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The Guild is delighted to present The
Photographic Eye of Jyoti Bhatt an
exhibition of photographs by Jyoti Bhatt curated by
Photographer, writer, curator Ram Rahman.
“Jyoti Bhatt has shown his photographs before. His photographs
of the murals and kolams in villages are perhaps the most widely
known. Rekha Rodwittiya had curated an exhibit of his photos of
his artist comrades a few years ago. These exhibitions have been
centered on the subject.
What drew me to his work was the essentially photographic vision
in his photography, unusual for an artist. It was no surprise,
as I discovered. Two major photo talents were both not only
close to Jyotibhai, but in many ways mentored him. The late
Kishore Parekh and Bhupendra Karia were close friends and Bhatt
travelled with them making photographs and watching them work.
While Parekh’s work is being slowly resurrected, Bhupendra Karia
is totally forgotten.
The photographs I have selected show the photographic eye of
Jyotibhai – and show how he completely understood the nature of
the camera and the medium and its difference from his painting
and printmaking. His document of the village murals (initiated
by Bhupendra Karia) show his delight in the art-making of
village India, in the clothing and jewellery of the our vibrant
peasant culture.
But the photographs I show here are different.
His larger format square negative portraits of his fellow
artists show an informal formality and are suffused with an
intimate camaraderie. The 35mm photos have a sophisticated
understanding of photographic seeing. The influence of Parekh
and Karia is clear, but here Jyotibhai’s artistic eye picks up
quotidian details with relish. The poetic image of the backs of
these impoverished villagers could only be seen by an artist –
he finds the lyricism of chola bronzes in this bazaar…
There are images of both Parekh and Karia at work, as well as
his fellow artists and students at Baroda. All of these show his
understanding of the informality of the frame of the 35mm
camera, and unlike many artists who pick up the medium, he does
not make images which are graphically easy – he uses the frame
to make complex relationships which are essentially
photographic.
His pictures also take delight in the ordinariness of clothing
and street markets in a way preceding the focus on similar
popular culture which became the subject of fellow artist Bhupen
Khakhar’s oils and watercolours many years later.
This photo below is a symphony of squares and grids
It is this photographic eye of Jyoti Bhatt which this exhibition
celebrates.”
- Ram Rahman, December 2016
Jyoti Bhatt was born in 1934 in Bhavnagar, Gujarat. He was
trained in painting and printmaking at M.S.U. Baroda and was
awarded scholarship and awards to study further: Printmaking at
Pratt Institue and Pratt Graphic Center, New York under
Fulbright and Rockfeller Grants; Academia Di Belle Arti, Naples,
Italy. He was awarded Honorary Doctorate, Rabindra Bharati
University, Kolkata in 2004. Jyoti Bhatt has had numerous solo
and group shows and his works are in the collection of Museum of
Modern Art, New York, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington,
The British Museum, The National Gallery of Modern Art, New
Delhi and other institutions.
For more information and or images please write to us at
teamattheguild@gmail.com, the_guild2003@yahoo.co.in
Copyright © The Guild, 2016 | All rights reserved
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