JP NAGAR:Tasveer and Ranga Shankara have announced the opening of an exhibit of specially curated works from Evening Ragas by Derry Moore at ‘Kitaki - The Window’, the art gallery and visual-art initiative at Ranga Shankara. ‘Kitaki - The Window’ is envisioned as a gateway into the finest visual art curated by premier institutions. Derry Moore, the 12th Earl of Drogheda, made his name photographing the interiors and portraits of European aristocracy, including those of Queen Elizabeth II and the late Queen Mother. He has published over a dozen books, and his photographs can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Royal Collection, the Bibliotheque Nationale, as well as numerous other private collections.
Moore began photographing India during a series of visits in early 1976. In his statement on the project titled ‘A photographer in India’, Moore states “My initial idea had been to photograph some of the places whose days, I knew, were numbered. In the event what fascinated me was not simply the places themselves but also the hybrid quality of many of the lesser buildings that had been constructed since the first arrival of the British in India. A cultural osmosis was clearly discernible, that of British and European architecture on Indian buildings, and that of India and its climate, as well as styles, on the British. In the latter instance, a grandeur and a sense of space, such as are rarely seen in Britain, were frequently the outcome: rooms were higher, windows larger, corridors wider, detail more lavish; the porticoes of relatively humble houses might have been snatched from the front of the British Museum. The appearance of their inhabitants too surprised me. I had been expecting folkloric looks, whereas what I found was far more interesting - the look and atmosphere of another century”.
Thus it is, that narratives of fading grandeur and arrested time in these incongruous architectural emblems, unfold in Moore’s Evening Ragas; poetically exemplified by the black, white and grey tones of his photographs. Lingering traces of a past, swept away by the rising tides of time, commerce and politics, they resound with the echoes of older footfalls and memories of other lives in another time - no longer accessible, and yet frequently reimagined. Exhibition dates: September 15 to October 20
Venue: Kitaki - The Window 1st Floor Ranga Shankara 36/2 8th Cross, II Phase J P Nagar, Bengaluru.
Time: 11am to 5pm (Monday to Friday), 11 am to 3 pm (Saturday & Sunday)