Pushpamala N. and Clare Arni

Bose Pacia, New York

Bangalore, Sumukha Gallery, Native Women of South India - Manners and Customs, 2004

Mumbai, Gallery Chemould, Native Women of South India - Manners and Customs, 2004

Kolkata, Seagull Arts and Media Centre, Native Women of South India - Manners and Customs, 2004

Delhi, Nature Morte, Native Women of South India - Manners and Customs, 19 Feb - 12 March 2005

New York, Bose Pacia Gallery, Native Women of South India - Manners and Customs, 10 November - 23 December 2006

Helsinki, Helsinki City Art Museum, India Express - Sacred and Popular, 2 March - 23 July 2006

Berlin, DaimlerChrysler Contemporary, Private/Corporate IV: Works from the Lekha and Anupam Poddar, New Delhi, and DaimlerChrysler Collections, 19 January - 20 May 2007

Tokyo, Mori Art Museum, Chalo! India: A New Era in Indian Art, 22 November 2008 - 15 March 2009

Klosterneuburg, Essl Museum, Chalo! India: A New Era in Indian Art, 2 September - 1 November 2009

Arni, C. and Pushpamala N., Native Women of South India: Manners and Customs, New Delhi, 2007, p. 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41, 43 and p. 45 illus.

Sambrani, C., Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India, Asia Society & Art Gallery of Western Australia, London, 2005, p. 22 and p. 71 illus.

India Express: Sacred and Popular, Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki, 2006, pp. 62 - 63

Dalmia, Y. and Hashmi, S., Memory, Metaphor, Mutations: Contemporary Art of India and Pakistan, Oxford, 2007, p. 170 illus.

Private/Corporate IV: Works from the Lekha and Anupam Poddar, New Delhi, and DaimlerChrysler Collections: A Dialogue, DaimlerChrysler Contemporary, Berlin, 2007, p. 51 illus.

Reilly, M. and Nochlin, L., eds., Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum, New York, 2007, p. 78 and pp. 84 - 85 illus.

Oberhollenzer, G. and Szoke, A., eds., Chalo India: A New Era of Indian Art, Essl Museum, London, 2009, pp. 145 - 147, illustrated on cover 

These works are in good condition and framed behind glass, as viewed.
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During the 19th century in India, British female photographers operated ‘Zenanas’ that were all-woman studios where women in purdah would get themselves photographed. In the Victorian era, ethnologists photographed people and customs within the British colonies, including India, for the purpose of identifying and classifying them. In a sarcastic Post-Modern take on these two traditions, Pushpamala N, a Bangalore-based artist, collaborated with British photographer Clare Arni in a project aimed at the exploration of the role of photography, anthropological and ethnographic investigation in India.

Titled Native Women of South India: Manners and Customs, this series of images comprised Pushpamala playing the protagonists in a re-creation of female characters in different guises, both real and fictional. Following in the footsteps of American performative artists such as Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, and Diana Arbus, Pushpamala stages, directs and enacts a diverse range of women from varying social classes using South Indian art history, mythology and popular culture as her sources, raising issues of identity, race and gender. The series is made up of photographs that depict the historical use of photography as means of documentation and categorisation. The backdrops of these staged photographs were painted by billboard painters, who were instrumental in bringing such images of women to the masses in India. Often overtly contrived and sarcastic, these images are examining and playing with the notion of femininity and the feminine ideal.