The Bagri Foundation is supporting ‘From Here to Eternity’, which marks the first major retrospective of UK based photographer, Sunil Gupta (b.1953, New Delhi, India). Spanning five decades, the exhibition will bring together all the key series from his pioneering photographic practice for the first time, as well as presenting never-before exhibited works.
Subversive, impulsive, personal and political, Sunil Gupta’s socially engaged practice has focused on themes of identity, family, race, migration and the complexities and taboos of sexuality.
Sunil completed a doctoral program at the University of Westminster in 2018. Educated at the Royal College of Art, Sunil has been involved with independent photography as a critical practice for many years focusing on race, migration and queer issues. In the 1980s, he constructed documentary images of gay men in architectural spaces in Delhi, his “Exiles” series. The images and texts describe the conditions for gay men in India at the times.
Sunil’s series “Mr. Malhotra’s Party” updates this theme during a time in which queer identities are more open and also reside in virtual space on the internet and in private parties. His early series “Christopher Street, New York” was shot in the mid-1970s as he studied under Lisette Model at the New School for Social Research and became interested in the idea of gay public space.
A committed activist, his work has been instrumental in raising awareness around the political realities concerning the fight for international gay rights and making visible the tensions between traditional and contemporary societies, public and private, the body and body politics. This retrospective is a timely reflection and overview of his politically engaged work that continues to tackle these ongoing issues.
Taking place over two floors of The Photographer's Gallery (9 October 2020 - 24 Jan 2021), this retrospective will bring together works from sixteen of his series from across his divergent and extensive career, from Christopher Street (1976), the first series of photographs Sunil made as a practicing artist, where he documented the burgeoning gay scene in Greenwich Village; to mural-sized narrative portraits such as From Here to Eternity (1999) produced following his diagnosis as HIV positive in 1995, they explore his experiences of living with the virus, his fear of death and how his community reacted after being diagnosed.
From his coming out while migrating with his family to Montreal, to participating in New York’s active Gay Liberation Movement in the 1970s and being an active campaigner in the early AIDS movement, to his more recent campaigning in India and around the world, Sunil has been inspirational to generations of activist photographers and LGBTQ+ rights advocates.
The exhibition is curated by Dr Mark Sealy MBE (Autograph ABP, London) in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery, London and the Ryerson Image Centre (Toronto). The exhibition will premiere at The Photographers’ Gallery before travelling to the Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto in Autumn 2021. The exhibition is supported by the Bagri Foundation.
A new publication will be published by the organising partners to accompany the exhibition. Designed by Fraser Muggeridge studio, it will focus on ephemera and map the encounters and events that chart Gupta’s political and personal journey.
A rich programme of online talks, special events and workshops exploring key themes and contexts will be announced shortly. These will be led by a range of writers, artists, activists and theorists including Raisa Kabir, Dr Mark Sealy MBE, Mason Leaver-Yap and the artist himself, Sunil Gupta. Talks and Events programme supported by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation.
Visit tpg.org.uk for details.
