Father,Son and Camera

The black-and-white photographs of the 1960s Delhi landmarks Rabindra Bhavan,Mathurs Chanakya Cinema and Heinzs Jamia buildings tell us how drastically the Capital has changed.

The black-and-white photographs of the 1960s Delhi landmarks Rabindra Bhavan,Mathurs Chanakya Cinema and Heinzs Jamia buildings tell us how drastically the Capital has changed. Gone are the symmetrical singular columns,the complex jalis that let in natural light,the skylights,the perfectly balanced arches and staircases. These have been replaced with false ceilings,stodgy fibre-glass railings and characterless slabs of gray concrete.

Photographer Ram Rahmans latest solo exhibition at Delhis India International Centre,which opened on Thursday evening,is not just an artistic endeavour but also an effort to use photography to revisit some of the nodal Bauhaus Modernist structures of Delhi. Rahman has juxtaposed his own photographs of the buildings in their current state with classic images taken by his father,Habib Rahman.

Unfortunately,the architecture that replaces the Nehruvian vision is what I call the Karol Bagh aesthetic which is retrograde and tacky and it does away with the simplicity,confidence and symmetry of the past, says Rahman,who showcases his photographs taken over the last 35 years with the vintage photographs taken by his father,who was also the architect of many of these buildings. This section of the exhibition is mounted like an Agitprop campaign,with news clippings and images mounted like digital posters on flex banners,and vitrines containing old photographs,booklets on architecture,correspondence between his father and heads of state and old maps. The rest consists of a set of colour gelatine photographic prints that act as portrait tributes to the workers restoring Humayuns Tomb.

The restoration of the Humayuns Tomb,Sunder Nursery and Nizammuddin Basti complex,by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and ASI is my comment on

Destroying the New and Restoring the Old,the opposite of what is happening at Rabindra Bhavan. The workers portraits are a tribute to those who do the actual work, says Rahman.

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Father,Son and Camera

The black-and-white photographs of the 1960s Delhi landmarks  Rabindra Bhavan,Mathurs Chanakya Cinema and Heinzs Jamia buildings  tell us how drastically the Capital has changed.

The black-and-white photographs of the 1960s Delhi landmarks Rabindra Bhavan,Mathurs Chanakya Cinema and Heinzs Jamia buildings tell us how drastically the Capital has changed.