The series Reconciliations uses appropriated imagery of various international cities to create imagined utopian spaces and landscapes in order to explore and subvert historic, geographic and political boundaries. The photographs bring together disparate spaces based on real or imagined relationships. New York and Tokyo, Lima and Santiago, Ramallah and Jerusalem are situated within nations that are or have been at war with one another. The source images for this series are culled from the Internet – photographs of different cities by anonymous individuals merged into one modified, unified vision of the world.
Village Voice, Aug 18, 2006 "Jaishri Abichandani's "Khajuraho" sculptures feature whips, dildos, latex pussies, and other sex toys covered with velvet, crystals, and glitter—a disco fever update of the erotic reliefs that festoon the ancient Hindu temples. "
- R.C Baker
New York Times ART REVIEW August 23, 2002 A Pluralist Exhibition In the Plural Borough "Here and there you find particular cultural inflections, as in Jaishri Abichandani's absorbing series of small, sumptuous photographs depicting young and hip Indians in India and in New York..." -Ken Johnson
NY TIMES Art in Review December 15, 2006 Mr. Tam’s co-curator is Jaishri Abichandani, whose art was in the first Queens biennial and who organized “Fatal Love: South Asian American Art Now” for the museum. Here she has a room devoted to women that demonstrates the complicated relationship among younger women, ’70s feminism and craft-based art. MARTHA SCHWENDENER
"One of the cumulative and unexpected effects of “Dangling” is its curatorial reminder that to look unflinchingly upon the world is to see with a detachment that encompasses joy, humor and sheer beauty even amidst destruction. Arguably, this is most apparent in the focus of three works by Jaishri Abichandani. Her glamorous images of South Asian drag queens - some of whom have sought gender autonomy by acquiring political asylum in the U.S. - remind viewers that the concept of liberty is still an active, if struggling, component of America’s ideal."
