Streets of Intimacy: William Gedney's Banaras Photographs

Marked by a distinct affinity towards documenting existence at the margins of society, the oeuvre of North American photographer William Gedney offers vibrant and wide-ranging views. The expansive collection consisting of black-and-white photographs taken between the late 1950s to mid-1980s, currently resides at the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Gedney’s work traces the domestic lives of coal miners in Kentucky; the drifters and their occupied apartments at the peak of the counterculture movement in 1960s San Francisco; and the annual Gay rallies in New York organised in the aftermath of the historic Stonewall riots. However some of his most stunning creations—that catapulted him to prominence—are the collection of 1000+ photographs that Gedney produced during his long visit to India from 1969–71.

Curated from the William Gedney Photographs and Papers collection, this album brings to focus an enduring theme in Gedney’s India photographs: the many intimacies—at times even undesired—that saturate the Indian streets and those who occupy them. In his diary, the photographer writes: “The street in India is an extension of one’s private person… It is the property of human beings going about human business...” He framed these scenes with a deep sensitivity and affect, while stimulated and troubled by the disjuncture between desire and intimacy at the same time. The photographs presented here capture the many moods of the bazaar in Varanasi—proliferated with visual culture and animated with the quotidian. Most significantly, these images bring out the contrast between the bustling streetscapes during the day and their transformation into an intimate landscape punctuated by sleeping bodies at night.

To read more about William Gedney, please search for “In a Bittersweet Land: William Gedney in India (1969-71)” in the Stories section.

All images by William Gedney. From William Gedney Photographs and Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Click on the image to view the album