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Artist Talk: Dayanita Singh
Erin O Toole:
Alright. So, thank you all for joining us tonight. My name is Erin O'Toole, and I'm the Baker Street
Foundation Associate Curator of Photography. And tonight, I'll be in conversation with Dayanita
Singh, whose work is included in Off the Wall, an exhibition I organized that will be on view
until August 22nd. Dayanita and I will talk for about 45 minutes and then take some questions
from the audience. So please post your questions in the Q&A and we'll do our best to answer them.
So, Off the Wall features five artists who challenge traditional notions of what a
photograph is and how it should be displayed. They turn photographs into sculpture, include
them in complex installations, project them onto various surfaces and fabricate furniture for
their display. The other artists included in the exhibition are Liz Deschenes, Sarah Sze, and Lieko
Shiga and Oliver Chanarin all mid-career artists who have shown their work all around the world
and who push the boundaries of photography in exciting ways, exploring new modes and forms.
I asked Dayanita to take part in this exhibition, because she's for many years
been interested in not only taking photographs off the wall and moving them into the space
typically occupied by museum visitors, but also in questioning the nature of museums themselves.
Born in New Delhi, where she lives today, Dayanita started her career as a photojournalist. She
published several acclaimed books before she began to experiment with the form, creating volumes that
are themselves mini-museums. She also began making larger scale museums: flexible wooden structures
designed to house and display her photographs. Dayanita's installation in Off the Wall features
three of these museums: the Museum of Shedding, the Suitcase Museum, and the Museum Bhavan.
I've invited her to talk with me tonight about how she came to make these works,
and why the prompt of "Off the Wall" was so meaningful to her.
Good morning, Dayanita! Thank you so much for joining us. For those of you who don't know,
it's a 12.5-hour difference between San Francisco and Delhi. So,
we're so pleased that you were willing to wake up very early to join us today.
Dayanita Singh: Thank you, Erin, for inviting me into this show.
And I'm sure we'll talk about it, but it's a very, very significant exhibition for me.
And, I think, in times to come, for photography too.
Erin O Toole: Wow, that's very nice of you to say! So, I was thinking we would start
at the beginning, so to speak, with your origins, and talk about how you started in photography.
So, tell us what we're looking at here in this photograph.
Dayanita Singh: You're looking at one of the many albums that my mother made of her photographs.
My mother was an obsessive not just an obsessive photographer, but an obsessive album maker.
Everything had to be collated into an album. So, sequenced into an album. And she even made an
album of my father's girlfriends and put her picture down [O Toole laughs] on the last
page. So, you know, everything! She was an archivist at heart. Everything had to be
cataloged and made into albums. Either albums or covers images put onto tables with glass on top,
so you could see them. And that makes my lineage quite obvious, I guess. [O Toole laughs]
Erin O Toole: So, this leads us to this picture [chuckles]
So you started as the subject of photographs before you became a photographer yourself.
Dayanita Singh: Yes, as I've often said, it was the only bane of my childhood to be so
photographed since I was the first born. But now that you show me this photograph and I see the
windows at the back and I look at the museum in my house and I get a sense of the proportions,
where that idea of the proportion comes from; but also, this was a house that was continuously
in motion. It was being built and rebuilt all the time, much to my mother's annoyance.
But my father just felt that if the wall came here, then it could become two rooms. And then
if another wall came, it could become three rooms. So I grew up in a very organic house.
Erin O Toole: And so, your mother took pictures of you, like that one from your childhood. And then
this one, which has some added significance to it. When was this taken?
Dayanita Singh: This was just before I was leaving for the National Institute of Design.
And she is very proud to have left her shadow on me,
and [O Toole laughs] Much more than a shadow on me. She's quite terrific.
Erin O Toole: So, I imagine that having the support of your mother and
having you take up something that was important to her must have been
something that was very moving for the two of you, to have this thing that you share.
Dayanita Singh: Yes, I sometimes feel that I'm living her dream. This is the life she
wanted. And in her time, I guess, it was just not possible, or it was impossible for her. And she
made it possible for me. Because when I started, too, there were no women in photography.
But my mother freed me from the very start. She even said, Look, don't get married if you
don't want to. I personally don't think you're the marrying kind. [O Toole laughs] Do what you want.
And she also said, I think you're going to do a lot of important things in life. And so, don't
have children unless you really want to. And don't let anyone make you feel less of a woman for not
having children. So, she liberated me from two of the things that were very important at that time,
for women in India. And she really let me go. She let me go when I was 18. I had just
lost my father. She could have held on to me and asked me to help her look after all the
litigation that followed. But no, she just said, Go. And do what you're going to do.
Erin O Toole: That's very beautiful. So, we'll skip ahead a little bit, to your first book,
your first major project. And maybe you can just give us a little background
on this project, and its significance to you.
Dayanita Singh: This is the book I made when I was still a student at the National Institute of
Design. I had been photographing Zakir Hussain, and the musicians he traveled with every winter.
So when there was a book design course at NID, and that's why you can see the text is so close to the
spine, and I can see all the mistakes in the book now. [O Toole laughs] This was my student project!
