Dayanita Singh: Chairs

Here she began to photograph the Museum’s collection and was drawn mainly to chairs – making studies of these objects as though they were the people she would have photographed in her earlier work.

Through arresting and intimate images Singh continues to explore the idea of portraiture of spaces and things – devoid of the human figure yet evoking a sense of warmth and connectivity. These photographs of furniture convey a strong spirit of place (they come from a wide range of locations: from Florence to Boston to Calcutta) and of past lives. Singh’s individual subjects often seem to take on their own personalities, inanimate objects communicating a sense of status, age, and gender.

Looking at the photographs it’s often hard to tell at a glance when and where they were taken. They look old and new, Western and Indian and of course they are in some sense, both – the one because of the other.

These works were first shown at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston USA and we are very grateful for their help and collaboration in the realisation of this exhibition.

Chairs is accompanied by a specially designed, limited edition publication