615 W 129th St
New York, NY
Looking for Ourselves features 34 works from the esteemed Indian photographer Gauri Gill’s extensive series The Americans. Following her travels across America over the course of seven years, the photographs trace the experiences of South Asian immigrants around the country. This exhibition critically reassesses the early body of work from Gill’s oeuvre as a pseudo-family album, one in which immigrants are invited to remember, mine, and contemplate their own diasporic experiences.
Throughout her practice, Gauri Gill (b. 1970) has followed individuals on the margins of society. Her work has focused on uncovering the intricacies of ordinary people’s daily lives, particularly the ways in which they rise above the precarious nature of their situations. In bodies of work, like The Americans, the photographer has been committed to collaborative partnership, engaging in what she calls “active listening” as she works with and through the communities she depicts.
Gauri Gill’s work has been shown at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (2023), Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2023), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2022), the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), Chennai Photo Biennale (2021 and 2019), MoMA PS1, New York (2018), Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017), 7th Moscow Biennale (2017), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016), and Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010), among other places. She has also consistently exhibited at locations outside of the art world, including public libraries, rural schools and non-profit institutions. Her work is in the collections of prominent institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Museum, London; Smithsonian Institution, Washington and Fotomuseum, Winterthur.