And it got published. But there were no there were very few takers for it. Because, you see,
the obvious market would have been musicians. But the musicians said it wasn't really a book
that taught them how to play the tabla, as though I could make a book that would teach you how to
play the table it's impossible! And then Zakir was not the mega-star that he is today. And so,
the book sort of ... didn't quite fit in anywhere. And it didn't have any commercial success. And,
I mean, no books do, but this one did particularly badly. And today it's a rare book. You can't get
it for any amount of money. And I wonder if Zakir is listening because he lives in San Francisco.
And then, we have just republished not republished my most recent book is also the Zakir Hussain. It
s the Zakir Hussain Maquette, the dummy title published dummy that I made for this book.
Hand-written little pasted photos, lots of rubber solution. So this is the book that, I think,
established that I knew that I made photos to make books. But it just took 20 years to have
the confidence to say that. I didn't make prints. It was too much of a luxury to make prints,
just to look at an image. So you would just learn to be very happy with contact sheets. So the
book I think the idea that the book is my work was established already, now when I look back.
Erin O Toole: And so, between this and the next book that we're going to show here,
you made a number of other more, what I would say, conventionally designed books.
But then something shifted for you. And you began making exploring what else a book could be.
And so maybe you could tell us a little bit about this project, Sent a Letter.
Dayanita Singh: Yeah I might just keep it in my hands. [pauses to retrieve book]
Erin O Toole: Yeah! [chuckles]
Dayanita Singh: So,
Sent a Letter is made of these accordion fold books
that turn into little exhibitions on your desk, on your mantelpiece, wherever you like.
And with Sent a Letter, I think I was able to achieve what I had been struggling with
for 20 years: to find a form where the book can also be the exhibition. You see, I made books,
and I had made exhibitions. But the exhibition was always a little bit of a disappointment.
Because the exhibition, after all, was just a catalog of my book. The book was the work.
And there's a wonderful story here, where I was in my studio upstairs,
with Frances Morris, who at that time was the head of collections at Tate Modern and had come to
look at acquiring some of my silver prints. And I said, I'm very honored that you should have my
work in your museum. But why are you having silver prints when you could have a book of
mine? And she said, Dayanita, we love your books, and we know how much they mean to you. But what
do we do with them in a museum? [O Toole laughs] Either we take a facsimile, or we project them,
or they're in a vitrine none of which will do justice to your book. And that was my eureka
moment. I realized that for my book to be in your institution, it had to be an exhibition.
And that was the thinking behind this box. I had been making these books, but privately, just
for friends, that I traveled with. So, they are letters to friends. And I realized, Okay. So this
is it. This is what it's going to take to bring the book into the museum as a form in itself.
Erin O Toole: And they're also sort of their own museums too. Because it's a collection
within a box. And so, maybe you get to that idea a little bit later, but ... I think that
they contain their own exhibition that somebody can hold in their hand or put on a shelf.
So, let's look at the next picture. So, this is you've shown them to us as the accordion folds,
but here is sort of a close-up of some of the stills. [pauses] Sorry, my PowerPoint
is a little slow. And then here's an example of how they might be shown in a gallery space.
Dayanita Singh: Fantastic. Because this is Arles where all photographers want to go, I suppose.
And I had been invited to show my work there. And I said, I can only show the work if I
can show the book. And they said, You know, we have a separate section for books. And I said,
No, no, no. [O Toole laughs] I want them there with my silver prints. And that year,
they also showed my mother's silver prints. So, I think it was too much for them to miss out on my
work and my mother's work, so they let me put my work in too and that was a big moment for
me. Because if I could bring in the offset print into this photography exhibition So,
this was all the start of what was really going to take over my entire life. That's all I do now.
Erin O Toole: So, you were really pushing against
ideas of what is the object that is most important in photography. And so, it has traditionally been
the print, but here you were pushing back and saying, No, actually, the book itself is
the object. Dayanita Singh: Yes.
Erin O Toole: And that there was a lot of tension
around that, because that was just not accepted practice by the field.
Dayanita Singh: Absolutely.
Erin O Toole: Okay, let's see what we have next. Here's just another
example of how they might be shown in these beautiful
teak boxes. And then here, getting to that ... question that you were raising, is: What is the
thing that you are showing? And in this case, you were showing books on the wall. Sometimes you've
shown them on a shelf, as we've seen. Sometimes the actual book itself is mounted on the wall.
Dayanita Singh: This was a big step. Because here I asked Steidl if we could have a book with 88
different covers. He said, Dayanita, that's just too much. [O Toole laughs] [indistinguishable]
You don t keep changing the cover. And I said, But if I had
a book with all the images that are inside the book, then I could exhibit the books,
and that would become an entire exhibition of this work. And I wouldn't have to show the prints.
So that's how this book was made. And it was shown at the MMK in Frankfurt. Um [inaudible]
Erin O Toole: And this is called the Museum of Chance, is the name of the book?
Dayanita Singh: Yes, the Museum of Chance. And in the other room,
they showed the actual Museum of Chance, which I'm sure we'll come to. So [crosstalk]
Erin O Toole: [crosstalk] Yeah!
Dayanita Singh: Even in my Berlin show next year, on one side you're going to have the
book-object on the wall, Museum of Chance. And then you'll have the big museum I've built
really to sort of say, Well, they're both forms. Like, Why should the book be any lesser a form?
Erin O Toole: And that also, that the chance was also part of when you ordered the book,
you didn't know which cover you were going to get. So,
there was an element of chance there too, which I think is really lovely.
