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arts

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Subjects:  A-B  C-E  F-L  M-Z

     
Gupta, Sunil (b. 1953)  
 
page: 1  2  3  4  5  6  

Although they broke up within a year, Gupta continues to live in New Delhi, making occasional trips to the United Kingdom and elsewhere. He has expressed great discouragement at the state of gay life in India, which, he maintains, has not changed much since the mid-1980s, when he made Exiles. However, he remains hopeful about the possibility of contributing to the cultural expression of gay life in India.

Gupta's work has evolved in interesting new directions since his return to India. Evolving out of his long-term interest in the history of Delhi, Gupta photographed older parts of the city (that is, Old Delhi) for the series, Tales of the City (2004). Some of the images, such as Diwan-i Khas lyrically convey the beauty of ancient monuments, while others record bustling commercial areas.

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He also has done two series interpreting the lives of children resident at the NAZ Care Home in New Delhi for women and children living with HIV and AIDS: A Time to Love (2004) and Imagining Childhood: Living with HIV in New Delhi (2006). He conceives these as part of a larger project, and he intends to continue to photograph these children over the course of several years. Concerned with protecting the privacy of the children, he avoids revealing their identities in the photographs, often presenting back and partial views of them. He also has made extensive images of their environment.

To counter not only the invisibility of gay life in India but also the lack of attention to gay children in virtually all cultures, Gupta has also begun another project, which will interpret the circumstances of growing up gay in India.

Conclusions

From the beginning of his career in the arts, Gupta repudiated the conventional representation of homosexuals as "perverted objects, fixated with the penis" and sought to depict gay men in relationship to their diverse life experiences. Although often autobiographical in origin, his pieces resonate with a wide range of viewers because they are structured in an open-ended fashion.

Seeking to counter the dearth of images of minority gay men and also to promote queer culture in India, he has created such works as Exiles, which give visibility to individuals and communities that have remained invisible for too long. In the Trespass series, Homelands, and numerous other projects, he has explored the complex interactions of sexuality with many other personal and communal identity factors, including race, social class, geographic location, and health status.

Gupta's current project on queer childhood in India promises to develop queer art in bold new directions.

Richard G. Mann

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    Bibliography
   

Boffin, Tessa, and Sunil Gupta, eds. Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology. London: Rivers Oram, 1990.

Bright, Deborah. The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire. London: Routledge, 1998.

Buckley, Bernadette. "Artist Interview: Sunil Gupta." John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton (April 2003): http://www.soton.ac.uk/~hansard/exhibition/archive/2003/sunil_gupta/index1.html

Carver, Antonia. "Getting Them Between the Eyes: An Interview with Sunil Gupta." Art AsiaPacific 16 (1997): 64-69.

Clark, Robert. "Sunil Gupta." Guardian Unlimited (London) (February 3, 2004): http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,1137441,00.html

Cotter, Holland. "Sunil Gupta: From Here to Eternity." New York Times (January 7, 2000): E, part 2, 43.

Cooper, Emmanuel. The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in the West. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1994.

"Exploring Post-Modern Identity." The Hindu (April 27, 2004): 1.

Gross, J. "Sunil Gupta's 'Tilonia' at the Commonwealth Institute, London." British Journal of Photography 130 (June 10, 1983): 601-02.

Gupta, Sunil. Disrupted Borders: An Intervention in Definitions of Borders. London: Rivers Oram, 1993.

_____. An Economy of Signs: Contemporary Indian Photography. London: Rivers Oram, 1990.

_____. "India Postcard, or Why I Make Work in a Racist, Homophobic Society." Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Film and Video. Martha Gever, John Greyson, and Prathiba Parmar, eds. London: Routledge, 1993. 240-47.

_____. "Lovers Ten Years On/Portraits of Gay Men." Creative Camera 253 (January 1986): 12-13.

_____. Monograph. London: Autograph, 1998.

_____. Pictures from Here. London: Autograph, 2003.

_____. "Sunil Gupta." (2006): http://www.sunilgupta.net/

_____. Trespass 1. Vancouver, B.C.: Contemporary Art Gallery, 1993.

Hall, Stuart, and Mark Sealy. Different: A Historical Context. London: Phaidon, 2001.

Kaindl, Kurt. "At the Crossroads." Creative Camera 313 (December 1991/January 1992): 18-23.

Keen, Melanie. "Sunil Gupta." Creative Camera 339 (April/May 1996): 39.

Papastergiadis, Nikos. "Imagining a New Internationalism." Creative Camera 327 (April/May 1994): 18-23.

Still, Judith. "What Is a Man? Looking at the Traces of Men's Sexuality, Race and Class in the Work of Some Contemporary Photographers." Paragraph 26.1-2 (March-July 2003): 119-133.

"Sunil Gupta." Meet the Artists. National Gallery of Canada. (January 13, 2006): http://gallery.ca/cybermuse/showcases/meet/artist_e.jsp?artistid=27876

 

    Citation Information
         
    Author: Mann, Richard G.  
    Entry Title: Gupta, Sunil  
    General Editor: Claude J. Summers  
    Publication Name: glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,
Transgender, and Queer Culture
 
    Publication Date: 2007  
    Date Last Updated July 12, 2007  
    Web Address www.glbtq.com/arts/gupta_sunil.html  
    Publisher glbtq, Inc.
1130 West Adams
Chicago, IL   60607
 
    Today's Date  
    Encyclopedia Copyright: © 2002-2006, glbtq, Inc.  
    Entry Copyright © 2007 glbtq, Inc.  
 

 

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