Click Art

Iranian artist Malekeh Nayiny’s series of photographs come of a touching story. While she was in the US,her mother fell ill and passed away before she reached Iran. Nayiny kept some of her things,and then did the same with her father’s,some years later. “I found myself attracted to these objects,incoherent as they were,” the Paris-based artist explains. This fascination resulted in the creation of a series titled Observation that clubs these belongings with photographs of her parents.

When America-born artist Waswo X Waswo first came to India,he dabbled in portraiture on the street. Then in 2006,swayed by the criticisms levied against foreigners photographing in India,he opened a studio in Udaipur. While he continued to photograph a number of people from the street,the studio changed the equation. “When I removed these people from the street,it somehow changed their status from ‘subject’ to ‘model’,and to take it a step further,‘actor’,” he says.

Also taken in a studio but in an entirely different setting are photographs by Delhi-based artist Gauri Gill. In 2010,the non-profit organisation Urmul Setu Santhan organised a fair for girls in Rajasthan’s Lunkaransar town. “During the fair,” Gill says,“I decided to create a photo-stall for anyone to come in and have their portrait taken. I had a few basic props and backdrops,whatever one could get from the local studio and cloth shop on a very limited budget. Many of the more interesting props,like the peacock and the paper hats,were brought in by the girls themselves.” Armed with these props,the girls struck a pose. The result is a series of colourful photographs that have been suspended from the ceiling of the gallery,giving them an ethereal feel.

Sheba Chhachhi’s 1990 series Seven Lives and a Dream: Feminist Portraits,Tejal Shah’s Women Like Us/I Am,Zhang O’s The World Is Yours (But Also Ours) and Han Bing’s two series Everyday Precious and New Culture Movement are also on display at the exhibition.