter, canned or bottled, is indeed the best medicine that 32-year-old Jiten Thukral and 29-year-old Sumir Tagra dispense with glee. The pop artists are laughing all the way to the bank, for the solitary painting from their collection New Improved BosedK has reaped rich rewards for them and their promoters (Peter Nagy of Nature Morte and Mortimer Chatterjee & Tara Lal of Chatterjee & Lal) by heading towards a significant collection for an equally significant price.

The irony is that the unstoppable duo’s fake brand BosedK was manufactured to stop us in mid stride amidst the inexorable march of consumerism and mall culture. “BosedK is an anglicised version of an abuse commonly spoken in most Indian languages,” they reiterate, explaining the genesis of their witty line of products (like chocolate syrup bottles with labels displaying portraits of wannabe Americans from Gurgaon). “The show is about consumerism, as we want to create a platform for an exchange of thoughts and ideas on this issue,” says an uncharacteristically grave Thukral. The execution of their concept may be playful, with the gallery transformed into a supermarket where one can pick things off the shelves, but T&T hopes it rings an alarm bell, and an ominous announcement, ‘Coming soon to your neighbourhood,’ serves to underline this intent.

Their collaboration is formidable, one that has earned laurels almost as soon as it was formed in Y2K, when they began experimenting with a variety of media ranging from painting, installation and video to music, fashion, graphic and product design. Besides participating in prestigious exhibitions like Art Basel, Switzerland; MOCA Shanghai; Marella Gallery, Milano; Bose Pacia, New York; The Armory Show, New York; FIAC, Paris; Taipei Art Show, Taipei; Armani Casa, Milan; Nature Morte, New Delhi as well as multiple international art auctions, they have also been listed in ‘101 Emerging Designers of the World’ by Wallpaper magazine in 2006. Being provocative comes easy to this new brand of artists. Remember the AIDS awareness campaign, conceived as an art installation at the Bose Pacia gallery in New York, where they unleashed a series of Put It On underwear and accessories, with a visual guide on how to put on a condom?

Coming up next is Somnium Genero (Dream Sequence) at Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, followed by Making a Café in Tokyo – both in April this year. Meanwhile, the mavericks continue to chase their ultimate goal, “to build better living standards and faith for people, and also to be happy.”