Here I am going to talk about mostly how we organized the exhibition Between Here and There where I hosted my first show along with a fellow photographer and dear friend Raj Sarkar from 10th February to 12th February 2017 at Gallery Gold, Kolkata. So, it’s my own personal experience curating a photography exhibition; I will share what are the areas where we faced challenges in decision making, what went wrong or could have been better, and where it went well more than I thought. These details on various important aspects and insights might be helpful when you will organize an exhibition for your own. And this blog post is for my own documentation otherwise I will lose all the details down the line.

Raj Sarkar and Sudarshan Mondal, two different personalities have brought their works together, under the same roof, portraying their thoughts and experiences Between Here and There- this real world and the fantasy, the east, and the west, and life and non-life. The drama and the cinematic glance of the culture, the life, and the love all are composed beautifully in Between Here and There. The synchronicity between the two photographic approaches and the two different minds form a rhythm that is soothing and expressive. The light and shadow play hide and seek in this visual art exhibition – in black and white, and in astounding color. – this is how we wrote the heading text of our exhibition.

As it was my first exhibition, I wanted it to be absolutely perfect from all aspects. Raj exhibited his images before in a few group exhibitions, but for me, it was the first one. When we thought about the exhibition, the biggest fears was how people will appreciate our photography work, whether we will get a reasonable response from the visitors, fellow photographers, senior photographers, critics, and photo lovers or not, whether our show going to be published in leading newspapers and broadcast TV channels or not, whether we are going to have acceptable footfall or not.

These fears are not necessarily a barrier, rather these are the challenges that need to be dealt with the proper planning and tactical focus. Exhibition timing – dates and month, duration – number of days, gallery location and their reputation, advertisement and campaigning, and chief guests selection — all play a very crucial role for successful execution from a logistics perspective.

But, first of all, a definite theme has to be there for the exhibition which will be the baseline for all the decisions. Based on the exhibition theme, you have to come up with the exhibition name or title, and trust me this sounds simple but in reality, it’s a big challenge to find a good name that is refreshing, fresh, modern, not so often used, and totally aligned with your photographs you have planned to be exhibited. It took a good amount of exercise for us to figure out a name where Raj has a completely different genre of photographs than mine.

For obvious reasons below areas came across our mind and we tried not to compromise in any of these areas and worked at our maximum capacity possible to make it happen.

  • Exhibition Hall
  • Selection of photographs
  • Quality of the prints and papers
  • Framing
  • Brochure
  • Invite Cards
  • Exhibition Hall Presentation
  • Publication in Newspapers
  • Honorable Guests
  • Email Invites
  • Facebook Campaign
  • Music in Exhibition Hall
  • Hospitality
Exhibition hall

Somehow we chose Galley Gold (located at 11, Abdul Rasul Ave, Near Menoka Cinema, Lake Range, Kalighat, Kolkata, West Bengal 700026), an exhibition hall in the southern part of Kolkata. It has 4 sections inside which seemed perfectly alright for our duo exhibition. But, was it a wise decision? Now the exhibition is over and I think it was not. We could have chosen the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) of Birla Academy of Art and Culture for our show. All the galleries have their own advantages and disadvantages though.

Selection of photographs

This is the most significant part of an exhibition and it’s the reason for all these arrangements. We took several months to figure out what would be best for the show — almost 2 to 3 months, in fact, the mental process started once we booked the exhibition hall. Sequencing the photographs in the walls, taking decisions on their sizes, choosing the right walls for the right photographs – all these took major considerations. I decided to display two body of works mainly and another small one of four photos: Resonance – a body of work of landscape photos (12), Love and Intimacy – romantic and cinematic street photos from New York City (9), and Eye on High – a small set of architectural photographs (4). Obviously, we needed to dig down to get the best body of works that seamlessly goes with the exhibition theme.

Quality of the prints and papers

I chose Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Bright White 310 gsm for my Resonance series photographs. It’s a bright white cotton art paper with an inkjet coating specially tailored for FineArt printing. The lightly defined felt structure and characteristic soft Photo Rag® feel gives every FineArt print an incredible depth and three-dimensional appearance. Combined with the matt premium inkjet coating, this produces impressive FineArt prints boasting vivid colors, deep blacks, and extraordinary reproduction of detail. The bright white of the paper also creates particularly brilliant results for high contrast images. The acid- and lignin-free Photo Rag® Bright White meets the most exacting requirements for age resistance and is perfect for reproducing FineArt photographs and works of art. It complies with ISO 9706 for museum-quality for the highest age resistance.

For my Love and Intimacy series photographs, I chose Canson® Infinity Baryta Photographique 310 gsm. It consists of an alpha-cellulose, acid-free pure white paper with the same barium sulfate coating as for traditional silver-halide and a premium inkjet color receiver layer. It offers the look and aesthetic of the original darkroom baryta print and complies with the ISO 9706 standard for maximum longevity. This museum grade photo paper shows excellent black density and great image sharpness, making it ideal for black and white photography.

We had a few trial runs with different papers before I decided on these two. I realized paper makes a difference, in contrast, black depth, and overall look and feel.