Dayanita Singh: And there I felt I beat Amazon, no? [O Toole laughs] Because
you might [inaudible] But you may never get that unless you came to one of my events.
Erin O Toole: And so here I love this image. So, this is from the Suitcase Museum,
which is on view at the museum as part of the exhibition. And you're
here taking your show on the road. So here are the books in these beautiful frames.
And so, the idea here was that you could have your own pop-up museum anywhere you decided to go.
Dayanita Singh: The photograph from Venice was the test run. I thought if I could roll my
suitcase on the streets of Venice, then I could roll it anywhere. And it was a success. And I
think ... you know, in the times to come, even if we get past this virus stage, it's time to start
thinking about how much we spend on these large exhibitions, on the shipping and insurance costs.
And certainly, at this time, it has been amazing because I think the work that is touring the most
of mine is the Suitcase Museum. Because you just send these two suitcases, the curator puts them
onto the wall and keeps changing them. There's a PDF that you can print out as the catalog.
And maybe take it to another exhibition in your town,or in another town. I know your museum
won't allow you to just put it into your car, [O Toole laughs] but I would say if you're going to
Pasadena for the weekend, you could take the suitcase along. Show it there. Bring it back
in time for the museum reopening or, you know, the museum could be on loan for a night to someone who
I don't know, all kinds of possibilities with these suitcases. Wait and see. [O Toole laughs]
Erin O Toole: I love that idea! And so this is an image of you
doing another kind of pop-up. And this one is in Venice is that correct? At the Biennale?
Dayanita Singh: Yes, yes. I have such a you know, the book is omnipresent. It's like,
how do I get my book in here? So even though I was representing Germany in the Venice Biennale,
and I had my work inside, it was not enough. Because the book wasn't
omnipresent. So I had just printed File Room with Steidl, and the Prince Klaus Foundation asked
how they could help me. If there was something they could do to celebrate my being in Venice
and one of their awardees. And I said, Well, I have something a little
unconventional to ask of you. Instead of having a lunch or a dinner, could you get my File Room book
cart from New Dehli to Venice, and could we have a book launch? And they said, Who would you like
to do the launch of the book? And I couldn't think of anyone better than Okwui and he agreed!
Erin O Toole: This was Okwui Enwezor. Was he the curator that year of the ?
Dayanita Singh: No, he wasn't. It was Susanne Gaensheimer. But he agreed because he loves the
archive. And he came for things like these I don't know why he agreed, but he did.
And so, he launched for me outside the German Pavilion. And then inside, the book was installed
also, because suddenly there was a wall that needed to have something on it. And
I said to the curator, You know, there is this book that we could put. So,
I got it inside and outside. So, these are big victories for me.
Erin O Toole: Because in a lot of ways, as I mentioned at the outset, you're also challenging
the idea of what museums do. And the sort of strictness and the rules. And that you want to
put a little pressure on that, and play with it a little bit, and say, Well, maybe you don't
need to do things quite the way you always do it. And just make people think about it.
Dayanita Singh: Yeah. I love the idea of the museum. I just don't like what the museum does,
especially with photography. And I realize it's not in their hands, because if photographers
are gonna continue to serve that system, then nothing will shift. So, since I couldn t find
other forms, I thought, Okay. I'm gonna do this on my own. So I have my
you can invite me with my suitcase. You can invite me with my book cart.
You can invite me with my mobile museum. Invite me with my jacket, which we'll come too.
Erin O Toole: Here's another version with another suitcase, that you're rolling out.
Dayanita Singh: It was fantastic. I was determined to get Geoff Dyer to launch my File Room book
in India at the Jaipur Literary Festival. And they said to me, Dayanita, that would be great,
but we cannot bring your cart in too. For security reasons, you can't be rolling your cart around in
the middle of this festival. So I said, Oh, I'll just bring a bag, then. And they said, Sure. [O
Toole laughs] We can't stop you with a bag. And so that's what it was. Geoff Dyer unzipped the bag,
I pulled out this accordion, and the whole audience sighed. Because, you know, they hadn't
seen something like this. So it suddenly turned into a magic show. And they of course loved it.
Erin O Toole: And so, this is another version. And here you're sort of infiltrating a space
perhaps that looked like an art fair, maybe.
Dayanita Singh: I don't lose any opportunity to sell my book.
I even sometimes bring the cart into my house. If you're here for dinner, and if you happen to say,
Oh, I don't have your book. Whatever the latest book is. And then I'll bring my cart in
tempt you, bully you, hypnotize you. To buy it! [O Toole laughs]
Erin O Toole: And I guess we should also say that part of the impetus also for making books
and selling books is the accessibility to a wider audience as well. And there's a populist
strain to what you're doing in addition, cause you re the prints may be inaccessible to are
inaccessible to the vast majority of the people who are following you and interested in what you
do. But people can buy the books and have these beautiful objects in their own home.
Dayanita Singh: Yes, and in this time of lockdown, many friends have been sending me
pictures of having exhibitions in their homes, and Because all you do is buy this box when it
was available for 70 euros. And you have all of this inside it! So, if you have 70 euros to spend,
or you can save 70 euros why not? If you have any interest in photography, you would want it.
