Monday, November 18, 2019

Pratik Book Reviews: American Photographer and Art Critic, Williams-Krishnan on Contemporary Image-based Art




India/Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art, conceived and edited by Steven Evans and Sunil Gupta, (Fotofest, Inc. and Schilt Publishing), is a much-needed spotlight on contemporary image-based art produced by people of Indian origin. This book is the companion to Houston’s Fotofest 2018 Biennale which featured a show on this topic curated by Sunil Gupta in the Houston area during the Biennale.

Gupta and Evans have put together a group of 47 artists who visually represent current themes related to India and/or Indian identity in a variety of ways. Important to note is that this book (and exhibition) focuses on art made since 2000. Gupta curated a show of South Asian Art from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh for the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 2010 and he notes that this exhibition and book is the next installation of this effort.

Accompanying the work of the artists are four essays that shed light on the various practices in the book. Gupta writes about his own efforts to discover and uplift the voice of contemporary photography dealing with his country of origin. In a recent conversation with Gupta at a dinner in Cambridge, MA, Gupta told the small group that artists from non-western regions don’t need members of the West to speak for them or to ‘validate’ their work. He did, however, express the importance of inclusion in shows and gallery representation. This book and Fotofest 2018 provided Gupta and these various artists with a platform for exposure and an opportunity to edify all who engage with the work.

Three other essays accompany the work. Guyatri Sinha, critic, curator and founder of the Critical Collective forum writes about identity and self-representation in Indian photography through time. Curator Nada Razaalso considers identity but via the role of artists who utilize impersonation and imitation. Cultural critic and author, Zahid R. Chaudhary, looks at how politics and social friction are visually represented in the context of postcolonial and post-liberalized India.

                        Sunil Gupta

The photographers included in the collection represent a wide variety of approaches to themes and methods of expression. Some of the work is firmly rooted in interpretive documentation of India’s land and cultures. For example, Rishi Singhal’s A River Story is concerned with the sacred Ganga River and how it passes through the land and the heart of India. Gauri Gill’s series, Jannat 1999-2007 follows the life of a girl and her family living on the margins of society in a remote hamlet in rural Rajasthan. Including photographs of Jannat and her family, as well as images of some of her artifacts, Gill creates a touching story reminding us that many people remain vulnerable.

Other artists are working on issues of identity and social concerns within India. Mithu Sen has produced a very touching and poignant body of work, I Have Only One Language; it is not Mine. Sen has found a visceral way to visually represent the gaps in nurturing and memory that abandoned girls living in an orphanage in Kerala might experience. In the series, Where They Belong, Vinit Gupta has photographed Mahan, the the last patch of forest in a coal mining town in central India. Indigenous people have been in struggle with the State over the right to their land, which is being threatened by the State for its coal reserves.

Another genre of work investigates identity through performance. Chennai based Nandinni Valli Muthia, in her work The Definitive Reincarnate, for example, has recreated scenes in which her model represents Krishna and Vishnu with mythical references mixed with mundane details of the settings of daily life. New England based Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, in her series An Indian from India, creates self-portraits in which she references photographs of Native American Indians in the US. She presents the work as diptychs showing the original image of the Native American Indian and her performed self-portrait.

In summary, the 47 photographers represented in this book present many engaging approaches to issues important in and about India today. This collection of images, and the accompanying set of essays, is a welcome showcase of artists who are grappling with the dynamic, multi-layered cultures of India and the threads of Indian identity.

India/Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art,
Steven Evans and Sunil Gupta,
Fotofest, Inc. and Schilt Publishing, 2018



Julie Williams-Krishnan is a fine art photographer and the Director of Programs at the Griffin Museum of Photography. She has exhibited her photographs at the Cambridge Art Association, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Khaki Gallery, and Zullo Gallery in the Boston region, the Colson Gallery in Easthampton, Massachusetts, The Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado, the  A. Smithson Gallery in Texas, as well as other venues. Based in Boston Massachusetts since 2010, Julie lived in London, UK for more than 16 years and has traveled extensively.


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