Bivas Bhattacharjee printed our all photographs for the exhibition. And I must admit that we have got the best prints possible in Kolkata. Hats off to Bivas da 🙂

For all non-photographic exhibition prints like brochures, banners, posters, etc., we have printed from Capital Infoart Press located at 11B, Chowringhee Terrace, Gokhel Road, Bhowanipore, Kolkata, West Bengal 700020 and they did a very good job as well.

Framing

Tara Glass Syndicate Art Framer (Kali Temple Road, Kalighat, Kolkata – 700026, Near Kalighat Police Station) framed all our photographs for the exhibition. They are specialized in Museum quality photo framing. We decided to have all handmade white colored pinewood frames with glass on. Finished frames were looking great when exhibited, it went perfectly well with the gallery lighting setup which was warmish.

Brochure

I designed the brochure with Adobe Lightroom using the Book module and exported it as a PDF. And then we took it to the printing house and they transformed it to Adobe Illustrator format and adjusted some parts of it as needed and printed from there only. They bound the prints and cut them in a booklet form. Offset prints are good, but for economical reasons, we went for digital inkjet prints with decent papers.

Invite Cards

We printed the invite cards from Vistaprint using their online utility. I was impressed with their paper and print quality. Moreover, it’s economical. I have printed the visiting cards from them as well.

Exhibition Hall Photos

Below images will give a clear view of how the overall arrangement was and the warmth of it. Dipayan Deb took all these photos and I processed them quickly with Lightroom.

Publications in Newspapers

This is the area where we were bewildered how it will work. But, fortunately, it worked well. Almost all newspapers of West Bengal published about it. And we are thankful to Mr. Arabinda Mandal, my elder cousin’s brother for all his spontaneous help, hard work, and continuous support. Raj used his contacts to make it happen. I am very happy that all worked well, in fact, it was more than my expectation.

Honorable Guests

We are very grateful to our honorable guests for keeping our request and agree to inaugurate the show. Their esteem presence made the show ecstatic.

Sri Bikram Ghosh – Internationally reputed Tabla maestro and renowned music composer
Mr. Hiran Chatterjee – Indian Bengali film actor, writer, singer, producer, businessman, and politician
Sri Soumitra Datta – Eminent Landscape photographer
Smt. Mala Mukherjee – Accomplished photographer by her own right
Smt. Madhuchhanda Sen – Director of Maya Art Space, Kolkata.

Email Invites

There were two-there versions we used for email invites.

Respected Sir,

We, Sudarshan Mondal and Raj Sarkar, cordially invite you and your colleagues/family at the inaugural ceremony of the duo photography exhibition “Between HERE and THERE” at Gallery Gold (11, Abdul Rasul Avenue, Kolkata 700026, opp. to Rabindra Sarovar, near Menoka Cinema), time 5:30 pm on 10th February 2017.

The exhibition will be inaugurated by internationally reputed Tabla maestro and renowned music composer Sri Bikram Ghosh. Eminent Landscape photographer Sri Soumitra Datta and accomplished photographer by her own right Smt. Mala Mukherjee will grace the occasion as the chief guest and guest of honor respectively. Smt. Madhuchhanda Sen, director of Maya Art Space will also grace as a guest of honor.

The exhibition will remain open till 12th February, from 3:00 pm to 8:00 pm.

By profession, Sudarshan Mondal is a senior software consultant and works in IBM India Pvt. Ltd. Sudarshan will exhibit his two distinguished body of works; Resonance – a reflection of the state of mind with nature/landscape photography in black and white fine art format. And another one on Love and Intimacy – with close-up couple shots from the New York City streets, presented in cinematic style. You can preview his work at www.sudarshanmondal.com.

Raj Sarkar is a finance personnel in the Airports Authority of India and a photographer by passion. He enjoys traveling & documenting street life. He will present his two body of works – one of widow Holi at ancient Gopinath Temple, Vrindavan, and a set of his street photographs. You can preview his work at www.rajsarkar.com.

Another email version started with —

With due respect and humble submission, I would like to intimate you that I am going to exhibit my photography works along with a fellow photographer and dear friend Raj Sarkar from 10th February to 12th February 2017 at Gallery Gold (11, Abdul Rasul Avenue, Kolkata 700026, opp. to Rabindra Sarovar, near Menoka Cinema).

Facebook Campaign

We have created a Facebook event page and posted teaser words and pictures over there for almost last one month.

Music in Exhibition Hall

We played music from Ludovico Einaudi’s album “In a Time Lapse”. But in crowded times, we put it off.

Hospitality

We had tea, sweets and it was overall a festive environment. Raj and his family made a huge difference. They provided a very warm and vivid welcome to all our guests and visitors.

Special Thanks

Words are not enough to express my gratitude, I know, and you do not need this either, but I am doing it for myself; your spontaneous help, tireless enthusiasm, enormous support, encouragement, inspiration, and guidance shaped the exhibition and you are the reason for the grand success — it was your show too. Honestly, we can’t have the show without your thoughtfulness support system.

Sampurna Sarkar
Shaswati Mondal
Supriya Das
Debrani Das
Uttiyo Das
Koustav Das
Sangeeta Rozario
Jayati Saha
Jhuma Dutta
Md Ashik

I may have missed a few more names here, but you know you are in my heart and will always be. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to all of you. Thank you.