But here I managed to do something else, which is, that whatever books I made,
people also said, But it'll never have the same value as your prints because it's mass-produced,
and the print is unique. And so, this box is also a question to that comment. Because
each of these boxes Erin, you must be noticing the box you have is different from this one.
Erin O Toole: Yes.
Dayanita Singh: Because each box is different. The inside of all of them is the same.
But the outside so 3,000 individual boxes were made in New Delhi by my friend,
Tripa. Shipped to Steidl, and he inserted the books in them. So there's just no way you can
determine what box you're getting. Again, if you come to an event of mine, you might be able to
choose your box. But that too [audio cuts out briefly] just whatever I have in my suitcase.
Erin O Toole: And with the events, often they aren't publicized much in advance, so a lot of
it is also going back to that concept of chance. I was very fortunate to happen to be in New York
one time when you were having one. But I'm sure people wait with bated breath to know when you
going to do your next one, so they can figure out if they re going to be in the right city. [laughs]
Dayanita Singh: [indistinguishable] Not quite there as yet, but I'm sure it will get there.
Because when there are no prints, when there is nothing else, and there s just the book,
and you have any interest in my work, then if you can't get to the city where I'm showing it,
then you'll find someone in that city. It's not that difficult. There's always some student.
And this is the box I have the same one here! And this has 30 image cards. This is the most
recent manifestation of what the book-object can be. And so, you see, you can keep changing
these cards. And since there 30 cards to have an exhibition, you have to have 30 boxes on the wall.
And you buy it from the wall, but all the boxes have the same image inside.
And then, you have an object where you literally change the image every day,
every hour, every week, every month, as you like. You have 30 combinations. But it s [crosstalk]
Erin O Toole: [crosstalk] And they can sit on a table or hang on the wall. Because I have
mine, which is wrapped in this beautiful cloth.
Dayanita Singh: Yes.
Erin O Toole: But I could switch it out. I could put it on the desk and change the images
so that I had my own personal exhibition of this work on my desk.
Dayanita Singh: But I have to say that if you're at another event
and you buy a second box, then you will have 30 times 30, 900 combinations.
And if you happen to buy three boxes, you would have 900 into 30 27,000 options. And so on.
I've made five boxes so far, and I think there are only three people who have all five.
Erin O Toole: Here's a close-up. So, they come in these beautiful teak boxes.
Dayanita Singh: You can only buy one per person I don't make it easy. [O Toole laughs] This was
my most beautiful exhibition. At Callicoon. I was so happy because it turned into a retrospective of
my book-objects! And I loved it. I was there every day. I would talk to anyone who wanted to listen.
Once the postman came in, [O Toole laughs] and we were having a conversation with
him students I was every day, I was there. Book, book, book! Can we ? [crosstalk]
Erin O Toole: [crosstalk] Yeah, this is the one that I attended. And so, you have the boxes here,
wrapped on the table, the Museum of Chance on the wall, and then the book-objects on this other wall
here, so that people can get a sense of all of these various iterations. Here's another image.
Dayanita Singh: This is a table that the top opens out. And if you want me to sign
something, especially the Museum of Chance book-objects,
then you have to sit down. And I have a lot of stamps in the drawer there. And so, I stamp it
differently, and make each book then unique for you. And I believe that in creating this mahol,
which is very difficult to translate in English. It's like I think I learned it
from Mona as well as from the musicians, the idea of the mahol. That you create an atmosphere or an
ambience they re not the perfect words for the person to either, in my case, acquire the work,
you know? So, I'm sure Erin, this book-object that you have is not going to be like
other books that you have, just because you went through such an experience to acquire it, no?
Erin O Toole: Yeah. Well, it was like a happening! And you were there, and you were
chatting with everybody and so, we discussed it. And yeah, so, it was a different kind of
experience. And I should say, you were wearing this museum
[O Toole laughs] that night. And we're showing people the books that are in the pockets.
Dayanita Singh:
And I have them with me because, I think, we don't have a picture that shows the back.
[silence]
Erin O Toole:
What does it say there? I can't quite read it. It s um there s something [crosstalk]
Dayanita Singh: [crosstalk] It says, My life as a museum.
Erin O Toole: [laughs] Lovely.
Dayanita Singh: I should send [audio glitches momentarily] one in.
Erin O Toole:
Oh, I would love that! Are you kidding? [laughs] I would love that. And so we've been talking about
these smaller museums and book-objects. And as part of the installation at SFMOMA, we also
included one of your larger museums, the Museum of Shedding. And so, maybe you could talk about
how you came to make these as well. Because it's a very different kind of gesture than the book.
