Clicking for the Rights
Internationally acclaimed photographer and gay activist Sunil Gupta has been working for the rights of the gays and for the recognition of queer identities through his photographic works. Shuttling between continents Sunil Gupta opens his camera towards the realities that the mainstream society often scorns at. In this candid interview with Akansha Rastogi, Sunil Gupta talks about the history of his own evolution as a photography artist and a gay activist.
Akansha Rastogi: You witnessed the surge of Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement in 1970s in New York. I would like to know your personal version of History. I mean your version of the changing context at that time from ‘male gaze’ to ‘gazing at males/ male-to-male gaze’, as is visible in your Christopher Street series of photographs. A homosexual couple walking down the street, posing for the camera uninhibitedly. I find warmth in those pictures, a welcoming invitation, and even an attitude of not bothered by being looked at.
Sunil Gupta: I was part of the Gay Liberation movement as an undergraduate. I used to document street corners in New York, lived in Manhattan for a year. Christopher Street was full of mischief, interesting at that time.
In the 30s in Britain there was a movement called Mass Observation headed by the film maker Humphrey Jennings documenting social-life in the city. In Germany another movement ‘New Objectivity in English’. The famous photographer August Sanders was making portraits of every social class at that time. So there had been lot of activity. I took dead-pan pictures. My point was to be neutral. Christopher Street series happened in 1976 before AIDS arrived; I was actively involved with the movement in the university. We had a small group.
AR: My concern is that these images of two men together have a voyeuristic quality. They seduce you to search/ witness an alternate way of living. An interest is generated to hear their conversation – to hear what they are talking about, what’s in their mind…half-broken sentences and there is a moment of direct confrontation. How do you respond to this kind of voyeurism? It’s like a minority community – gays coming by themselves to the viewer and disclosing their stories…personal narratives.
SG: I was very interested in conveying those stories bringing them in the mainstream. My own ‘Art History’ that I learnt during Art Education never had such stories. That’s how it started. What if I didn’t tell you they were gays. People at that time could recognize them because of the dress code etc. The street at that time became famous. They were known locally. I was in my early 20s, becoming aware of minorities. In New York there were lots of minorities. I grew up here in India in a very mainstream way. In the UK where I had my Art Education I became involved with race and culture issues. Traditional art school training in London was very craft oriented, about making art not theorizing. Town hall became more than activism. We were trying to formulate cultural policy for a city that had so many minorities. It seemed one was a minority in one way or the other. Organizing shows and activism took me to curating accidentally because there was nobody to curate such shows for you. My generation learnt to acquire space and speak for themselves.
AR: Also in this sense, in ‘Ten Years On’ series your portraits of gay couples with the backdrop of their household, a family life are extremely evocative. Couples enjoying the bliss of a happy home. One senses the air of commitment, with a strange self-consciousness of being outside the ‘norm’. I think you create alternate objects to witness this bond of love and sharing, I mean the bed, the kitchen, utensils, paintings hung in the living room. My enquiry is the intent behind locating witnesses in these mute objects of daily routine.
SG: I wanted to refute a popular misconception at that time amongst the masses and the media of presenting gays as perverted, child-molesters, unbalanced, in some or the kind of monstrous way. My attempt was to show how ordinary their life was. Photography was the best medium for it with its objectivity. People often used to ask me what “Gays” look like. They thought gays are out there something different, not part of the normal experience. I tried to say they are the same people like your brother and sisters. Gay’s representation had to be unlike other minorities, if its race you can see it, in India you can actually identify the caste of a particular person just by looking at him.
Jumping to the present, I still see sexuality etc. put outside the family. I wanted to put it inside. When I told my parents I was gay, they asked how it was related to my marital life. They thought its only sex - I can marry a girl and still maintain my sexual preference. When I look back at Christopher Street pictures, it is kind of an alternate family. It’s not just sex. It’s a relationship. And, people don’t equate it with normal marriage. I am a product of the late 60s, and I learnt behind this marriage thing is the concern about property…feudal…to have an heir who can inherit the property. That’s what obsesses them – who is marrying whom, intricate ways in which people are attached and detached through property.
AR: Please elaborate on the issue of opening up your life and other gay men’s lives to public inspection. What if I call it narcissistic though I understand that the attempt is to make it visible and gain acceptance?
SG: I think it’s a justified idea calling it narcissistic. At philosophical level, hetero would suggest attraction with the different, and homo with the same/ self. Superficially, you can say it’s narcissistic. As homo you are free of the burden of looking after a family, children and completely free to look after yourself. Gay men are a big market. They have loads of money with nobody to spend on. It’s becoming commercial.
