Exhibition at sepiaEYE chronicles contemporary LGBTQ life in Delhi
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, November 21, 2024


Exhibition at sepiaEYE chronicles contemporary LGBTQ life in Delhi
Sunil Gupta & Charan Singh, Jatin #1, 2017. Courtesy sepiaEYE.



NEW YORK, NY.- sepiaEYE presents the groundbreaking exhibition Delhi: Communities of Belonging by noted photographers Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh that chronicles contemporary LGBTQ life in Delhi. Gupta and Singh’s project masterfully enables us to witness the intimate, ordinary and loving moments of 17 diverse individuals and couples. Gupta and Singh have created a rich and tender mosaic of the ways in which a diverse set of sitters navigate life, work and love in a country where antisodomy laws dating back to the British Empire were only recently struck down in 2009 and then were restored after the Supreme Court turned back the ruling in 2013.

Gupta and Singh photographed an array of friendship networks accentuating human warmth through the thoughtful dialogue that departs from a pre-supposed victim narrative of queer lives. Ponni and Indu share an intimate hug, Jatin plays gently with his daughter on a bed, and Rituparnah enjoys the company of her cat; these are just a few of the moments that capture how each of Gupta and Singh’s subjects stakes a place for themselves in the vast city of Delhi, in a country with very few formal spaces for queer communities to meet.

Gupta and Singh have previously created work that address gender and sexuality in India. Gupta’s recent series Mr. Malhotra’s Party, for instance, collects environmental portraits of queer Delhi residents in public places, all gazing directly at the camera. The individuals in Singh’s series of studio portraits, Kothis, Hijras, Giriyas and Others engage the camera in a similar way, by responding to and resisting virile masculine discourse.

This present project originated when Gupta and Singh were approached by The New Press to compile a book about the LGBTQ community in Delhi. The result is a stunning series of more than 150 full-color documentary photographs and companion first-person texts that together offer an unprecedented portrait of queer people’s lives in India today. The book was launched to rave reviews in November, 2016. Indian historian and gay studies scholar Saleem Kidwai remarked: “... A visible queer community has emerged in Delhi over the past two decades. What was silent and private has emerged into the public sphere. Gupta’s and Singh’s work bears testimony to this.” Some of the works were featured in January at the Victoria and Albert Museum to highlight the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalization of homosexuality in England and Wales.

The show at sepiaEYE features photographs from the series which to date have remained unseen and unpublished.

Sunil Gupta (b. Delhi, 1953) is an artist, writer, activist and curator. His work has been shown internationally in over 90 solo exhibitions, most recently at Yale University, New Haven, CT (2015). Significant group exhibitions include Paris - Delhi - Bombay... at the Pompidou Centre (2011) and Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980s Britain at the Tate Liverpool (2013). Gupta’s curatorial efforts were paramount in the monumental exhibition, Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh at The Whitechapel Gallery, London and Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2010). Gupta’s published work includes the monographs Queer: Sunil Gupta (Prestel/Vadehra Art Gallery, 2011); Wish You Were Here: Memories of a Gay Life (Yoda Press, New Delhi, 2008); and Pictures From Here (Chris Boot Ltd., New York, 2003).

He is currently Visiting Professor at UCA, Farnham, and visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, UK. His work is included in numerous private and public collections including; George Eastman House (Rochester, USA), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Royal Ontario Museum, Tate Britain, The Philadelphia Museum of Art and Harvard University. The esteemed photography festival, FOTOFEST, has announced that the lead curator for its 2018 Biennial will be SepiaEYE artist Sunil Gupta. Gupta is an excellent choice given the Biennial’s theme: INDIAContemporary Photography and New Media Art.

Charan Singh (b. Delhi, 1978) lives and works in New Delhi and London. He is currently a PhD candidate in Photography at the Royal College of Art, London. Singh’s photographic practice is informed by HIV/AIDS work and community activism in India along with a formal study of the history of art and photography.

He is interested in interrogating and responding to the void that exists in visual representations of desires, identities, gender, sexualities, love and relationships, in contemporary queer culture. He won the Magnum Graduate Photographers Award 2016. His work has been exhibited at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (2014), The Photographers Gallery, London (2015), FotoFest, Houston (2015), GFEST, London (2015) and SepiaEYE, New York (2016).










Today's News

April 2, 2017

Internationally acclaimed artist James Rosenquist dies in New York at age 83

Paris Pompidou Centre museum shut by security guard strike

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac opens exhibition of new work by German artist Georg Baselitz

New Munnings exhibition explores the little known landscapes of the equestrian artist for the first time

Dorotheum Auction Week to feature Old Master paintings, 19th century paintings, works of art, and jewellery

Dylan the Enigmatic accepts 2016 Nobel prize at last

Hermann Historica to offer a fascinating array of objects from antiquity and the Middle Ages

Harn Museum of Art displays miniature works of Asian art

MPavilion 2016 designed by Indian architect Bijoy Jain gifted to Melbourne Zoo

Heather James Fine Art presents California Impressionism exhibition

Bronze royal tent support leads Bonhams Islamic and Indian Art Sale

NEH awards $173,833 grant to VMFA to digitize Louis Draper archive

Exhibition spotlights the convergence of fashion and craft in the Counterculture movement

Los Angeles Modern Auctions announces date for Spring 2017 Auction

The Petworth Park Antiques & Fine Art Fair to be held in May

Exhibition explores the politics of the gaze and otherness via the female body

Exhibition marks Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg's return to their signature stop-motion animation style

African faces in Paris look for art buyers at Piasa auction

Crawford Art Gallery exhibits short film by Jasmina Cibic

Exhibition at sepiaEYE chronicles contemporary LGBTQ life in Delhi

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, angry young poet of Soviet thaw

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions to offer transport related items

Assouline to publish 'Maria by Callas' by Tom Volf in May




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful