Chairs – Dayanita Singh

While Dayanita Singh was artist-in-residence at the Gardner Museum in Boston, she began to photograph the Museum’s collection and was drawn particularly to chairs – making studies of these objects as though she were making portraits. It is often difficult to tell at first glance when and where these photographs were made. They look old and new; Western and Indian.

Later, Singh made an exhibition of these works and a limited-edition publication [of] Chairs, which was only available as a gift from one of her 50 distributors, each of whom had their own edition of ten to distribute as they wished. This was her first exploration of the book as the exhibition. Each accordion-fold book, with 22 tritones, opened into a mini exhibition, measuring 9 x 14cm.

Artist / Author

Publishing is also a significant part of the Dayanita Singh’s practice: in her books she experiments with alternate forms of producing and viewing photographs. Here, Singh’s latest is the “book-object,” a work that is concurrently a book, an art object, an exhibition and a catalog. Learn more about Singh and her artistic practice on her website.

Sourced / excerpted from this artist’s website. (2022)