In these works, Pushpamala uses her body to create an intricate masquerade that combines humor and storytelling with a critique of women’s representation in Bombay cinema. The images were shot at the studio of JH Thakker, a leading photography studio during the Hindi film industry’s “golden age” in the 1950s and ’60s. There, the artist employed the studio’s props, costumes, and setting to capture herself in various guises. Each image is playfully modeled after one of the nine rasas—the emotional states elicited by classical art forms, as described around the first century CE in the Sanksrit treatise Natya Shastra. Together the nine prints offer commentary on how films of India’s post-independence period have, in Pushpamala’s words, “both created and recorded the country’s modernity.”

Gallery label from

2024

Medium Gelatin silver prints
Dimensions 25 7/8 × 19 15/16" (65.7 × 50.6 cm)
Credit John Szarkowski Fund
Object number 28.2018.1-9
Department Photography

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