Dayanita Singh’s Museum of Chance: Book as a medium of photography exhibition

The cloth-bound 96-page hardcover book has 88 photographs by Singh. The size is 11x12.8-inch (28x32.5-cm). The uniqueness is that the front and back cover of the book is tipped-in with any of the 88 photographs.

Therefore the 88 books framed on MMB gallery’s walls take you through the entire book, which is how Singh uses book as a medium of exhibition.

Speaking at Jnanapravaha Mumbai, Singh said, “The book becomes the object, and my new book Museum of Chance goes on the wall. At MMB, I’m showing it like a regular photo, and since there are 88 photos in the book, there are 88 different versions of the book that go into the frame. With this, I’ve found a new structure.”

The publisher Gerhard Steidl said, “Dayanita Singh’s Museum of Chance is a book about how life unfolds, and asks to be recorded and edited, along and off the axis of time. The inscrutably woven photographic sequence of Singh’s Go Away Closer has now grown into a labyrinth of connections and correspondences. The thread through this novel-like web of happenings is that elusive entity called Chance. The eighty-eight quadratone images in the book will also appear on the front and back covers in random pairs, transforming each copy of the book into a distinct piece of work by the author.”
 

Details of Museum of Chance
Co-published with the Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, and Bildmuseet Umea, Sweden
Texts by Aveek Sen
Book design by Dayanita Singh and Gerhard Steidl
Book editing Dayanita Singh and Walter Keller
Image copyright: Dayanita Singh
48 euros
Image copyright: Dayanita Singh