Dayanita Singh: So, for one, I think these are giant books. I think Museum of Chance is like
Sent a Letter on steroids. [O Toole laughs] But, I think I also missed very much in the museum space
that I couldn't rearrange my photographs, you know? Once it goes onto the wall,
it's just stuck there. And, as you know very well, that photographs completely transform depending on
the image they're placed next to. And I thought that was a pleasure we were not able to share with
the audience ever, because nobody allowed you to keep changing the images. And equally, I thought
the wall was too static. And I couldn't bear the way people look at photography exhibitions,
some people. You know, with this glaze ... they think they can take it all in in one look. Because
it's prints, and if they're large, then they've seen them all. I wanted to make a structure that
I could, A) where I could rearrange the photos in a second, and I could rearrange the structure in a
second. So, I could transform the architecture of what is often a very sterilized space. And in this
case, because the museums were new, [chuckles] and I hope that's not the case at SFMOMA,
there's also a smell of the linseed oil with the teakwood that I use. And so, you come in and the
atmosphere, or the mahol, has already changed, because you know this is not how the museum always
smells. Or there's a little smell of the same oil, I think, on the leather, in what you have,
if it's still there. So, yes! This was my way of saying, Okay. You won't let me change anything
on the wall. You won't let me ... activate the space, I'll build my own structure! It
took several years, and many, many failures. But finally, I found a few forms that I'm very happy
with, and at the end of Museum Bhavan, I made Museum of Shedding which was the last one. Um
Erin O Toole: Let s just say that the one we re looking at here is this is the Museum of Chance,
and this is now in the collection of MoMA in New York. And then, um this,
I love this series of photographs because it shows how many different ways you can arrange
this piece, which is the Museum of Shedding. And here, this is when it's
empty, and sort of packed and delivered into the space. [pauses]
And then here's all the various components. And they can be arranged in various ways. [pauses]
And so, this one was different from the Museum of Chance. This one you had designed
so that you could live with your work. So it was ... the most basic things that you
needed in order to survive with your pictures. Is that correct?
Dayanita Singh: Absolutely. I still hope it will come into my apartment. And I will actually
live inside it. I wouldn't sleep on the side the images are there, I would sleep on the other side.
But, you know, the idea that people could come and visit even when I was sleeping
yeah, this is the curator's house, I don't know if you would like to spend the night in the museum.
Erin O Toole: In your museum, I would definitely love [laughs] to spend the night in it. And
so, here you see the Museum of Shedding,
and this is the side that you were talking about sleeping on. And um
Dayanita Singh: This private side. This is the house the home side, for the curator.
You know, you just need a desk, a bed, and a stool should you have a visitor.
And this, on the left-hand side, you have a separate table for eating, and that has its
own stool that sits inside it. Everything has to be compact and fit inside everything, and
I'm very concerned about shipping costs. So, I'm trying to make new structures this time, so we can
reduce the shipping by half. And of course, then, the ultimate would be to use the crate itself.
Erin O Toole: And as you said, it's very easy to swap out the photographs. You can see here the
backs of some that are black, and then, there's just a thin teak bar. And you just move the bar,
pop the photograph out, put it into the storage, and then, put another one in, and it just takes a
moment to do it. So, it's very easy for somebody to reorganize the exhibition in the space.
Dayanita Singh: I hope you will reorganize it a few times or
invite some people to reorganize it. [crosstalk]
Erin O Toole: [crosstalk] Yeah, for sure.
Dayanita Singh: [indistinguishable] Because somehow, that's the thing I don't like about
museums, that the work gets fossilized. And this is meant to be activated. I should actually put
it into the contract! [O Toole laughs] The curator must rearrange at least five images!
Erin O Toole: I like that. And so, what you see here is the installation at SFMOMA. So,
there's the Museum Bhavan, the books on the wall, the Museum of Shedding in the middle, and then
Suitcase Museum on the wall. And I remember very early on, when we started talking about this, that
it was very that you liked the idea that I had come up with for the exhibition,
with this idea that it was a very flat-footed concept. That I had been noticing a number of
photographers who I admired were making work that was taking the work off the wall and bringing
it into the center of the gallery in different forms. And your response to it had been that you
really wanted to have the pictures in the middle, and the books on the wall.
Dayanita Singh: Because that has been my dream, you know? In the same space. Because that makes
my point. So, this for me is ... I can't help ... I would have been there. I would have come
and lived in San Francisco for a month, and been there every day and rearranged the space,
and then the art handlers would get annoyed with me, and then there would be
those problems. But, you know, I would keep pushing to keep engaging with the work, myself.
It's just perfect. Because the prints are in the middle of this room. They're not on the wall.
The book is on the wall. And for me, you know, in years to come, it may not mean very much,
because that will become the norm. But as I was saying to you the other day, when we look
at the history of the photobook, this will be a historical show because you did it in one place.
People have shown the book on the wall, but then we don't have a museum there.
The MMK did a version of it, so. But this is very compact. And it's taken the It's not just my work.
You see, what's special about this is that there's three other artists. Three wonderful artists.
So now it's not just me. Yes, that's what makes it special. It's not just me going on
and on about the book on the wall, the book on the wall, the book on the wall prints off the wall,
prints off the wall. It's someone has acknowledged that there is a shift happening.
And so, I'm very happy to be If it was just my work, I wouldn't feel It would be wonderful,
but not It's because of how you have situated it. And I'm really, really grateful to you for that.
Erin O Toole: Well, thank you. I'm so glad!
[laughs] Yeah. I think what's so interesting is that each of these artists is doing something
completely different. And that had been my goal, was to have an exhibition that had
it's five artists who each are experimenting with the form of photography, but in different ways.
But all with this same intent of pushing us away from just the framed print on the wall. And so,
what can a photograph be? And in your case is the artwork a book? Is it a print?
Can it be both at the same time? And what is a museum? Is a museum a building with
artwork in it? Is it a large thing? Is it a small thing? And what does a museum offer to people? And
I love that idea, that a museum can be something that you hold in your hand.
Dayanita Singh: Or wear on your yourself!
