Dec 3, 2007

India: Public Places, Private Spaces - Photographers Bios

RAVI AGARWAL (b. 1958) is a photographer and an environmentalist. His photography examines work, labor, and the street within the domain of public spaces. As an environmentalist, he is founder and director of Toxics Link, an organization that collects and shares information about the sources and dangers of poisons in the environment. Agarwal’s solo exhibitions include Alien Waters, India International Centre Gallery, New Delhi, 2006; Down and Out, New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Amsterdam, 2000; and A Street View, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, New Delhi, 1995. He has also participated in Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany 2002; Crossing Generations: diVERGE: Forty years of Gallery Chemould, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, 2003; Self x Social, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jahawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2005, and Watching Me Watching India, Fotografie Forum International, Frankfurt, Germany, 2006. Agarwal lives and works in New Delhi.

PABLO BARTHOLOMEW (b. 1955) a world-renowned photojournalist, has participated in various solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Art Heritage Gallery, New Delhi; the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai; and La Musée de L’Homme, Paris. He has participated in many major group exhibitions at venues including the Photographer's Gallery, London; the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; the International Center of Photography, New York, the Asian Arts Museum, San Francisco, and the Queens Museum of Art, New York. Bartholomew has received many honors including a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council, New York, 1987; World Press Photo Award for Picture of the Year 1985; a World Press Photo Award, Holland, 1976 and a Press Institute of India: Best Young Photographer, 1975. Bartholomew is based in New Delhi.

SHAHID DATAWALA (b. 1974) worked for India Magazine as a freelance photographer from 1995 to 1998 and has been working for First City, a Delhi-based magazine, as a freelance photographer for the last 4 years. His solo exhibitions include A Walk with Pillars, Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, 2001; and Dress Circle, Foss Gandi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Calcutta, New Delhi, 2006-7. His honors include a grant from the Ford Foundation and a grant from Sarai, a new media initiative of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi. A multi-talented artist, Datawala is the chief designer for Palatte, a high-end furniture design store in Mumbai. He also designs jewelry. Datawala lives and works in Mumbai.

GAURI GILL (b. 1970) completed a B.F.A. in Applied Art in 1992 from the Delhi College of Art, New Delhi. In 1994, she earned a B.F.A. in photography at Parsons the New School for Design, New York where she interned with Mary Ellen Mark. She finished her M.F.A. in photography at Stanford University where she was awarded one of five artists' fellowships. From 1995 to 2000 she was a photographer with Outlook magazine, New Delhi. Gill has pursued many editorial and curatorial projects and has been teaching photography in the American School, New Delhi since 2003. From 1995 to 2000 she was a photographer with Outlook magazine, New Delhi. Gill has participated in exhibitions including Women Photographers from SAARC Countries, Italian Cultural Center, New Delhi 2005; Award Winners Show, Fifty Crows Foundation, San Francisco 2002; and In Black and White: What Has Independence Meant for Women, Admit One Gallery, New York 1998. Her honors include a Fifty Crows Award, a Senior Arts Fellowship at the American Institute of Indian Studies, University of Chicago, 2002; and an award from the Anita Squires Fowler Memorial Fund in Photography, Stanford University, 2001. Gill lives and works in New Delhi.

SUNIL GUPTA (b. 1953) earned an M.A. in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London in 1983. As photographer, curator, and activist, he has worked extensively to represent Indian photography at the local level as well as at international exhibitions. Gupta has been exhibited widely, and in recent years, he has participated in exhibitions at the Museum Ludwig, Köln; the Hayward Gallery, London; Metro Pictures, New York; and the Bombay Art Gallery, Mumbai. His books include An Economy of Signs: Contemporary Indian Photography, 1990; Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology, 1990; Disrupted Borders: Interventions in Definitions of Boundaries, 1993; and Pictures From Here, 2003. He has curated and organized exhibitions since 1989 and co-researched Click! Indian Photography Now for the Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi. He is the co-founder of Autograph, the Association of Black Photographers, and contributed to the formation of Institute of International Visual Arts in London. In his role as an activist, he teaches photography at Bluebells School, is a member of the Nigah Media Collective, a queer activist group, and he is part of Camerawork, Delhi. Gupta lives and works in Delhi.

