Tasveer and Vadehra Art Gallery New Delhi presents an exhibition of photographs by Indian artist, and renowned printmaker, Jyoti Bhatt. The 48 images in this exhibition chronicle the artists’s travels through rural environments in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal and Bihar, from 1967 to 1995. Bhatt has been actively engaged with photography since the mid-60s, and these images constitute an important chapter in the history of photography in India, demonstrating great artistic sensibility, creativity and a unique understanding of traditional cultures. Each print can be seen as an artwork in its own right, as well as a historical document and visual aide to Bhatt’s paintings and prints.

Bhatt began documenting the folk and tribal culture of rural India in the summer of 1967. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan had organised a seminar in Bombay on the folk arts of Gujarat and invited Bhatt to participate. He traveled widely, visiting villages and tribal regions, photographing folk arts and craft traditions in their original environments, along with the people who inhabited these spaces.

Bhatt’s journeys with his camera across rural India have had a profound effect on him both personally and as an artist – he developed a deep admiration for the skills and aesthetic judgements of rural communities during his travels, and he began to understand how the art forms of traditional societies were intrinsically connected to human sensibility. As a result, much of his work records village and indigenous art forms, the photographs synthesise human figures with static background that show painted, or drawn, images on walls or floors. Bhatt avoids the prevalent tendencies to objectify and sentimentalise – remaining acutely and continually sensitive to the psychological and material changes within the inhabitants of these societies, as they responded to urbanisation, and change. He seldom captures his human subjects off-guard or unaware; they are fully conscious of his camera and stare directly at the lens.

Jyoti Bhatt - Photographs from Rural India, has been organised by Tasveer in collaboration with Vacheron Constantin.

Image: A woman drawing a mandana design, Rajasthan,
1980 © Jyoti Bhatt / TASVEER
Courtesy Tasveer and Vacheron Constantin