81out of focus · booksFEBRUARY 2018by the tent’s burlap enclosure, which is
in turn patterned with illustrations of
animals; the bottom features the peas-
ants distributed before a painted fence.
The arrangement stresses certain vi-
sual resonances: first, that the peasants’
clothing matches the tent design; sec-
ond, that some of their body language,
particularly the crouching, is mimicked
by the animals above. It could be ar-
gued that this is a visual trope, and a
successful one at that. But what sort of
success does it represent? Whose vision
of “folk culture” is being reified? Can
we imagine a white artist taking this
picture at a Native American reserva-
tion? Would that not seem condescend-
ing? Then again, the peasants’ saris and
kurtis (maybe even their white dhotis)
are no doubt symbols of their “colorful
spirits.”the question of colour, spiritual or
otherwise, takes us far into “Modern-
ism on the Ganges,” a grand and care-
fully curated retrospective of Singh’s
photos that closed last month at New
York’s Met Breuer (The Metropolitan
Museum of Art’s new location). This
is first of all an art-historical matter.
Singh, who began working in Jaipur
in the mid-1960s, is today considered
a pioneer of colour photography. This
type of distinction, rare enough for
an Indian artist, is doubly impressive
when put in context. Singh had no men-
tors and almost no local audience (at
least until the 1990s). He did not teach
at universities until very late in his life.
In short, his Western contemporaries
had every advantage over him.
With tenacity worthy of his Rajput
ancestors, he advanced his career from
the mid-1970s on. First he made con-
tacts in the art world as and when they
passed through India. (It helped that
he came from money.) Then he moved
abroad, living with his French wife
Anne de Henning in Paris, and later,
rather nomadically, between New York,
London and Delhi, usually with fellow
artists.
His early projects were dictated by
the taste of Western magazine editors;
few in India would or could publish
him. But within a decade, he won the
freedom to work on his own terms. Suc-Peasants, Singh argues, “stand out” because
of the “rich fabric of their culture” (and also
because of their fabrics). This sounds nice
enough until you reverse the equation. Would
they not stand out if they did not sing and
dance? And would Singh have lost interest if
their clothes were plainer?