Hotel New Bengal

Hotel New Bengal the name itself is a statement of a new layer in the map. First I encountered with New Bengal in the year of 2005, I was in Mumbai for an installation project at kalaghoda art fest. Somehow the name came from my many artist and Bengali friend… have a pleasant stay at Hotel New Bengal.
I really took that in my mind and went to stay at the hotel. The waiter took me to my room which was in the lowest price category, I forgot about liking or disliking it but rather it just entered into my mind as a fragment of a city, a little corner where many things could start.
So the journey started from that point and still not ended probably because every time I return there I discover some new addition. I would like to thank Peter Nagy who really took that project seriously and hepled me to work on it and recently did put up a show of mine in his gallery Nature Morte, New Delhi in 2008, my friend Mortimer Chatterjee who shared days and spent endless time with me at Hotel New Bengal, I am also thankful to Arindam Paul who help me to work with the basic photographs and image transformations, Narayan Singh who really tied up the entire material page by page and finally onestarpress and Christophe Boutin to support it for publication.
Samit Das, New Delhi 2008