Gauri Gill
dal 26/2/2014 al 28/3/2014
Segnalato da
26/2/2014
Gauri Gill
Thomas Erben Gallery, New York
"Balika Mela" and "Jannat". Gill's work is built upon a sense of trust and kinship, achieved through long-term relationships with rural Indian organizations, communities, and families.
Thomas Erben is pleased to present the gallery’s first solo exhibition with New
Delhi based photographer Gauri Gill. Combining formal clarity with a strong
compassion for her subjects, Gill gives us a personal and straightforward view of
the girls she portrays.
Gauri Gill’s work is built upon a sense of trust and kinship, achieved through
long-term relationships with rural Indian organizations, communities, and families.
For the series Balika Mela, she traveled to a village in Rajasthan – where she has
been photographing since 1999 – as a local educational organization had invited her
to “do something with photography” at a Balika Mela, a fair for girls. Wanting to
give them substantial influence over how they were represented, Gill set up a tent
at the fairground where these girls could have their portraits taken, providing
basic props and backdrops. The images were composed in collaboration between
everyone involved – the subjects, the photographer, the bystanders – producing
striking black and white photographs where the girls pose alone or in groups, often
looking straight into the camera. In a patriarchal society where the freedom of
girls and women is constantly restricted, this process – as well as Gill’s
photography classes where the girls learn to take their own pictures – gave them a
chance to reflect on their own situation and experience a higher degree of
independence. Meeting their intent, sometimes almost defiant eyes, we witness a
moment of nascent self-determination.
Visually, the artist does a lot with only a few simple elements. The girls in Balika
Mela are posed in front of fabric backdrops, using various props of their own
choosing: wearing paper hats, holding flowers or cameras, relating to each other and
the viewer through touch or gestures. The interplay between subjects and background
fabrics creates a delicate balance, where figuration intersects the abstraction of
contrasting patterns, lines and shapes. These works are complemented by a more
documentary series, Jannat, where Gill photographed a girl and her small, imperiled
family in a Muslim hamlet in remote and rural Western Rajasthan, over the course of
eight years. Here, the structure is narrative rather than conceptual, offering
intimate glimpses into everyday life by erasing the line between photographer and
family members.
Gauri Gill (b. 1970, Chandigarh, India) received an MFA from Stanford University in
2002, following two BFAs: Delhi College of Art (1992), and Parsons School of Design
(1994). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Nature Morte, New Delhi
(2012, 2010, 2008); Green Cardamom, London (2011); Bose Pacia, New York (2009) and
Kolkata (2008); and Chatterjee and Lal, Mumbai (2008). Curators such as Iftikar
Dadi; Betti-Sue Hertz; Ranjit Hoskote; Geeta Kapur; Deeksha Nath; Raqs Media
Collective; Gayatri Sinha; and Robert Storr, to name a few, have included her work
in group shows. Selected exhibiting institutions are: Indira Gandhi National Center,
New Delhi; Rote Fabrik, Zurich; The Contemporary Art Institute of Southern
Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Asia House, London; Yerba
Buena Center, San Francisco; Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; Whitechapel Gallery,
London; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Yale Art Gallery, New Haven; and Musee
Quai Branly, Paris.
Edition Patrick Frey, Zurich, published her photo book Balika Mela in 2012,
launching it at the Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Opening reception: Thursday, February 27, 6-8:30 pm
Thomas Erben Gallery
526 West 26th Street, floor 4 New York
Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm
Admission free