Dayanita Singh Let You Go
November 20, 2008

NATURE MORTE BERLIN
Zimmerstrasse 90-91 Berlin 10117
www.naturemorte.com / info@naturemorte.com


Gallery Nature Morte of New Delhi is happy to announce the opening of its new gallery space in Berlin.


Dayanita Singh: Opening on November 20th from 6 to 9 pm.
The exhibition continues to January 3rd, 2009.

The opening exhibition will be a solo show of the well-known Indian photographer Dayanita Singh. On display will be three different series of works, all of which focus on communities that exist outside the mainstream in India.

"I Am As I Am" (1999) is the title of Ms. Singh's portfolio of images shot within the Anandamayi Ashram in the city of Varanasi (Benares) which she visited as a child and where her father wanted her to study. Returning as an adult, Ms. Singh questions how her life would have been different had she spent her childhood living there. In these portraits of the girls who are sequestered within this environment emerges a study of the tensions found in India today, played out on the fragile psychologies of its nascent women.

"Myself Mona Ahmed" (1989-2001) is Ms. Singh's portrait of her long-time friend who is a "hjira" (or "trans-gendered" in Western parlance). This suite of photographs is both revealing and taciturn, deeply personal and collaborative. The third series is called "Mira Datar" (1989) and shows the activities at a site in the western-Indian state of Gujarat where the mentally and physically ill hope to be cured. Drawn to the site due to her own condition of epilepsy at the time, in these early works the photographer established a dialog between the self and the other which continues today.

Also on display will be "Sent A Letter" (2008), Ms. Singh's set of seven small books that has been published by Steidl. Each book (Calcutta, Bombay, Allahabad, Padmanabhapuram, Varanasi, Devigarh, Nony Singh) is dedicated to a journey shared with a friend and features small photographs printed on a long, accordion-folded page. Each book is its own self-contained mini-exhibition and displayed on long shelves they provide insight into Ms. Singh's serial practice and editing style. The complete set of seven books in a slip case will be available for sale during the exhibition.

Born in New Delhi in 1961 and now dividing her time between New Delhi, Calcutta and Goa, Dayanita Singh is a graduate of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad (Visual Communications, 1980-86) and studied photojournalism and documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in New York (1987-88). Since completing her studies, she has exhibited in a wide variety of venues all over the world including solo exhibitions at Nature Morte in New Delhi (2009, 2006, 1998), Gallery Chemould in Mumbai (2007, 2002), Frith Street Gallery, London (2008, 2005, 2001) Ikon Gallery in Birmingham (2000), the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, Boston (2005), Scalo, Zurich (2002, 1997), and the Arles Photo Festival in France (2007, 2004). Ms. Singh's only previous exhibitions in Berlin were solo shows held at the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof and the Museum fur Indische Kunst simultaneously in 2003. Her works have been included in group shows at museums including Tate Modern, London; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; the Ludwig Museum, Cologne; the Asia Society, New York; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Kunsthalle, Vienna; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; among many others.
Her published works include Myself Mona Ahmed (Scalo 2001); Privacy (Steidl 2003); Chairs (Steidl 2005); Go Away Closer (Steidl 2007); and Sent a Letter (Steidl 2008).

The exhibition will open on Thursday, November 20th and continue to Saturday, January 3rd. Nature Morte is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 am to 6pm and by appointment. For more information, please contact the gallery director Ms. Julie Engelmeier at (email) je.nmberlin@googlemail.com or (telephone) +49-171-422-7711.

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