Bringing new life to archival photographs through the vibrancy of Indian miniature painting traditions, What the Camera Didn’t See encourages its viewers to reimagine the static nature of images and their interpretation. This recent exhibition at TRI, one of Kolkata’s newest art spaces, includes 23 artworks by Alexander Gorlizki and the Pink City Studio, led by master miniature painter Riyaz Uddin. Based on photographs from the collection of the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru, the displays mark a delightful exploration of the coming together of photography and painting, two art forms that share a long collaborative history in the subcontinent.
Gorlizki is a New-York-based British artist, trained in fine art and sculpture in London and known for his work with paper. His fascination with Indian miniatures brought him to Jaipur, where he established the Pink City Studio in 1996 with Riyaz Uddin. Riyaz Uddin had by then already mastered the techniques of miniatures, under the guidance of his father, Abdul Shakoor, a famous antiques dealer. He developed an inclination towards the Pahari school of painting and gained popularity by converting Western tarot cards into Indian miniatures. Riyaz Uddin’s knowledge and skills became central to his collaborative compositions with Gorlizki. Over the last 27 years, their atelier has dedicated itself to training a retinue of new Indian miniature painters. These artistic exchanges between Gorlizki in New York and Riyaz Uddin in Jaipur have culminated in What the Camera Didn’t See, which opened at MAP in December 2023 before travelling to TRI in May 2024.
Several artists like Pushpamala N. and Waswo X. Waswo have drawn inspiration from colonial photography and Indian miniatures, incorporating these conventions into their art. Gorlizki and Riyaz Uddin’s work must be read within the larger context of past and contemporary engagements and experiments with these historical art forms. The artists have used the large photographic collection of MAP, shortlisting images tied by common themes like architecture, royalty and street views. While the images of Humayun’s Tomb and Moti Masjid signify the grandeur of Islamic architecture, the royal portraits of Maharaja Anand Rao Puar III of Dhar and Maharani Tara Devi of Jammu and Kashmir demonstrate power, regality, familial ties and regional variations in decorative styles. The monotony of these black-and-white and sepia-toned images is broken by the introduction of colour and design elements that are painted on copies of the originals or directly on vintage photographs. Gorlizki borrows from the tradition of painted photography, where images are coloured over to enhance the features of the subject and make them more life-like. However, Gorlizki’s interventions serve a different purpose, as they introduce playfulness, humour and fantasy to the photographs through colourful mythological figures, animals, patterns and instruments. Through this process, they subvert the seriousness of the source images and encourage new ways of seeing the unseen. Conceptualized by Gorlizki and executed by Riyaz Uddin and his artisans, these elaborate compositions reproduce centuries-old patterns and forms with immaculate detail and precision. They blur the line between photography and painting, allowing for a rethinking of the rigid categorization of images, and creating works that transcend time and space.
Each artwork invites the viewer into a fabulous imaginary world where whimsical beasts, therianthropic beings in courtly attire, architectural marvels and other elements surround poised men, women and children, who have taken the act of getting photographed rather seriously. The juxtaposition of these characters creates a delightful experience of wonder and amusement. In “Look at Me” (2023), the photograph of a grim-looking unidentified nobleman is undercut by the addition of a suit-wearing dog-headed human, who mimics the poser in preparing for a portrait. Other figures like an angarkha-wearing dancing elephant-headed human and a rider on horseback are scattered around the photograph. In “Men’s Retreat” (2023), a group of distinguished suited gentlemen appear to be on an island, surrounded by greenery, with fish floating across. In “Skyfalls” (2023), the Jabalpur rock formations are painted over with details that transform them into an extra-terrestrial world. Certain figures and motifs, like a scuba diver pushing a pram, lipstick-wearing fish, and colourful elephants, recur across different works. Oddly, most of the exhibits provide no details of the original archival photographs that serve as their canvases, allowing viewers to arrive at their own assumptions and meanings.
Even as the primary thrust of the exhibition is to produce new works of art, it is important to recognize how the artists have engaged with a historical archive. The source material is not restricted to one specific region, royal family or architectural form, and there is no clear reason why each image has been chosen. The curation, then, tries to move towards a more fluid engagement with the past, allowing the archival to re-emerge and exist within contemporary sensibilities. Thereby, What the Camera Didn’t See not only highlights the unseen possibilities of photographs, it also explores different ways of seeing and working with archives.
What the Camera Didn’t See is on at TRI, Kolkata, from May 5 to July 21, 2024.