"70s and 80s 'out side in'a tale of three cities"

Photographs by Pablo Bartholomew

Representing his earliest documentary photography, these prints remain as apropos today as they were then. There is an acute absence of documentation of changing urban India in these two decades, particularly Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta, the three cities referenced in the title. This body of photographs serves as a chronicle ofthe cities' shifting nature, character and function. As testimony to the enduring value of his images, these records of urban life have immediacy, an ability to make the "past" contemporary to the viewer. Primarily, however, these photographs are witness to the flux in the social and cultural landscape at that point; through the uniquely personal filter of images of the artist's self-portraits, friends, family and social milieu. In this exhibition, Pablo Bartholomew's is the floating, nomadic world of his teens, of psychedelic lifestyles and of his presence within what he refers to as "the first free-thinking generation after Independence"a world he had personal exposure to as the son of Richard Bartholomew, preeminent art critic, curator, poet and photographer and mother, Rati Bartholomew, a well known personality in the theatre and literary circles in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These photographs are notes from his diary enacting personal dialogs, which inadvertentlyconnect to a universal, cross-generational ethos.

Source:www.iopf.com.cn