Singh's unique vision on display in Dancing with my Camera

MUDAM’s latest exhibition, Dayanita Singh – Dancing with my Camera, is described by the museum as the Indian artist's most important to date

© Photo credit: Dayanita Singh

A capturing of life’s moments and architectural photography intermingle in MUDAM’s newest exhibition, Dayanita Singh – Dancing with my Camera, described by the museum as the Indian artist's most important to date.

The exhibition is set up in the museum's two ground-floor wings. The mostly black-and-white prints are assembled in an instinctual way, something very important for Singh, yet it feels intentional. The combinations are often made up of prints from various periods and places, creating a specific and temporary impression for the viewer.

The West Gallery sets up Singh's work and focuses on "archive and memory, disappearance and erasure, editing and the circulation of images." The biggest prints can be found in this part, titled I am as I am, and they offer an impressive introduction to her work. Here is an artist with a unique eye, capturing the only ashram founded by a woman in Varanasi, India. One photo depicts a girl standing in the shadows with a bouquet in her hands, illuminated by a ray of light.

Some images repeat throughout the exhibition but are arranged differently, offering insight into how editing changes one’s perception of the work. Here, this is achieved through the concept of stand-alone and malleable "mini museums" focused on subjects such as books and suitcases.

© Photo credit: Dayanita Singh

Sent a Letter Museum comprises 126 pages and is, in its structure, a softcover accordion book which tells different stories of objects, departures, and places. It is one of the artist’s "book-objects" which make up an important part of her creations.

"File Museum" explores the status of archives in India, both ordered and disordered. Its display in a teak structure, a hallmark across the exhibition, provides a collage impression and fits this theme particularly well.

The artist began playing with these wooden structures in the 2010s and she describes them as “photo-architecture”, allowing her more room to play with how she associates and arranges her prints. Viewers are also able to read them from right to left, back to front, or in any direction they want.

In this section, you will find the one of the exhibit's few colour prints, Time Measures. A burst of red on bundles of documents enlaced in white cloth leaves viewers space for their own interpretation.

The East Gallery focuses on themes that keep coming up in Singh’s work, interacting and conversing with each other: music, dance, space, architecture, gender, construction of identity, and individual and interpersonal trajectories.

In one room, you will find wooden pillars and mostly architectural photography, playing with the concept of construction such as the Corbu Pillar.

© Photo credit: Dayanita Singh

Music also repeatedly comes up in her oeuvre and is primordial for the photographer. This harks back to the artist’s first professional work, which was made in collaboration with the musician Zakir Hussain. The resulting booklet, 1986's Zakir Hussain: A Photo Essay, is also on view here.

Mimicking the format of contact sheets, 108 archival prints are organised in multiple arrangements in Let’s See, capturing life’s moments. One does best to stop and zoom in on these many prints. A photograph of a man asleep on the grass, lying on his sleeping dog, while a woman in flowing white clothes observes him, smiling to herself, is particularly awe-inspiring in its simplicity.

Many of these panels are arranged thematically. They can be interpreted in different ways, which is the beauty and freedom of this exhibition. Some seem to focus on themes such as the body, drag, and transformation. Others focus on masculinity, spectacle or performance.

Finally, this part of the exhibition presents collages, or as the artist calls them "montages", which are impactful and show the artist's touch in a different light. In the Mona Montages, images of the artist's friend are cut and pasted onto other pictures by Singh. Among these, a minimalistic collage stands out. Mona’s face is placed within a frame sitting on the wall of an office, reminiscent of royal or presidential pictures typically hung in offices.

Dayanita Singh – Dancing with my Camera is on view at MUDAM until 10 September.