The self and the other
dal 8/7/2009 al 26/9/2009
Segnalato da
Sheba Chhachhi
Nikhil Chopra
Gauri Gill
Sunil Gupta
Vidura Jang Bahadur
Anita Khemka
Anay Mann
Anup Mathew Thomas
Prashant Panjiar
Dileep Prakash
Pushpamala N.
Tejal Shah
Ketaki Sheth
Ebenezer Sunder Singh
Devika Daulet-Singh
Luisa Ortinez
8/7/2009
The self and the other
Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona
Portraiture in Indian Contemporary Photography. The exhibition presents 250 works by 16 photographers, it delves into the extremely complex framework of contemporary life in the subcontinent and explores portraiture as a distinguishing mark and primary vehicle of meaning. The show is focuses on the "binary aspect": the notion of selfhood and how this has been placed in a map of identities. The photographers come from journalism, or are documentalists or plastic artists for whom the use of the medium of photography is essential.
Sheba Chhachhi, Nikhil Chopra, Gauri Gill, Sunil Gupta, Vidura Jang Bahadur, Anita Khemka, Anay Mann, Anup Mathew Thomas, Prashant Panjiar, Dileep Prakash, Pushpamala N., Tejal Shah, Ketaki Sheth, Ebenezer Sunder Singh.
Curators: Devika Daulet-Singh and Luisa Ortinez
Photography in India has been and still is extremely relevant. Major group exhibitions in recent years have revealed the panorama of plastic art in contemporary India. However, this is the first exhibition to focus exclusively on photography.
The self and the other presents a vision of photography in India through 250 works by 16 photographers. The exhibition delves into the extremely complex framework of contemporary life in the subcontinent and explores portraiture as a distinguishing mark and primary vehicle of meaning.
The self and the other focuses on the "binary aspect" of the photographic view; the notion of selfhood and how this has been placed in a map of identities. The exhibition is structured into two areas: self-portraits in which the photographer carries out performances or role-playing games; and photographs which capture the idea of ‘the other’, not ‘the ethnographic other’ but rather the one that gathers, documents or describes social groups by questioning the setting and the society to which they belong.
The selected photographers come from different fields of photography, such as photo journalism, or are documentalists or plastic artists for whom the use of the medium of photography is essential in their work. Each of them is represented by works which are parts of series or complete series, and this enables us to explore the issue they deal with and go more deeply into meaning.
From when photography was introduced into India in the middle of the 19th century until the end of the 1970s, there were photographers who saw photography as a vocation or as a pastime. They provide images recently recovered from old archives of exceptional poetic quality and normally taken in the family circle. The exhibition presents two photographers through a selection of portraits taken of their children: Richard Bartholomew (1926-1985) and Umrao Singh Sher-Gil (1870-1954). The latter, who was a pioneer in the mise-en-scène genre in India, also begins the exhibition with a selection of 30 vintage self-portraits.
The self and the other brings us a new scenario which is open to dialogue and features the varied realities of a country through the lenses of some of its most representative artists.
Image: Nikhil Chopra, Without title, 2008, 121,9 x 182,8 cm.
Credit de la fotografia: Rohan Mukherjee.
Credit del vestuari: Tabasheer Zutshi.
Credit per Nikhil Chopra/Chatterjee & Lal
Opening 9 july 2009
La Virreina
Palau de la Virreina, La Rambla 99, 08002 Barcelona
tuesday-friday: 11-14 & 16-20:30 h
saturday: 11-20:30 h
sunday & festive: 11-15 h