Probir Gupta
Anant Art Gallery, 2007
Catalogue Essay: Gayatri Sinha
Arguably Probir is opening up a historical argument, one that draws on anthropology and cultural location to examine, 'how have we been seen'? More importantly can we reinterpret and re-present the metanarrative of cultural encounter from the position of the subject race! To quote Homi Bhabha on the representation of cultural difference, "The 'Other' is cited, quoted, framed, illuminated, encased in the shot/reverse-shot strategy of a serial enlightenment. Narrative and cultural politics of difference become the closed circuit of interpretation. The Other loses its power to signify, to negate, to initiate its historic desire to establish its own institutional and oppositional discourse".
(excerpt from the catalogue essay ‘Probir Gupta: Revisiting the Historical Imaginary’ by Gayatri Sinha)