Sunil Gupta: Life with a Camera, 1970 – Now

Intimate, subversive and often beautiful, Gupta’s work has been instrumental in raising awareness around the fight for queer rights internationally, particularly in India and the UK, laying bare the tensions between tradition and modernity, and public and private spheres. Life with a Camera will feature more than 130 works, spanning street photography, portraits, and commissioned and personal projects, reflecting a life of migrations between Delhi, Montreal, New York and his longstanding home in London.

Gupta’s love for family, friends and partners, and his belief that everyone has the right to lead full and joyful lives – in which identity and sexuality can be celebrated without fear – shines throughout his work. Highlight series will include Friends and Lovers (1970s), documenting Gupta’s social life as a young man in Montreal; Christopher Street (1976), capturing New York’s queer community after the Stonewall riots; Mr Malhotra’s Party (2007-2012), which covers a period of intense lobbying to change anti-gay laws in India; and Dissent and Desire (with Charan Singh, 2015), a series chronicling contemporary LGBTQ+ life in Delhi. 

…one of the most original and inventive bodies of work in contemporary photography

Ben Luke, The Nerve