Docu tour, an exhibition of four photographers examines the use of photographic documentation in the critique of socio-political structures, cultural practices and institutions. The exhibition also seeks to explore various formal strategies that are employed to transform the photo document into an artwork which is taking a critical standpoint.
“As a curator in today’s new economic context, I am extremely interested in moving forward towards an investigation of different types of art works, which were perhaps rather less prevalent in recent years. In this time of introspection and new beginnings, I find this is the ideal moment to investigate the parameters and diversity of such photographic practice”, says Krishnamachari.
Anup Mathew Thomas’s interests are wide-ranging, however his style, direct and detached, applied to subjects ranging from family and friends to Episcopalian bishops in Kerala, a library in Lahore to Dance Bars in Mumbai, contextualizes them in larger narratives. Predominantly producing work in series, presenting his work as projected images as well as prints, Mathew Thomas’s work is built around an attentive interrogation of the everyday through a formal language that's deceptively pared-down.
Gauri Gill is primarily concerned with documenting communities, identities, and the spaces that a community holds dear. Although seeming to employ classic documentary approaches like working within genres such as portraiture and cityscapes, she often breaks these conventions, using a snapshot aesthetic, as seen in her recent work 'The Americans', or making references to local vernacular practices, as seen in recent work from Rajasthan, 'Notes from the Desert’.
Shankar Natarajan brings a conceptual approach to photography. Using archives, various display strategies, and a dispassionate style, Shankar focuses on themes from everyday life. Sometimes using material produced for a non-art purpose, his work explores the ways photo documents gain new meaning, when re-contextualized within the gallery space.
Vivek Vilasini’s politically charged works offer a témoignage* of geopolitical questions preoccupying society today. His practice seeks to reveal contradictions in socio-political and cultural realms through unexpected juxtapositions of images that often use humor and shock tactics. Employing a variety of styles, including documentary, staged photography and photomontage, the artist references art history and responds to and investigates current issues, from the local to the global, often with a tinge of irony.
