A show that accounts for aesthetical considerations of photography

As we know that there have been concerted efforts from different parts of India to promote contemporary photography, still contemporary photography is subjected to a confused viewing as a variety of genres of photography impact upon people differently on a daily basis.

Generally, even in the academic circles, photography is divided into different categories as per the fields to/in which the medium is put to use; for example we have news photography, fine art photography, industrial photography, fashion photography and so on. Though for the sake of classification such distinctions could be allowed, it would be interesting to see photography as a holistic medium which could carry a multitude of socio-cultural and politico-aesthetical dynamics.

Right from political propaganda to gender positioning and from family albums to documentations, when put to use, photography plays a very pivotal role of cultural encoding. This is the reason why, curator Johny ML, chose to call a new group show, ‘Lens-ing It’ at Ashna Gallery, New Delhi.

It includes a show of eight artists – namely Abul Kalam Azad, Manisha Gera Baswani, Deepak John Mathew, Alex Fernandes, Sunil Gupta, Ram Rahman, Anup Mathew Thomas, Vivek Vilasini, who use ‘photography as photography’; they are lens based artists and often use their photographic prints as their final product.

All aesthetical considerations and problems that otherwise faced and solved by any other visual artist too are dealt by these photography artists with an equal verve as expected of this medium and the context in which this medium is used. The politics, social positioning and the gender preferences of the photographers play a very strong role in the formulation of frames and the images.

Photography has always been there in the field of fine arts but the tendency is to treat it as something lesser to other forms of art. Today, in the globalized scenario, photographs have become the message carriers of change. Photographs speak to the people directly and the photography artists have become all the more aware of their worth as meaning makers. For me photographing is a political act.

(Information and essay courtesy: curator Johny ML for Ashna Gallery, New Delhi)