Erin O Toole: Yes. [laughs] Absolutely. So, what I was thinking with the last few Oh,
here's just a close-up of the books on the wall. But what I was thinking is,
you have these wonderful objects behind you, in your space there. And I'm going
to stop sharing my screen, so that maybe we could ... look at them more closely
Dayanita Singh: Well that's the maquette of the Museum of Chance. [pauses]
And these are the boxes.
Like, the one he was showing. This is my Pothi Box. I think you have this on the desk as well.
Erin O Toole: Yes, and also on my own desk. [laughs]
Cause this was the other thing that I bought in New York. [laughs] So, I have curator and
if I want to be curator, or one day I decide that I want to be the registrar... [laughs]
Dayanita Singh: Sometimes you have to be, no?
Erin O Toole: Yes!
Dayanita Singh: That's what I really love equally! To be in your museum, of course, but also,
the privilege of being in someone's house in an active way. You know? Not a print on the wall.
Not a book in your bookshelf. But an object that you have to deal with. I mean,
at some point, you have to dust. And so, you have to touch it. You have to move it.
It just doesn't get fossilized on the wall or the bookshelf. And the other thing that was lying
there, that I thought is interesting to show This is the Zakir Hussain maquette that we made last
year. With Steidl. And then I made this cover for it. Much to Steidl's annoyance. [O Toole laughs]
In this book, is this that can be put onto the wall. Uh there's a poster
that you can frame or give to somebody else. So, the book sort of disperses. There's a reader.
But the reader too can become a poster, that you can frame.
Erin O Toole: It's gorgeous.
Dayanita Singh: It has these notes from when I was a student at NID, and how I used to think
of books, with little contact prints and little drawings. And this is the maquette,
where I used to handwrite the text because there was ... you know, that was the way.
Erin O Toole: No other way to do it!
Dayanita Singh: Yeah. And I love to be able to say that
my first book is my most recent book, or something like that. You know? [O Toole laughs] I've
come a full circle, but of course I can't say that either, because there's lots more happening.
And many more books planned, and I hope I have life enough to do all the books I want to do.
But this is the privilege of working with Steidl. At the press, you get ideas, and he actually
he's such a big support. I couldn't be speaking about all of this without mentioning
what his presence in my life means. Because he's sort of... he's really the co-conspirator.
Erin O Toole: Yeah, this is just so people know it's Gerhard Steidl,
a publisher in Germany. And he is a very famous photography publisher.
And to have a publisher who is willing to do these things with you is quite rare,
I would say. Because they're not easy, and I'm sure they're not inexpensive either to produce.
Dayanita Singh: No, I think on the Museum Bhavan box, Steidl lost thousands of dollars.
Huge amount of money. But I think he loves the idea of it so much. We printed Sent a Letter
on the first of January because he said, I want to start my year with something like
this. [O Toole laughs] [indistinguishable] Not the big [indistinguishable] But something that you
can... [indistinguishable] Because he worked with Boyce, and because of his political leanings,
he really gets what I want to do with the book. And supports me wholeheartedly. The reason one
can't do this anywhere else is that there's no other publisher that has the press in-house.
[O Toole affirms] It's literally what he calls the house. The design office is on the second floor.
Third floor, two floors of the design work. And then, on the ground floor is the press.
So, you're actually at press. And that's how I met him. When he met me in 2001,
he had printed Myself Mona Ahmed book for Walter Keller for Scalo. And he came up to me and said,
I'm Gerhard Steidl. For your next book, you better be there at press. If your
publisher is too poor to send you a ticket, I will send you a ticket because you don't make
a book without being at press. Call me. [O Toole laughs] This was the start of my
now 20-year relationship with this incredible person. Incredible!
Erin O Toole: Yeah. It's an amazing story, and it's just so heartening to hear that
it's possible to experiment in this way with books. Because often that is not the case.
So, I was thinking maybe we could see if there are any questions from the audience here. And so,
I'm going to take a look at them. [pauses] Let's see So, here s a question. It says:
Can you elaborate on your choice of materials for your museums as it relates to their affect?
For me, the teakwood evokes both warmth and suggests institutional/bureaucratic space.
Dayanita Singh: You've answered your own question. [O Toole laughs] Exactly that!
Erin O Toole: That was a wonderful question.
Dayanita Singh: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Bureaucratic. Institutional. And yet,
disrupting it. Disrupting from the inside, you know? Not standing outside. But getting into the
space and disrupting it. And yes, that's exactly why it's this teakwood. Maybe in America it may
not be so reminiscent, but in India, the moment you see the teakwood, that's what you think of.
The government museums and the offices. But also, for a more practical reason that teak is very wood
is very easy to repurpose and reuse and remake. So, when we get things wrong, as we do a lot, then
we can cut a part of it, and still use it and make something else out of it. It goes on and on,
the reuse of it. The table I'm sitting on, I can't show it to you, is actually made from the sidebar
of the doors. Wood is so great for that. To be able to repurpose. And of course, I
work with some brilliant carpenters. So, that's the other part. If I did it in metal,
or I did it in ... What else could I have done it in? I wouldn't be able to play with it as much,
you know? It's like, Okay. So, Museum of Shedding will come back from San Francisco. Actually,
I have an idea to add two more wings to it. Like, museums have wings, so I also sometimes add wings
to museums. [O Toole laughs] And I can only do that because it's wood. So thanks for that.
