Dayanita Singh Honored on TIME100 Art List
The Indian photographer is recognized for her innovative approach to capturing and presenting her work.
Indian photographer Dayanita Singh has been named one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people in art for 2026. Singh is celebrated for her dynamic and evolving portraits of India, captured over nearly four decades.
Her distinctive style involves using a waist-level, medium-format Hasselblad camera, which she likens to a "third breast." This allows her to shoot from her core, moving around her subjects rather than looking down through a traditional viewfinder. Singh's work often focuses on local shopkeepers, strangers, and her own friends and family, offering an unfiltered perspective.
Beyond her photographic techniques, Singh has also innovated in the presentation and distribution of her art. She creates what she calls "mobile museums"—portable, folding wooden structures—and displays her work on rearrangeable cube towers. This approach moves beyond conventional art market practices. While she sells limited-edition prints at high prices through galleries, she also produces more accessible photographic books and collections.
Singh's work was recently featured in an exhibition at the State Archives of Venice. This fall, she is set to open two more solo museum exhibitions in Rome and Turin.