Ram Rahman: Street Smart
March 20 - April 10, 2009
Main Gallery, John Hope Franklin Center
Closing reception Friday, April 10 with artist in attendance.
Main Gallery, John Hope Franklin Center
Ram Rahman, a 1979 graduate of the Yale School of Art, brings to his photographic work a subtle, often humorous eye on the street life of New Delhi and to the contemporary world of Indian artists.
Peter Nagy has written of Rahman's work: "Ram delights in the subtle absurdities to be found in [ . . .] juxtapositions, exploiting the opportunity to discover something about what might make Indians tick. Raised and still based in New Delhi, India's capital and political engine, Ram has a special interest in the symbols of politics as they enter popular culture, the highly visual markers of both parties and players that get mixed into the cacophony of the streets, revealing playful readings of the public Indian psyche." (January 2008)
In Rahman's own fascinating and swift survey of twentieth-century Indian photography, "A Sharper Focus" (2007), he situates himself along with Ketaki Sheth, Sooni Taraporewala, and Mira Nair as among the first Indian photographers to train outside of India and "to be exposed to the American documentary tradition and its increasing presence in the gallery scene."
Rahman has had one-man shows at the India International Center, New Delhi, Cleveland Museum of Art, Admit One Gallery, New York, Galerie Foundation for Indian arts, Amsterdam, Rotch Visual Collections, MIT. He has been represented in group shows at the Yale School of Art Gallery, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, Berkeley Square Gallery, London, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, Grosvenor Vadehra, London, National Museum, New Delhi, Sepia International, New York, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Japan Foundation, Tokyo, and British Council, New Delhi.
For more information on these and other exhibits at the Franklin Center, contact Rob Sikorski, r.sikorski@duke.edu.