Erin O Toole: When you first started to design them, did you make a drawing and
then would give a drawing to a carpenter, or would you talk it through with them?
Dayanita Singh: I would make a print. And I would say, This is what I want to do.
And then we would make a structure full-sized, but ordinary wood structure. And I would say, But I
need it to go in and out much more easily. Then we would make another structure, then we would
try something else. And the idea was for them to know that regardless of how it turns out,
they get paid. Because I don't think any carpenters anywhere in the world would agree
to work with me because we go through about 8 or 10 manifestations before we arrive at what
we want. And that process is very important to it. So, I'm sure if I asked an architect friend, they
would be able to make me a fantastic drawing that the carpenters could follow. But then there would
be no accidents. [O Toole laughs] And there would be no chance. And new things wouldn't happen.
And, you know, the beds and the desk is because museums always say that, Okay, Dayanita, we're
going to pay the shipping for your museums, but we can't pay for your furniture. For God's sake, we
make the benches here. Like, don t And so, with the Museum of Shedding, I actually
made the furniture completely part of the structure. So, you can't ask to just have
Museum of Chance and not have my furniture. It's conceptually so connected as well.
Erin O Toole: So, the different shapes of these structures have evolved over time,
because you made one, and then you saw that you could articulate it in a different way. Yeah.
Dayanita Singh: And the beds and the tables are also important, which I haven't said clearly
enough as yet. But I'll make a work around it. I feel the museums don't have enough space to sit
to pause. You know? The bench that you have to share with so many people is different.
But imagine if you have a table in the middle of the gallery, and one person can sit there
and just with their computer do whatever they want to do. But to sit in that room and
be surrounded with the work, to be able to do your own work in a comfortable way, I thought,
is something I would suggest Two things I would suggest to museums! One is tables. To really
rethink furniture in the museums. And the other is to have suitcase museums. And to have ambassadors
who fly around the world anyway fly around the world, so, not just for this. But these suitcases
have been made to fit into the hold of luggage on the flights. They fit into the 158-centimeter
guideline. So, you just check it in. And at most, SFMOMA has to pay for the excess
baggage that the person is traveling with. And then you fill it, and you bring it back.
Erin O Toole: I love it. Another question here is about the suitcases:
Your suitcases also invoke the idea of how we all carry images with us in our minds. Can you
talk more about how your work's portability relates to notions of both diaspora and home?
Dayanita Singh: Yeah Thank you, thank you for that question Of course, we all carry images
in our head. But we also, in my generation, at least, used to always have these shoe boxes with
lots of prints in them, or in my case, albums. But photographs are very present in one's home.
And maybe that's why the fact that my work is active in your house, Erin, means so much to me.
Because I want to go back to That home space is very important. When I did the family portraits,
nobody was thinking of my work in the '90s. Nobody. So, I thought, If at the end of my life,
300 homes in India can have my family portraits hanging in them, that is my best
museum exhibition. No museum can outlive that because to be part of a family archive means
that photograph will always be there. It won't be put into auction or gifted away so easily. So the
home, the work, the memory at home, having work inside your home, the domestic scale, the museums,
actually, also go in and out of my house. And my door is 8 feet, and the museums have to be just a
little below 8 feet so they can go out standing. So, the home ways to keep the images at home,
shuffling the images at home, bringing museums into the home, yes, it's all very connected to
the home and to the images somehow being active in the home. Not fossilized behind glass on the wall.
Erin O Toole: It's more about how... artists themselves interact with their own work in the
studio, in a way. I hear this from artists all the time is when they come to the museum for
the installation of their exhibition, they always feel like they're then disconnected from their own
work, because they can't touch it and handle it in the way that they could in the studio.
Dayanita Singh: Yeah. And I'm also then by placing it in your house,
I'm inviting you to be the curator of my work, no? When you get more of the boxes. I'm sharing
my work with you, but also sharing the curatorial process with you. And interestingly,
when I started to make all this work, I thought I would have the most resistance from curators.
And interestingly, the main supporters have been curators. They, before everybody else,
they get what I'm doing. More than what I realize sometimes. It's so interesting.
Erin O Toole: Well, I'm very glad to hear that. I was afraid to hear that you were gonna say the
opposite. This is a nice question here: I'd love to hear more about the social structure
surrounding the museum. Didn't you create a board of trustees for your museums? [O Toole laughs]
Dayanita Singh: So, when I made Museum Bhavan
it all sat around I don't know, I can rotate this a little bit
all these walls were covered with my museums, because nine of them fitted in here. They just
lined the walls. And this was going to be Museum Bhavan. And on that wall, where you see that round
case that my grandfather built, was going to be a large window. So, you could look at the
museums from the outside. And then, I had my first board of trustees museum in the Hayward Gallery,
where I had my exhibition, behind Museum of Chance and in front of Museum of Furniture, at 7:00 pm
while the opening was going on. [O Toole laughs] With three trustees: Sunil Khilnani,
Gautam Thapar and Hans Ehrlich, of course. And so, this was supposed to become Museum Bhavan.
