From Here to Eternity
SUNIL GUPTA. A RETROSPECTIVE

POSTPONED
LONDON: THE PHOTOGRAPHERS' GALLERY

Curated by Mark Sealy

From Here to Eternity

Address

The Photographers' Gallery

16-18 Ramillies Street

London W1F 7LW

Website


EXHIBITION CLOSED

In line with the national lockdown in England, from 5 November 2020 this exhibition is temporarily closed. 

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About the exhibition

Read More The first major retrospective of UK based photographer, Sunil Gupta (b. 1953, New Delhi, India), offering a complex and layered view of his unique transcontinental photographic vision.

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, Sunil 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.

The exhibition is curated by Mark Sealy (Autograph ABP, London) in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery (London) and the Ryerson Image Centre (Toronto).

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).

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.

"What does it mean to be a gay Indian man? This is the question that follows me around everywhere I go and is still ever present in my work"

Sunil Gupta


Man walking along Christopher street in New York, USA. He is looking at the floor and has his hands in his pockets.
sample
Group of men in India. Two of them are having a conversation and one is smoking a cigarette.
Man laid on a bed with his eyes closed and arm draped on the floor. There is a window behind him with yellow curtains.


NEW BOOK

From Here to Eternity is accompanied by a new publication tracing Sunil Gupta’s life through his personal archive: the snapshots, postcards, letters, posters, and news clippings collected during his long career in photography and activism. £25, purchase in Autograph's online shop

Front cover of Autograph's new photobook From Here to Eternity. It features an image of artist Sunil Gupta holding a camera.
Series of images of people at Christopher street in the USA. Page from new book From Here to Eternity

Watch

Curators Talk: on Sunil Gupta



Man laid on a bed with his eyes closed under a white sheet.

BLOG

How is the past recollected? Introducing Autograph's latest book

Tracing artist Sunil Gupta's personal archive

Artist Sunil Gupta. He has short white hair and is wearing black glasses.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sunil Gupta (b. 1953, New Delhi, India/Canada/UK) 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's recent show (with Charan Singh), Dissent and Desire was presented at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India (2018) and his project Christopher Street 1976, published in 2018 (Stanley Barker) was presented at Hales Gallery in New York (2019).

Read More

His work has been exhibited in various group exhibitions, including Paris, Bombay, Delhi... (Pompidou Centre, Paris, France, 2011) and The Place is Here (Nottingham Contemporary, England, 2017). It was also displayed as part of the permanent collection at Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London, England (2018).

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).

FIND OUT MORE

Visit Sunil Gupta's website

Watch Gupta's talk at The Courtald Institute of Art, discussing his series Exhiles and Mr Maholtra's Party

Bagri Foundation interviews Autograph's Mark Sealy, curator of Sunil Gupta's first major retrospective From Here to Eternity.

Slow looking: view three works from the exhibition, listen to the audio descriptions and/or download the audio description transcripts

Follow Sunil Gupta on Instagram

Watch The Photographers' Gallery interview with Sunil Gupta

Two men stood in from of a cinema, with large bright lights. They both have dark hair and a mustache.

Tickets

Tickets to this exhibition are booked through, and managed by, The Photographers' Gallery.
For information on their ticketing and privacy policies, visit The Photographers' Gallery website.

IN COLLABORATION WITH

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.


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Ryerson Image Center Logo


SUPPORTED BY


Supported using public funding by Arts Council England
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Banner image: Sunil Gupta, Untitled #9, 2010. From the series Sun City. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery

Slideshow images: 1) Sunil Gupta, Untitled #22, 1976. From the series Christopher Street. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. 2) 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. 3) Sunil Gupta, Jama Masjid, 1987. From the series Exiles. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. 4) Sunil Gupta, Untitled #7, 2008. From the series The New Pre-Raphaelites. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery.

Page images, from top left: 1 and 2) Cover and spread from the new book Sunil Gupta: From Here To Eternity. 3) Sunil Gupta. Photograph by Mark Sealy, March 2019. 4) Sunil Gupta, Gay, Coronet Cinema, Notting Hill Gate, London, UK. From the series Reflections on the Black Experience, 1986.