ANNU PALAKUNATHU MATTHEW (b. 1964) received her B.Sc. in Mathematics from the Women's Christian College, Chennai in 1986 and her M.F.A. in photography from the University of Delaware, Newark in 1997. She has had her work included in many recent exhibitions at prestigious venues such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Light Work, Syracuse, NY; Sepia International Inc., New York City; the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence; the Noorderlicht International Photo Festival, the Netherlands, 2006; and Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal Biennale, 2005. Matthew has been the recipient of many recent grants including the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship; a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship; and the American Institute of Indian Studies Creative Arts Fellowship. She was recently an artist in residence at Yaddo, an artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, NY, and at the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH. Matthew’s work can be found in the collections of George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ; and the RISD Museum, among others. In addition, Matthew’s photography is included in BLINK, from Phaidon Press. The book celebrates today's 100 most exciting international contemporary photographers. Matthew is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston.

RAM RAHMAN (b.1955) is a photographer and designer who has contributed extensively to SAHMAT, a Delhi-based collective of scholars and artists dedicated to cultural pluralism and secularism. Rahman began his photographic education under Jonathan Green at MIT while a physics student in the mid 1970’s. He graduated in with a degree in Graphic Design from the Yale University School of Art in 1979. His first major solo exhibition was at the Shridharani Gallery in Delhi in 1988. Since then, he has had solo exhibitions in New York, Amsterdam, and at the Cleveland Museum of Art. His group shows include exhibitions at the Japan Foundation in Tokyo and the Photographer’s Gallery in London. Rahman has also curated many exhibitions, including a major retrospective of Sunil Janah in New York in 1998 and HEAT, a group show of mainly photographic and video work at Bose Pacia in New York. He has participated in symposia
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London and at the Baroda School of Art. His work has broadly been in black and white, in a personalized documentary style. He is represented in major collections in India and around the world. Rahman lives and works in Delhi.

RAGHU RAI (b. 1942) started making photographs in 1965. In his subsequent career, he has emerged as one of India’s most influential photographers. From 1966 to 1976 he served as chief photographer for The Statesman newspaper, and from 1977 to 1980 was picture editor for Sunday, a weekly news magazine published in Calcutta. In 1971, legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson nominated Rai to Magnum Photos, the world’s most prestigious photographers’ cooperative in Pari. Rai worked as picture editor for from India Today from 1982 to 1991. He was awarded the Padamshree in 1971, one of India’s highest civilian awards ever given to a photographer. In 1992, he was awarded Photographer of the Year in the United States for the story Human Management of Wildlife in India published in National Geographic. He has been on the jury of the World Press Photo Contest three times and twice on UNESCO’s International Photo Contest. He has worked extensively on the photo documentation of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and its continuing effects on the lives of gas victims, under special assignment from Greenpeace International. In the last eighteen years, he has specialized in extensive coverage of India. He has produced more than 18 books including India, 1985; Taj Mahal, 1986; Calcutta, 1989; Khajuraho, 1991; Tibet in Exile, 1991; Raghu Rai’s Delhi, 1992; The Sikhs, 1984, 2002; and Mother Teresa 1971, 1996, 2004. Rai lives and works in New Delhi.

