Individual Media Tours for the Exhibition “Body Transformed: Contemporary South Asian Photographs and Prints”

Members of the media are invited to view the exhibition “Body Transformed: Contemporary South Asian Photographs and Prints” at the National Museum of Asian Art. This exhibition presents a selection of works that center on the human figure. For the artists in this exhibition, the human form and the expressive power of photography and print media offer ways to examine the place of the individual in contemporary society. 

Works by Pushpamala N. and Clare Arni, Vivek Vilasini, Ram Rahman and Naveen Kishore focus on the performing body to confront notions of gender and cultural identity through photography, a medium that has played a complicated role in India since the 19th century. Jitish Kallat and Rashid Rana manipulate photographic images to simultaneously assert and dissolve the portrait in jarring compositions that hover between reflections on the public being and the disquiet of the inner self. 

Master print artists Krishna Reddy, Chitra Ganesh and Jyoti Bhatt experiment with provocatively carved lines and vivid colors unique to printmaking. Fragmenting, morphing and multiplying the figure, these artists incorporate various processes to explore representations of power, place and sexuality in today’s world.

The exhibition draws from the gifts of Drs. Umesh and Sunanda Gaur. “Body Transformed” is the second exhibition featuring works from the Umesh and Sunanda Gaur Collection, following the museum’s successful and engaging 2022 exhibition, “Unstill Waters: Contemporary Photography from India.”

People interested in “Body Transformed” may find resonance in the museum’s current and upcoming South Asian exhibitions. “Delighting Krishna: Paintings of the Child-God” (opening March 15, 2025) illuminates a unique Hindu tradition through monumental cloth paintings. “The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas” (reopening spring 2025) explores religious and practical knowledge across time, space and cultures. Meanwhile, the digital-only exhibition “Wisdom of the Goddess” focuses on the divine feminine in South Asian, Southeast Asian and Himalayan Art.

Note to editors: Media may contact Juliette Pasquini at pasquinij@si.edu for more information or to schedule a time to interview the curator and tour the exhibition.

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SI-389-2024