This is a selection from the 48 photographs that comprise “Mr. Malhotra’s Party” – a series by Sunil Gupta. Images courtesy of the artist and Hales Gallery,
Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Vadehra Art Gallery.
© Sunil Gupta. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2020.
Aarti from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
Akshara from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
Bikram from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
Chapal from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
Pavi from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
Priya from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
Rakhi from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
Shalini from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
Zahid from “Mr. Malhotra’s Party”
Photograph © Sunil Gupta
In the 1980s I worked on a series of constructed documentary photographs in color in Delhi (Exiles). The men described what gay life in Delhi was like in quotes under each photograph. In today’s liberalizing India, homosexual men are lurking less in parks, and more on the net, and inhabit spaces like "private" parties. Gay nights at local clubs in Delhi are always signposted as private parties in a fictitious person's name. In the intervening years there have been occasions when both men and women, straight and gay have stood up and demonstrated for LGBT rights in public places. Reported by the media of the time the silence was finally broken and increasingly more people are willing to risk being "out" about their sexuality.
With these photographs in the current series, I am trying to visualize this latest virtual queer space through a series of portraits of "real" people who identify their sexuality as 'queer' in some way. This time people look straight into the camera and we see around them local aspects of where they live or work, inhabiting a more vernacular architectural space. This time they are willing to identify themselves. They are guests of an imaginary party, which I have called "Mr Malhotra's Party," after the ubiquitous Punjabi refugee who arrived post-partition and contributed to the development of Delhi as a bustling commercial capital city.
The photographs were made over several years between 2007 and 2012. They cover a period shortly after I arrived back in Delhi to live after an absence of thirty five years. They also cover a period of intense lobbying to change the colonial anti-sodomy law in India.Two years ago the Delhi High Court ruled that sex between consenting couples would no longer be criminalized. This decision is being challenged in the Supreme Court and we are awaiting a final judgement. Until then, queer people of all genders are enjoying a liberty never before seen in modern India.
20 November
