Dayanita Singh – Performance at the 55th Biennale di Venezia 2013

130529_©Thorsten_Arendt

In her performance on May 30, 2013 in front of the French pavilion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia, Dayanita Singh signed and stamped copies of her book File Room (Steidl, 2013). Through this act of personalizing her books, Singh made the gesture of a gift; purchasers of her book not only received an individualized catalogue from the artist but also a bag and a scarf.

See here for pictures of the performance.

panel discussion: And who are you? National representation in art today

A panel discussion held by the German pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia 2013 in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut and the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa).
With Susanne Gaensheimer, Gilles Kepel, Simon Njami, Dayanita Singh, and Mark Terkessidis. Moderation: Koyo Kouoh

Date: Friday, May 31, 4 p.m.

Location: French pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice

The German pavilion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia pursues a transnational approach. Due to the French-German cooperation at this yearʼs Biennale, the contribution curated by Susanne Gaensheimer with works by

Dayanita Singh – the german contribution in the french pavilion Venice 2013

Dayanita Singh, Mona and Myself and Sea of Files, installation view the German contribution in the French pavilion Venice 2013, courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London. © Roman Mensing in cooperation with Thorsten Arendt, artdoc.de

“As a young woman, Dayanita Singh started to portray a famous Indian musician and tabla player as he traveled around the world. He subsequently became her spiritual mentor,

the official catalog of Germany’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale festival of art 2013

DEPA_BOOK_Cover_D_FINAL

We are pleased to announce the upcoming release of the official publication of the German Pavilion at the Biennale di Venezia 2013!

Edited by curator Susanne Gaensheimer, the 240-page, cloth-bound catalogue will be available as of May 28, 2013 and is published by Gestalten, Berlin.

Eleven international authors—curators, artists, collectors, and critics as well as scholars from the fields of art history, politics, migration research, philosophy, and cultural studies—were invited to take part in this interdisciplinary discussion on cultural and sociopolitical aspects of the German contribution to this year’s Biennale di Venezia.

Aveek Sen: Roots in air – „Edward Said called it Orientalism. Now it is called Context…”

houseoflove©dayanita singh

Photography from House of Love (2010) © Dayanita Singh

Do we need the classifications of national or cultural contexts in order to understand photography, and to what extent are such categorizations of cultural identity relevant in contemporary cosmopolitan society?

Aveek Sen raises these questions in his text Roots in Air and reveals deep-seated western mechanisms of reception and the feedback effect that they meanwhile have on the art of non-western artists. For Dayanita Singh it is essential that her work be read independently of rigid contextualizations or stereotypes, and Sen familiarizes us with the conceptual model of this approach.

Read his text here.

Photography from House of Love (2011) © Dayanita Singh

Photography from House of Love (2011) © Dayanita Singh

Aveek Sen is a writer and an editor for The Telegraph, Calcutta. Roots in Air is one of nine essays by Sen that are included in Singh’s book House of Love. House of Love was published in 2010 by Radius Books co-published with the Peabody Museum Press.

Dayanita Singh: „I don´t think loss has a nationality.“

Singh at home in Delhi, ©Bharat Sikka

Singh at home in Delhi,
©Bharat Sikka

Written by Rachel Spence, the article “Infinite possibilities” on Dayanita Singh appeared in the Financial Times on April 26, 2013. Spence met with Singh in her studio in Delhi and spoke with the artist on politics, love, friendship, and her relationship to photography and books. The article offers an overview of Singh’s artistic work from the past 20 years and outlines Singh’s conceptual approach, which is based on a notion of art that defies categorization and stereotypes.

Read the complete article on FinancialTimes.com

Dayanita Singh, File Room – new release by Steidl

Photography from File Room © Dayanita Singh

Dayanita Singh’s new publication File Room was published in March 2013 by Steidl. The book presents black and white photographs from the series by the same name: images of archives and back room offices. Crammed with papers and files, these spaces refer to human systems of conservation and memory.

http://www.steidl.de/flycms/de/Books/0405081144.html