While Dayanita Singh was artist in residence at the Gardner museum in Boston, she began to photograph the Museum’s collection and was drawn mainly to chairs – making studies of these objects as though they were the people she would have photographed in her earlier work.

Looking at the photographs it is often hard to tell at a glance when and where they were taken. They look old and new, Western and Indian and of course they are in some sense, both – the one because of the other.

Later Singh made an exhibition of these works and a limited edition publication Chairs, which was only available as a gift from one of her 50 distributors, each of whom had their own edition of 10 to distribute in whichever manner they deemed suitable. This book was her first exploration of the book as the exhibition. Each accordian fold book opened into a mini exhibition.

Objects of Repose and Remembrance – Holland Cotter, The New York Times, 30 March 2005

Chairs – gardnermuseum.org