James Cohan Brings us Gauri Gill: The Face of New India
Installation View, Gauri Gill, various works from the series Acts of Appearance, 2015 – ongoing, archival pigment print, 58th International Art Exhibition – Venice Biennale, May You Live In Interesting Times | Photographer: Francesco Gall, May 11 - November 24, 2019. © Courtesy the Artist & James Cohan, New York.
Part of the magic of photography is being able to use it as a means of travel, and see parts of the world that we otherwise wouldn’t. The West’s understanding of India, however, is encumbered by a tired, one-dimensional portrayal, which focuses on poverty and patriarchal orientation. Enter Gauri Gill, a New Delhi-based artist who, by taking us to marginalized communities in India through her photography, offers us a new view of her beautiful and richly textured country. Gill has made it her life’s work to push back against this extant representation of India. She shows us the quotidian, rural India, by which she introduces India anew.
Untitled (3) from the series Acts of Appearance, 2015-ongoing. Archival pigment print. 60 x 40 in. 152.4 x 101.6 cm. Courtesy Line: Courtesy the Artist & James Cohan, New York.
Consider Gill’s Acts of Appearance, whose title speaks to her attempt to individualize and gain control of the narrative. In this project, she utilizes colorful papier-mâché masks made by artists of the Kokna and Warli tribes in Maharashtra. For these tribes, the construction and wearing of masks has a special and significant place in the community. Sacred masks are made for ceremonial purposes. However, by making a new set of masks, Gill and her collaborators go beyond tradition, thereby creating a new narrative while using this traditional technique.
Untitled (37) from the series Acts of Appearance, 2015-ongoing. Archival pigment print. 42 x 28 in. 106.7 x 71.1 cm. © Courtesy the Artist & James Cohan, New York.
Notes from the Desert is an archival project (with over forty-thousand negatives) in which Gill photographs daily life in Western Rajasthan, a region near the border of Pakistan. Behind the scenes, there are various narratives occurring, as well as constant change that is not easily observable. Note that the images are constituted of silver-gelatin photographs, and that the style of many of the photos changes, from posed studio pictures, for example, to cinéma vérité. Gill hopes to make books out of these pictures, giving her viewers the chance to receive a note from the desert, and perhaps even respond.
Untitled (48) from the series Acts of Appearance, 2015-ongoing. archival pigment print. 60 x 40 in. 152.4 x 101.6 cm. ©Courtesy the Artist & James Cohan, New York.
Untitled (49) from the series Acts of Appearance, 2015-ongoing. Archival pigment print. 42 x 28 in. 106.7 x 71.1 cm. © Courtesy the Artist & James Cohan, New York.
Gill refocuses such communities from the margins to the center, not to show us what’s lacking, but instead, to show us what we are missing. She explores the different people and different narratives at play. Although the photographs do show conditions that are unjust, unfair, and unequal, that is neither their exclusive angle nor their exclusive subject. Instead, they are about how these people make do in the face of such seeming adversity. Rather than orienting her work as a lecture on what there is to see in a given people or place, she attempts open a dialogue between the subject and the viewer.
Hanuman Nath with his daughter Hina, and Hem Nath, on Holi day, Lunkaransar, from the series Notes from the Desert, 1999-ongoing. Silver gelatin print. 24 x 30 in. 61 x 76.2 cm. © Courtesy the Artist & James Cohan, New York
Jogi Panchayat near Dungargarh, from the series Notes from the Desert, 1999-ongoing
Silver gelatin print. 11 x 14 in. 27.9 x 35.6 cm. ©Courtesy the Artist & James Cohan, New York.
Karima and Nimli, in a home destroyed by flooding due to extra rain, Lunkarasar, from the series Notes from the Desert, 1999-ongoing. Silver gelatin print. 24 x 30 inches. © Courtesy the Artist & James Cohan, New York.
Gill’s work will be displayed virtually in James Cohan’s gallery from September 2 to October 31. To view more of Gauri Gill’s work, click here.