TEJAL SHAH (b. 1979) earned a B.A. in photography from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology of Melbourne in 2000, and she was subsequently exchange scholar at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Shah’s work in video and performative photography is concerned with the politics and representation of gender and sexuality. Her solo shows include What Are You?, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai and the Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, 2006; The Tomb Of Democracy, Gallery Pruss & Ochs, Berlin, 2003; In-Transit, Viscom9 Gallery, Melbourne, 2000. Her group exhibitions include Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Museum, New York, 2007; Sexwork – Art, Reality, Myths, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin, 2006; Bombay: Maximum City, Lille, France, 2006, Saturday Live, the Tate Modern, London, 2006; Sub-Contingent: The Indian Subcontinent in Contemporary Art, Fondazione Sandrettoe Re Rebaudengo, Turino, 2006; Indian Summer: La Scène Artistique Indienne, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, 2005; Zoom! The Near And the Far In Contemporary Indian Art, Culturgest Museum, Lisbon, 2004; 14th International Electronic Art Festival-Videobrasil, Southern Competitive Show, Sao Paulo, 2003; Cross-Fertilization: Contemporary Indian Video Art, Multi Media Art Asia Pacific, 2002. Shah was co-founder, organizer and curator for Larzish, International Film Festival of Sexuality and Gender Plurality, India, 2003, and she contributed to Women Video Letters; A Second Text On War- An International Initiative of Women Filmmakers. Shah lives and works in Mumbai

RAGHUBIR SINGH (1942-1999) was a self-taught photographer who worked in India and lived in Paris, London, and New York. In the early 1970s, he was one of the first photographers to reinvent the use of color at a time when color photography was still a marginal art form. In his early work, Singh focused on the geographic and social anatomy of cities and regions of India. His work on Mumbai in the early 1990s marks a turning point in his stylistic development. While photographing the metropolis, his visual language acquired a new complexity. In addition to his photographic work, Singh taught in New York at the School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, and the Cooper Union. In 1998, the Art Institute of Chicago organized a retrospective exhibition of his work, and the book River of Colour was published to accompany the show. Singh is represented in numerous solo and group exhibitions, among the most recent at Lille 3000, 2006; the National Media Museum, Bradford, UK, 2005; Sepia International, New York, 2004; and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2003. His work is in the collections of the Tate Modern; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan
Museum of Art; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; the San Francisco Museum of Art; the Milwaukee Art Museum; Museum of Modern Art Oxford, the Pecci Museum of Contemporary Art, Prato; the Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA; the National Media Museum, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

MANISH SWARUP (b. 1968) is an accredited photo-journalist, working with the Associated Press, New Delhi. He has covered war-torn Iraq and traveled to post-war Kosovo in Yugoslavia and Kabul, Afghanistan. Swarup has extensively covered conflict zones in South Asia, and he covered the 2004 tsunami devastation from Port Blair, India. Some of his other work within India includes coverage of militancy in Kashmir, the earthquake in Gujarat, floods in Orissa, the Kumbh Mela, and Indian politics. He also has built a photo document of masters of classical Indian music. Swarup won the Best Photograph Award on the Kargil war from the Government of India, a second prize from the International Committee of Red Cross for best picture depicting Human Dignity In War, and several prizes and awards for his 1997 photographs on 50 years of Indian Independence. In May 2004, he held a solo exhibition of his photographs at the Shridharani Art Gallery, New Delhi, and has since contributed to several photography volumes on India. Swarup lives and works in New Delhi.

RAJESH VORA (b. 1954) studied Visual Communication at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and started his career as a graphic designer. Since 1990, he has worked as an independent editorial and documentary photographer, focusing on issues related to rapid cultural change and subsequent cultural loses. His concern with urban issues and the environment has led him to work in collaborative projects with architects, filmmakers, and environmentalists. For over a decade, Vora has contributed to Colors magazine as photographer, idea contributor, writer, and he has also participated in projects of Fabrica, a visual arts organization in Brighton, U.K. He has contributed to photography books on urban issues and architecture and his group exhibitions include Another Asia, Noorderlict Photo Festival, the Netherlands, 2006; Bombay, Maximum City, France, 2006; Middle Age Spread: Imaging India 1947-2004, National Museum, New Delhi, 2004; International Photography Biennale, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, 2005; Woman/Goddess, New York and India, 1998-2001. Vora lives and works in Mumbai.

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