International Lecture Series: Sunil Gupta
SAVAC: International Lecture Series
is proud to present
Sunil Gupta
Friday, May 21, 2004 @ 7 PM
Henry White Kinnear Education Theatre,
Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St. W, Toronto
Sunil Gupta stands at the forefront of that creative, ‘migrant’ generation which first exploded on the visual art scene in the UK in the 1980s,” – Stuart Hall, emeritus professor, The Open University, and co-author of Different: Contemporary Photographers and Black Identity.
Internationally acclaimed artist, writer and curator, Sunil Gupta has created a fascinating body of work in photography and video which explores HIV and place. He will speak about the emergence and development of his art practice which he defines as a process of cultural activism. He intentionally engages with art history to insert his and others’ stories into the larger national and international narratives. He has done this by exhibiting, writing, editing, and curating.
Gupta is currently exhibiting Homelands at the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto. This series of photographs narrates the artist’s journey as a gay man with HIV from his homeland in India to his adopted homes in Canada and England. He presents the images in oppositional pairs of the West and India, inside-outside, east-west. Gupta describes these images as showing us a landscape of the path through which the HIV virus travels and spreads, “HIV has a look,” he explained. “My presence in the landscape is ambivalent, since I am a carrier.”
On Saturday, May 22, the Inside Out Festival will screen Gupta’s new video work, (A World Without) Pity in which the artist explores attitudes to same sex relationships in India, the colonial attitudes that keep people from receiving available treatment and the stories of HIV positive people.
Born in India, a Canadian citizen and resident of the UK, Gupta attended college in Montreal and trained at the Royal College of Art, London. Gupta has shown in group and solo exhibitions throughout North America, India, South Africa and the UK. He was a founder member of groups that started Autograph: the Association of Black Photographers (1988) and inIVA: the institute of international visual arts (1995), London. He started OVA: the Organisation of Visual Arts (1992), a curating production company based in London with current projects on tour featuring artists Roshini Kempadoo and Sarindar Dhaliwal. He has written numerous articles and reviews and edited three books, and recently published a fourth, “Pictures From Here”.
Advance Tickets Only: $8, free for SAVAC members ($20+ membership) Please call: (416) 542-1661 or email info@savac.net to purchase tickets. Seating is limited. Purchase your tickets today!
