From Here to Eternity, Autograph ABP, edited by Mark Sealy, Director of Autograph. autograph.org.uk/shop
Sunil Gupta: From Here to Eternity, at the Photographers’ Gallery until 24 January, is the artist and activist’s first major retrospective in the UK. Its catalogue charts the personal and political pathways of the artist’s life.
Text by Thomas Roueché
Sunil Gupta is perhaps best known for his Christopher Street photographs, a series of images that capture the homosexual flâneurs of 1970s New York – an early example of street photography as a queer critical practice. Born in New Delhi, India, Gupta relocated to Montreal before studying art at the Royal College of Art in London. At the heart of his work is a commitment and engagement with politics that goes hand in hand with his preoccupation with issues such as race, migration, the family and sexuality. Gupta’s activism, from New York’s Gay Liberation Movement of the 1970s to more recent gay rights campaigning in India, runs like a fil rouge through his work. These intertwined elements of the public and private, the body and society, modernity and tradition are seized upon in the catalogue for his new retrospective at the Photographers’ Gallery. Here we see ephemera and photographs brought together in a scrapbook that maps the events and encounters of Gupta’s personal and political journey, from New Delhi to Montreal, New York to London, and back again. Time and again, friends and friendships reappear, underlining the importance of solidarity to activism and socially conscious art-making. ◉
From Here to Eternity runs at the Photographers’ Gallery from 9 Oct 2020 to 24 Jan 2021 and will tour to Toronto’s Ryerson Image Centre in Autumn 2021, with the support of the Bagri Foundation.
