Subodh Gupta is the superstar of the Indian contemporary art scene. In the background is an untitled brass installation, 2010

Come September and humble kitchen utensils — steel pots, pans and spoons — will pirouette at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. They will be making a surprising debut as helmets, hats and backdrops for Apocalypse, Bolshoi Ballet’s upcoming production.

Contemporary Indian art’s poster boy, Subodh Gupta, is the scenographer for Apocalypse, and is busy fashioning the backdrop with his signature objects that have made his artworks iconic.

“The language of art is the same all over the world, which allows me to be anywhere,” says Subodh, who now belongs to the elitist million-dollar art mart.

There’s a lot going on in the lives of Indian art’s First Couple, Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher. Subodh, known in Europe as Delhi’s Damien Hirst, is the reigning superstar of India’s art scene and there hasn’t been a recent Biennale that hasn’t featured him. He’s at Art Basel, the Venice Biennale, the Frieze Art Fair and in Zurich, Brisbane, Seoul, London and Paris.

An untitled work in brass and stainless steel utensils by Subodh

To crown it, in 2008, he became the youngest Indian artist to join the haloed million-dollar league, selling at a Christie’s auction for contemporary Indian art for $1.2 million.

And Bharti just became India’s most valued, contemporary woman artist. Her 2006 work, The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own, fetched a record $1.5 million at the Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction in June.

Subodh, 46, and Bharti, 40, share an easy husband-wife camaraderie, and often one takes off and completes a sentence begun by the other. So, Subodh interjects saying that the dying elephant, in The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own, is not just one of Bharti’s most important work, but is one of the most important works of art made by ‘any’ artist.

But they don’t like talking art prices and say that determining value of a piece is not their role as artists. “We must look beyond the art market buzz,” insists Bharti.

Subodh’s double-height studio in Gurgaon is large, roomy and bright. It’s a study in stainless steel installations made with the stuff of humdrum life that morphs into art objects in his hands.

His schedule is crazy. Besides Apocalypse, there are four solo shows coming up — in Seoul, Zurich, Scotland and Delhi — between September and December this year. “If I meet Subodh in the next four months, I’ll be lucky,” Bharti says wryly.

That’s why they didn’t take off for a family vacation this summer — a first in 10 years for Subodh.

Bharti too isn’t luxuriating in the aftermath of The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own. “There’s no sabbatical and I’m going to kick into gear now,’’ she says.

At the moment she’s excited about what she’s making in her own studio, a stone’s throw from the one we are sitting in. Her current work, she promises, is nothing like anything anybody has seen from her before this. Though she’s used ready-made objects again — she says they are in new materials and have been presented in a completely different way.

She’s poised for her show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo this October. This will be followed by a solo show in Gallery SKE, which represents her in Bangalore. In May 2011, there’s a solo lined up in Paris.

Bharti Kher, who recently became India’s most valued contemporary woman artist, stands before her work, Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholy, Sanguine, 2010

More than India, the duo have caught the imagination of the West. Peter Nagy of Gallery Nature Morte, the only gallery to represent Subodh in India and Bharti in Delhi, says that most of the art audience in India only want art to reside in a comfort zone that doesn’t challenge them.

Says Nagy: “Unfortunately, the Indian art world still remains primarily fixated on painting and does not value artworks in other mediums as highly. The West meanwhile also wants art to be ambitious in scale and materials, they want to see things they’ve never seen before and be challenged by contemporary art.’’

So what makes Subodh and Bharti tick? Subodh says: “Definitely work matters.’’ and Bharti finishes the sentence for him: “But you may also have been at the right place, at the right time and worked with the right people.’’

Arione, 2004, a life-sized mixed media work by Bharti; Courtesy: Gallery ske

Artists sometimes adopt certain motifs that become associated with their work. Bharti and Subodh have picked up ready-made objects but have developed them very differently.

Bharti loves trees and bindis while steel kitchen utensils work for Subodh. “They have remained very true to their own paths and aesthetic choices,” Nagy adds.

Subodh’s pieces are swaggering, exuberant and of great scale. He works in different media including sculpture, painting, photography, video and installations. Nagy says that Subodh is a sculptor first, and it’s his sculptures that have received the most attention worldwide. And between 2005 and 2008 his auction prices rose by exorbitant amounts.

Subodh has blown art lovers away with the stunning a Very Hungry God — a menacing skull, crammed with buckets, tiffin boxes and other kitchen-related steel objects. This was displayed outside Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 2006, and bought by French billionaire Francois Pinault.