And I was over there going to have an archivist or curator-in-residence program. So, if you wanted
to come and live with the museums, you were welcome to. But then to my complete surprise,
all the museums got acquired by other museums! So that was sort of the end of my Museum Bhavan,
and I have to inform the trustees that now we don't really have Museum Bhavan,
but we have this box. [O Toole laughs] And that is why I made this box. I don't know. It's not really
part of the question. But I d like to say that but when MoMA acquired Museum of Chance, which was the
last museum to be acquired, because it was not available to anyone except a MoMA, and that was
their way of just putting it off. And then guess what? MoMA decided to acquire just that. And at
first, I was very, very happy, of course. Your mother museum is in a major museum. And a museum
so connected with photography and I thought, Great. I've got in there. I've inserted this
new thought into them. Into that collection. But then I was very, very sad. Because I
realized ... and that's the downside of being in museum collections, that most of the time the work
sits in storage and gets shown maybe once in ten years, if you're lucky. I hadn't really thought
of that before. And that's when I went to Gerhard Steidl. And I said, What are the chances that MoMA
is going to show Museum of Chance? You acquire my museum, but you don't promise to show it.
And then, my friends may not be able to go to New York. And most of them couldn't! So,
does that mean they don't get to see my museums? Does that mean I don't get to see my museums
again? And that's why we made Museum Bhavan. And so, they're all here, and I changed some
of the names, because it's an ongoing thing. One thing leads to the other to the other.
Erin O Toole: I have one more question here, because I think it speaks a little bit to that is,
the person writes: I love the variability of the display
and would love to learn more about the type of photo that requires this format of display.
Is there a relationship between the content and the form of the photos and the display?
Dayanita Singh: Yes, yes. I'm so glad you brought that up. As I've often said that
photographs are just raw material for me. And they have to determine the form they're going to take.
I think I could make the museums the way I did, because I was photographing a lot of museums,
a lot of archives, a lot of empty spaces. And I'm right now struggling with some of my early work.
And what kind of a structure those could have. Because, a) they're 35mm, they re rectangle,
there's a lot going on in them. And it doesn't quite work in the same way, so I'm having to
think of new structures. So yes, I think it has very much to do with the kind of images,
the format of images also. Because now the 35mm images will dictate another kind of structure.
Even though in these museums I was able to insert a little bit of the rectangle, but not too much.
But more than that, I don't know with this early work that I'm looking at now for the Berlin
show. It might just be offset printed prints on the wall. I might go back to the print on
the wall, except they'll be offset printed, because I have a publisher who says, Yeah,
let's offset print your work. Why should it Because Gerhard is also an incredible printer.
And until I made silver gelatin prints, it was okay. There was the print and there was the book.
And the book was made from scans made from the prints. But ever since I started to work with
digital, and people still keep that same thinking of the print being the original.
But in the case of one of the boxes that you have, some of the boxes, like the Kochi Box,
you can only buy a unique pillar, or you can buy the box. And that's it. There are no prints!
So, I worked quite hard to make you understand that, No, no, no. You're not getting prints from
me. And now I'm thinking of making offset prints. So, make prints in offset. And so, yes, okay,
we can have them on the wall. It doesn't have to be just silver gelatin or digital
prints. It can be offset. And so, I might just go back to print on the wall, but with offset.
Erin O Toole: [O Toole] Again, challenging what our expectations are of photographs, and
what is the original, as you said, and what is a reproduction. And I love that about
your work. And I love that you keep iterating it and expanding on what you've done in making
these new forms. And so, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do
for this big exhibition. We should say this is going to be at the Gropius Bau in Berlin?
Dayanita Singh: It s in the Gropius Bau in Berlin in April 2022.
And then it travels to Mudam, to Madre, to Serralves
and one more place. It goes to five places. And I'm traveling with it because I have to keep
rearranging. Because the curators don't do that! They don't rearrange. Because then you have to
call the art handlers, I think. You can't just use your knee to shift the edges of the museum, no?
Erin O Toole: Yeah. [laughs]
Dayanita Singh: That is why Glenn Lowry was giving the talk about Museum of Chance
in Museum of Chance in MoMA, and I started to move the museum with my knee, because now I
know how to do it sort of very slyly put a certain pressure of my thigh and the doors start closing,
and the art handlers were very, very annoyed with me. [O Toole laughs]
Erin O Toole: I can definitely picture that. Well, unfortunately we are at time. And but this has
been such a lovely chance to talk to you about your work in honor of this show, and one of the
saddest parts of what's transpired is that you weren't able to come and be here in San Francisco
with us. And there wasn't an opening, and we didn't get to play in the space together with the
installation which I was so looking forward to. And so, that's really for me the worst part about
doing this show in this moment. I'm happy that it was able to happen, given everything. But the fact
that you and the other artists weren't able to come and install with us was quite disappointing.
Dayanita Singh: But I want to thank you, Erin, for doing this show. For actually putting this
group of artists together and saying, off the wall . You've started something. And you mark my words,
there will be theses written about this exhibition. It's a very, very important thing.
I know people will say, Oh, so what? So what? But no! It makes a huge shift for photography.
Erin O Toole: Thank you!
Dayanita Singh: Thank you. Thank you.
Erin O Toole: Thank you. Well, it's so meaningful to me that it
resonated with you. And you were, I think, the first person that I talked to for the exhibition,
and I remember you responding so positively to the idea. And that was very heartening.
Alright. Well, thank you all for joining us this evening. And please come see the show
if you can. It's up until August 22nd.

Artist Talk: Dayanita Singh

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