Gauri Gill: The Americans - Stanford Department of Art & Art History ...

Department of Art & Art History Stanford University Stanford California 94305-2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 23, 2008
Rachel R. Isip, Publicist, (650) 725-3107, risip@stanford.edu
DIGITAL IMAGES AVAILABLE
Gauri Gill: The Americans
Stanford, CA – The Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University is
pleased to present Gauri Gill: The Americans. This photography exhibition is on view on
July 8 – August 17, 2008, with reception on July 10, from 4:30-6:30 PM, at the Thomas
Welton Stanford Art Gallery.
Shot across the United States from 2000 to 2007, Gauri Gill’s photographs document
the Indian diaspora as it has settled across the country in rural areas, small towns and big
cities, both retaining its traditional signifiers of Indian identity and merging within a larger
American plurality. The resulting color photographs are simultaneously humorous, poignant,
ironic, and beguiling. Gill’s portrayal of her subjects and their lives emerges through her
strict attention to detail and sympathetic juxtapositions.
From the forthcoming catalog essay by critic and curator Gayatri Sinha:
"Nearly five decades after [American photographer] Robert Frank, Gauri Gill takes
a series of solitary journeys through America traveling extensively from New York and New
Jersey to California to the Midwest and five Southern states. She moves outward, from the
nucleus of family and friends to their networks, through a map lined with the material and
psychological presence of migrants. The resultant body of photographs. “The Americans,”
emerges as a palimpsest that pays homage to Frank as much as it documents the new
Americans – Indian immigrants. That Gill addresses her subjects with the transnational gaze
of the traveling photographer brings her subject within the potent discourse of migration and
diaspora, post-coloniality and the new world. Set in the chromatic intimacy of the candid
photograph, it is inscribed by the material residue of two cultures, of the glittering flecks of
Bollywood and Hollywood, the Indian and the American dream."
TEL 650 723-3404 FAX 650 725-0140 www.stanford.edu/dept/art

Department of Art & Art History Stanford University Stanford California 94305-2018
The exhibition has already been on view at Bose Pacia, Kolkata (February 16– March
8); Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi, March 15-29; Matthieu Foss Gallery, Mumbai (April
10-24); and will travel to Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago (October 4–December 28); and
Bose Pacia Gallery, New York (January 9–February 14, 2009).
Born in Chandigarh, India, Gauri Gill received her BFA in Applied Art at the Delhi
College of Arts in New Delhi, India. She earned her BFA in Photography at the Parsons
School of Design, New York in 1994, and MFA in Photography at Stanford University in
2002. Since August 2003, she has been teaching photography at the American School in New
Delhi. In 2007, her work was shown at India International Center, New Delhi; Newark
Museum, New Jersey; Musee Quai Branly, Paris among other places.
VISITOR INFORMATION: Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery is open Tuesday
through Friday, 10 AM–5 PM, and Saturday and Sunday, 1-5 PM. Admission is free. The
Gallery is located in the Stanford campus, off Palm Drive at 419 Lasuen Mall. Parking is free
after 4 PM and all day on weekends. Information: (650) 723-2842, http://art.stanford.edu.
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TEL 650 723-3404 FAX 650 725-0140 www.stanford.edu/dept/art