Gayatri Sinha is an art editor, critic and curator. Her primary areas of enquiry are in gender and iconography, media and the study of classical texts.

She is the founder of criticalcollective.in, India’s first web based archive and news magazine on art.

As curator she has worked with photography and video art from archival and contemporary sources. Her curatorial projects include: Moving Still Performative Photography in India at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Ethnographic Museum, Heidelberg, 2019; Envisioning Asia: Gandhi and Mao in the Photographs of Walter Bosshard, Navjivan Trust, Ahmedabad 2019, KNMA, New Delhi 2018; Part Narratives, Bikaner House, New Delhi, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai 2017; Diary Entries, Gallery Espace, 2015; Video Art Programme, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, 2013-2015; Water in the Musee d'Anselmbourg and the Grand Curtius Museum, Liege, 2013, Ideas of the Sublime, Lalit Kala Akademi, 2013; Cynical Love: Life in the everyday, Kiran Nadar Museum, 2011; Looking Glass: The Existence of Difference (Religare Arts Initiative, Max Mueller Bhavan, British Council), 2010; Constructed Realities, Shanghai, 2010; Failed Plot, KIAF, Seoul, 2009; Public Places, Private Spaces: Contemporary Photography and Video Art in India, The Newark Museum, New Jersey, 2007 and Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2008; Watching Me Watching India Contemporary photography in India, Fotografie Forum, Frankfurt, 2006; Middle Age Spread: Imaging India 1947 - 2004, National Museum, New Delhi, 2004; Vilas: The Idea of Pleasure, Birla Academy, Mumbai, 2000; Woman/Goddess 1998-2001 (Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, New York); The Self and the World, Women artists at the National Gallery of Modern Art, 1997.

She has edited Voices of Change: 20 Indian Artists (Marg, 2010), Art and Visual Culture in India 1857- 2007 (Marg Publications, 2009); Indian Art: an Overview (Rupa Books, 2003), Expressions and Evocations Contemporary Women Artists of India (Marg, 1996) and written monographs on Krishen Khanna, Himmat Shah and M F Husain. She has lectured widely including at the Tate Modern, MoMA New York, the Rockbund Museum Shanghai, Arken Museum Denmark, CUNY, Duke University, USA.

She has received research grants from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India and Ford Foundation. She was the recipient of the Tate Asia Research fellowship 2017.

ESSAYS

The biennale in Covid times

by Gayatri Sinha

On the banks of the Vaigai river nearly thirty years ago, the village of Keelazhi was identified as a Sangam-era site that yielded a sophisticated city with the rich possibility of rewriting the historic antecedents of the Tamil people. Saranraj V., who grew up in Madurai and trained as a sculptor,

Failing to court the court painter

by Gayatri Sinha

Ravi Varma was a product of his times who gained fame not as an originator of trends but one who quested for a truly authentic subject matter.

By all appearances the Raja Ravi Varma exhibition, an attempt to rehabilitate the court painter has gone completely askew. The exhibition at

Art Criticism in India : A brief history and critical compulsions

by Gayatri Sinha

I want to speak briefly about issues of critical writing and criticality in India, my reference points will be to some foundational developments and my own position as a critic-curator. I will also dwell a little more on the recent period.

The Agency of Crisis

The critic in India is heralded

Gayatri Sinha

The biennale in Covid times

Failing to court the court painter

Art Criticism in India : A brief history and critical compulsions

NOTICEBOARD

RECOMMENDED