Relating it to the ‘visibility’, I agree its kind of public declaration. It relieves you of the burden of secrecy and puts the viewer under the burden of ignorance and to figure out what it means. One of the things being a minority is we are in the audience also. If I want to direct my work specifically at gay audience then there are no organized groups, and if I show it publicly only a percentage of the audience would be my desired ones. In my show in 2004 at India Habitat Centre, many came to see me not the show, a “Gay” sitting in the gallery. At Nigah, it’s much targeted at Gay and Lesbian audience; we feel it’s a neglected area.
AR: Coming close to India, I read one of your quotes that it was “imperative to create some images of gay Indian men, they didn’t seem to exist.” I am intrigued by this phrase ‘creating some images’. How do you see your role as “creator of images”? And secondly, in series ‘Exiles’ the images of gay Indian men are very stern and formal. If compared with the closed spaces of your portraits of gay couples in New York, these are mostly shot in open spaces and a historical monument as setting. Is it just to locate/ identify India through its monuments?
SG: I was motivated to bring Gay Indian men into the discourse of Art History. Those pictures were shown in an exhibition ‘Body politics’. Yes, they did look stern. When they were displayed at Tate Modern and later became part of their collection, I think I was successful in reaching my goal. As a student I had problems with nothing to refer to. In those terms, my pictures were a great departure and all of that came under question at that time. While working on that series I wanted to make a break from the documentary style. I developed a kind of scenario involving a cast of people just like shooting for a film. What’s authentic about it is that the protagonists are gay, the monument and the space are real; but the picture is constructed. We discovered that the spaces where they often meet were historically famous places like Nehru Park, Humayun’s Tomb, India Gate etc. These are the same monuments that have been photographed extensively in the 19th century. Also the title of the series is simple. If you were a gay at that time, nobody would refer to it. Those who left the country never wished to come back. I also thought it impossible to live here in India.
Another important thing is it was a decisive period in photography when straight documentary photography became very unfashionable, and its objective nature came under critical beating; and subjectivity took over. “Look at me”, and you began to photograph yourself. Where I was in London, we experienced this idea of Black Arts, post-colonial thematic. We wanted our stories to be brought in the mainstream. Meanwhile, when I was coming to India to shoot these, it seemed quite devoted to the documentary style and that’s partly because America and Europe developed this system of Photography Art Schools. In India there are still hardly any photography schools and henceforth no discourses.
‘Exiles’ was a discreet piece of work done for a particular show. I never came back to that series until recently. This year I am making portraits of women also and not in the landscape but ordinary recognizable spaces.
AR: Born and brought up in India and now you are part of the Diaspora, often referred as a Canadian artist. Traversing nationalities and geographical boundaries – India, UK, US and Canada – plus a deviance from ‘the given and natural’ heterosexual life and HIV identity – this experiential fluidity and switching of identities establishes the definition of Identity as being not one but many and its unstable character. Then, how does this affect your approach in documenting gay men’s life, if at all? Do you think you do them justice by framing their one identity over others? How do you deal with their other identities/ sub-narratives, as you discover these in personal conversations with them and while most of them being friends.
SG: Well, there are many official identities – of nationality and citizenship. I find the context that each place provides is different. I think in the UK they were happy that I was simply living and working there and happy to accept my works into their collection. Canadian one is because of the passport. I lived there for 7-8 years and never really worked from there. I find Canada different from the US because of its multicultural environment. Canadians are happy for me to be a Canadian and working from wherever. Here in India, it’s like coming home, sharing everybody’s problems of daily living like electricity and water…not that Diaspora. It’s comfortable here. India has its unique issues. I have a niece brought up in the US. She is 17 now. I think of her as Diaspora and not me. She doesn’t know the language. For her the local dhabas would be exotic.
Yes, dealing with all identities would be a challenging thing. I need somebody who is willing to locate so publicly. So most often I use myself and in that case I don’t have to compromise. I began to make a series about our relationships that would have been a step ahead. Work on that has halted because the person left. Currently I am working on this idea of living single in an urban space…perhaps a workshop with Nigah would be the next thing.
AR: More on this identity question, your series ‘Homelands’ give glimpses of your journey across several spaces when you juxtapose two different spaces and time of location. You expose your self, share your family member’s photographs…these autobiographical references. It’s through the personal that the political is discovered. Your identity as an immigrant.
SG: ‘Homelands’ is influenced by my way of looking at History and its progression. In that body of work I was moving away from History to Geography, trying to make time as less relevant and the space to be more expressive. It’s a circular thing; I could be at any of these places anytime and feel equally at home. Like I am here now and I feel involved with this geographical space. My interest is in defining a queer space for sexuality. If you look at the picture of ‘Exiles’ and look at the spaces, you can easily map them – Hauz Khas, Humayun’s Tomb, Nizammudin. I wish to include this built environment and the architectural history. |