Another eye-catching work is Spill, with a huge water vessel at the centre with many smaller steel utensils spilling over the edge in the manner of water pouring out. Line of Control (2008) is an awesome, massive mushroom cloud constructed entirely of pots and pans that was shown in the Tate Triennial in London in 2009.

Subodh says: “Creating an individualistic language is a very tough job for an artist but when an artist finds his vocabulary, it’s a big achievement.”

Kitchen utensils became a means of communication for Subodh some decades ago. “About 80 per cent of the country uses steel at home, and since I love cooking and spend a lot of time in the kitchen, these steel dishes also signify hunger. Both are integral aspects of this country: it’s shining like steel and is also hungry.”

Anupam Poddar, art collector and the man behind India’s first private art museum, Devi Art Foundation, has been long-time friend and admirer of their work.

Bharti, known for her unorthodox use of materials, with details of Solarum Series, 2007 to 2010, in resin and copper

Some of the first works that Poddar acquired were Subodh’s pink cow Rani and My Mother and Me (made of cow dung cakes) and Bharti’s Spit and Swallow (her first bindi work). “I was attracted to the visual puns they seemed to apply,’’ says Poddar.

Poddar says that both have the ability to push the boundaries by experimenting with different ideas, materials and scale.

But Bharti doesn’t want to be typecast by these motifs. She says: “I do other work that lot of people are unaware of.’’ And then as an afterthought: “Frankly, people knew a lot more artists in India than me till the elephant sold.’’

Nagy says: “Bharti’s work is diversified and it’s the unorthodox nature of her use of materials that has received most attention.”

They may be India’s best known contemporary artists today, but Subodh has humble rural roots. Born in Khagaul in Bihar, Subodh’s father, a railway guard, died when Subodh was 12.

After leaving school, Gupta joined a small theatre group in Khagaul and worked as an actor for some years, also painting posters for his plays. This finally also led him to study at the College of Art, Patna.

He arrived in Delhi in 1988 and landed a scholarship from a government-run initiative as well as space to work in the Garhi Art Studios.

He met Bharti in 1992, in Garhi. Bharti was born and brought up in London and in 1991 she graduated with a degree in art from Newcastle Polytechnic.

Subodh, who works in different media including sculpture, painting, photography, videos and installations, sits before a work that’s currently in progress; (below) Miter, 2007, in stainless steel and stainless steel utensils by Subodh

After leaving art college, Bharti decided to travel: “I hadn’t been to India since I was four.” She planned to meet family and some artists in Delhi, and return to England within six months.

But she met Subodh during her second week in Delhi — and that was that. They married in 1993 and lived in the UK for a few years.

Ironically, it was the West which first spotted Subodh’s talent. In 1997, Gupta picked up the Gasworks international residency award to practise at the Gasworks studios in London. A year later, he received the Bose Pacia Award in New York and later ran into Nicolas Bourriaud, French curator and art critic, who offered to show Subodh’s works in France. Gupta says he hasn’t looked back since. The couple eventually relocated to India. She laughs: “I’m a reverse immigrant.’’

Bharti says that in the first 10 years life was a struggle and it was hard even to pay the rent. They lived in one room of a house while the rest of the house was the studio. “Once the kids came, Subodh insisted that I return to work,’’ She says. Their son is now 13 and daughter is seven.

Today, they are each other’s best critics and share opinions “though we don’t always have to agree with those opinions,” she says.

Now after 18 years together, Bharti is realigning their schedules. She put her foot down a couple of years ago and decided that they won’t work on Sunday. That day is now reserved for their children.

Bharti, who works like anyone else in a 10-to-6 job, says: “I’ve kicked 40 now and I need to spend time with my kids,’’ she says. Subodh, a late riser, works from noon to 7.30pm.

He loves to cook (though she says he doesn’t cook enough) and she loves to read. But both agree that artists “never really switch off.”

They love being a part of the art world. “It’s the best place to be. You are surrounded by people who understand art, you eat the best food and drink the best wine,” she says, smiling.

But the Indian art scene needs a shake-up. She rues the fact that there are no museums for modern contemporary Indian art in India. “When art lovers come to India and ask us where they can see our works we say: in our studios!’’ shrugs Bharti.

Though, she says that efforts like the forthcoming Kolkata Museum of Modern Art (KMOMA) are commendable and a massive step forward.

Says Bharti: “In India, it was hard for artists 10 years ago and it’s hard for artists today. We are very lucky to be where we are.”