{"id":665335,"date":"2026-05-12T22:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/665335\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T22:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:17:10","slug":"how-dayanita-singh-organized-a-major-show-in-venice-without-institutional-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/665335\/","title":{"rendered":"How Dayanita Singh Organized a Major Show in Venice Without Institutional Funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feature<\/a><\/p>\n

Unmoored from the anchors of deep pockets that often hinder imagination, the artist brought her images of archival documents to an unusual venue in the Italian city.<\/p>\n


\n \"Hrag
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"How
\n Artist Dayanita Singh in her exhibition ARCHIVIO at the State Archives of Venice, which is the first time the institution is open to the public (all photos Hrag Vartanian\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

VENICE \u2014 For the first time in its history, the State Archives of Venice has opened its doors to the public to showcase an art exhibition<\/a> by Dayanita Singh. The Indian \u201coff-set artist,\u201d as she calls herself, has long been unsatisfied with the limitations of the photograph placed on a wall. Instead, she\u2019s explored more dynamic formats that use serialization, custom frames, and book objects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ARCHIVIO<\/a>, located in Campo dei Frari square in the San Polo neighborhood, welcomes Venice Biennale visitors into a treasure trove of documents that date back over a millennium, including wills, contracts, and other official records that safeguard the rich history of one of the world\u2019s most storied cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that I could make my own systems, that I didn\u2019t have to depend on the distribution of the publishing world or the gallery world,\u201d Singh told me during our conversation in 2018 on the Hyperallergic Podcast<\/a>, which coincided with her small retrospective of book objects at a New York City gallery and her inclusion in that year\u2019s Carnegie International.<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view of ARCHIVIO<\/p>\n

This show continues that career-spanning goal. After giving herself the challenge of achieving all this without major institutional funding, Singh bartered and negotiated her way into Italian archives from Naples to Venice, while finding individuals she calls patrons who helped support her passion for photography\u2019s new frontiers, unmoored from the anchors of deep pockets that hinder her imagination.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an experiment to see if it was possible to really work with the friendship economy and make something outside the very commerce-driven biennale time,\u201d Singh told me during our video interview last week, now online<\/a>. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t afford PR, so I wasn\u2019t expecting anyone to come, and that\u2019s fine too. Even if nobody comes, I did it. But people are coming.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her love of archives is crystal clear, but she continues to expand our understanding of how exhibitions can be devised. She even negotiated with local art students, who will be docents in exchange for her professional mentorship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For this exhibition, curated by Andrea Anastasio, Singh has created collapsible wooden pillars covered with square-format, black-and-white images that give the photographs a historical quality and tell her 25-year love story with Italy. After the show closes on July 31, it will travel to Rome\u2019s Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, followed by Turin\u2019s Museo d\u2019Arte Orientale, before concluding at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in New Delhi. Every iteration will present works that connect Singh\u2019s decades-long project to each site.<\/p>\n

\"\"Singh with photos of Indian archival documents bound in red cloth, on view in ARCHIVIO<\/p>\n

Though Italy\u2019s archives dominate the series, she includes documents from India, where historical records are often bundled in brightly colored cloths that fade through light exposure, leaving ghostly edges that tell another story researchers often overlook.<\/p>\n

While Singh\u2019s work has been shown in and collected by major museums the world over, it is clear that she thrives when she is confronted with a challenge. Here, she shows us that archives are living and breathing things, always in the process of renewal.<\/p>\n

Be sure to listen to our 2018 podcast episode<\/a>, and watch my short video interview with the artist as she guides us through her forest of photo-pillars in the State Archives of Venice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feature Unmoored from the anchors of deep pockets that often hinder imagination, the artist brought her images of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-665335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}