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Past Exhibition
Curated by Mark Sealy
Ryerson Image Centre
33 Gould Street, Toronto ON
M5B 1E9, Canada
The first major retrospective of UK based photographer, Sunil Gupta, offering a complex and layered view of his unique transcontinental photographic vision. After debuting in 2020 at The Photographers' Gallery, From Here To Eternity will tour to Ryerson Image Center in Toronto.
Born in New Delhi, India, relocated to Montreal, Canada, before studying at the Royal College of Art in London, Gupta has been using photography as a critical practice since the 1970s. Subversive, impulsive, personal and political, Gupta's socially engaged projects have focused on such issues as family, race, migration and the complexities and taboos of sexuality and homosexual life. His work has been instrumental in raising awareness around the political realities concerning the fight for international gay rights and of making visible the tensions between tradition and modernity, public and private, the body and body politics.
From participating in New York's active Gay Liberation Movement in the 1970s to his more recent campaigning for gay liberation in India, Sunil Gupta has been inspirational to generations of photographic activists and LGBTQ+ rights campaigners.
The exhibition is curated by Mark Sealy (Autograph, London) in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery and the Ryerson Image Centre.
Bringing together works from across his divergent and extensive career, From Here to Eternity features a range of series’ from street photography (Christopher Street, 1976) to narrative portraits (From Here to Eternity, 1999), along with highly staged and constructed scenes (The New Pre-Raphaelites, 2008) and a selection of early investigations into digital image making (Trespass, London, 1992-1995).
Detail from Untitled #9, 2010. From the series Sun City
Shroud, 1999, from the series From Here To Eternity
Gay, Coronet Cinema, Notting Hill Gate, London, UK. From the series Reflections on the Black Experience, 1986
India Gate, 1987. From the series Exiles
The New Pre Raphaelites, 2008
Christopher Street, New York 1976
Christopher Street, New York 1976
Jama Masjid, 1987. From the series Exiles
was educated at the Royal College of Art, London, England, and received a PhD from the University of Westminster, England. His work uses independent photography as a critical practice, focusing on race, migration, and queer issues.
Gupta is a Visiting Tutor at the Royal College of Art and was the Lead Curator for the 2018 Fotofest in Houston, USA.
His work can be found in many private and public collections, including the George Eastman Museum (Rochester, USA), the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Japan), the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Canada), the Tate (London, England), and the Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA).
Published to accompany Gupta's retrospective, and joint winner of the 2021 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award.
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Watch a new film with Sunil Gupta, a personal tour of the exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery.
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From Here to Eternity: Sunil Gupta. A Retrospective is co-organised by The Photographers’ Gallery and the Ryerson Image Centre (Toronto, Canada), in collaboration with Autograph.
Banner image: Sunil Gupta, Untitled #13, 2008. From the series The New Pre-Raphaelites. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery.
Exhibition preview images, from top left: 1) Sunil Gupta, Untitled #9, 2010. From the series Sun City. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. 2) Sunil Gupta, Shroud, 1999, From the series ‘From Here To Eternity’. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery © Sunil Gupta. 3) Gay, Coronet Cinema, Notting Hill Gate, London, UK. From the series Reflections on the Black Experience, 1986. 4) Sunil Gupta, India Gate, 1987. From the series Exiles. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. 5) Sunil Gupta, Untitled #7, 2008. From the series The New Pre-Raphaelites. 6-7) Sunil Gupta, from the series Christopher Street. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. 8) Sunil Gupta, Jama Masjid, 1987. From the series Exiles. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery.
Other page images, from top: 1) Sunil Gupta. Photograph by Mark Sealy, March 2019. 3) From Here to Eternity: Sunil Gupta. A Retrospective exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery, London. Curated by Mark Sealy. Photographs: © Kate Elliott and The Photographers’ Gallery, 2020. 4) Sunil Gupta, Bikram [detail], Delhi, India. From the series Mr Malhotra's Party, 2007. 5) from Autograph's new book Sunil Gupta: From Here to Eternity. Featuring images courtesy the artist. 6) Sunil Gupta, from The New Pre-Raphaelites [detail], 2008. 7) Sunil Gupta, Manpreet [detail], Delhi, India. From the series Mr Malhotra's Party, 2007. 8) Sunil Gupta, from The New Pre-Raphaelites [detail], 2008.
Autograph is a place to see things differently. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice, sharing how photographs reflect lived experiences and shape our understanding of ourselves and others.
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