Article
Historic portrait of India
Vivan Sundaram is one of India´s leading artists, witnessing political and historic processes of his country. Sundaram is a conceptual artist, working with installation, photo, film and painting.
Vivan Sundaram is capable of combining the classic with the modern, the traditional with the fresh, which makes his exhibitions actual and relevant in an Asian context.
Vivan Sundaram´s pictures are based on his grandfather´s material from the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th century. He mixes this historical material digitally with others of the grandfather´s negatives and own modern pictures. Sundara is also closely related with Amrita Sher-Gil, who is India´s greatest painter.
Through the digital process is created new photographs, which have their own freshness and strength. It appears to be an ideal mixture of classical Indian history and modern art. Not only because Amrita today appears to be one of the greatest figures in Indian art, but the grandfather Umrao Singh was also pioneer for modern photography in the country - apart from being an outstanding aristocrat.
Vivan Sundaram is an artist who has been consistent in his pursuit of a politically honed art.
During the early 1970s, he was actively involved with the student movement, and worked with activists. This activism later manifested in his involvement with the work of the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (Sahmat), of which he is a founder member and trustee.
A keen organiser, he initiated the Kasauli Art Centre in 1976, which has hosted numerous national and international arts workshops and theatre productions.
Sundaram´s major output of paintings through the 1980s marks his involvement with a historically conscious figuration. One of the interesting dimensions of his work is the excavation of the historical through the painting.
Often the historical also manifests as the personal in a situation of asserting a Third World identity and a position of solidarity with the exploited and the working classes. Sundaram´s political consciousness has always seized upon the topical, upon the question that needs to be asked. The Gulf War of 1991 occasioned a series of works in engine oil and charcoal on paper.
Though the use of unconventional media is not new to Sundaram, this series may be seen as being special in the move towards a more conceptually-oriented practice, that from then onwards, operates increasingly in three, and then four dimensions.
In thematic terms, Sundaram´s recent work remains concerned with social and environmental protest, and with an ´archaeology´ of the recent past. In terms of practice his interests in the apositional interventions of Dada and Surrealism. As well as such tendencies as Fluxus has led him to constantly reinterpret the role of the artist and the values of authorship and creativity, giving his recent work a strong conceptual content.
Several of his recent projects involving the use of photographs, found objects, video and three-dimensional constructs in a variety of materials, are expressly collaborative. His role here becomes that of the arranger, the conductor, and a curator in a quasi-archaeological dig that probes identities in the contemporary international context.
Some of his recent exhibitions have had the appearance of meticulously presented mini-museums, each one geared to the expression of a set of conceptual meanings that are coded into every detail of the organized space.
Vivan Sundaram´s pictures are based on his grandfather´s material from the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th century. He mixes this historical material digitally with others of the grandfather´s negatives and own modern pictures. Sundara is also closely related with Amrita Sher-Gil, who is India´s greatest painter.
Through the digital process is created new photographs, which have their own freshness and strength. It appears to be an ideal mixture of classical Indian history and modern art. Not only because Amrita today appears to be one of the greatest figures in Indian art, but the grandfather Umrao Singh was also pioneer for modern photography in the country - apart from being an outstanding aristocrat.
Vivan Sundaram is an artist who has been consistent in his pursuit of a politically honed art.
During the early 1970s, he was actively involved with the student movement, and worked with activists. This activism later manifested in his involvement with the work of the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (Sahmat), of which he is a founder member and trustee.
A keen organiser, he initiated the Kasauli Art Centre in 1976, which has hosted numerous national and international arts workshops and theatre productions.
Sundaram´s major output of paintings through the 1980s marks his involvement with a historically conscious figuration. One of the interesting dimensions of his work is the excavation of the historical through the painting.
Often the historical also manifests as the personal in a situation of asserting a Third World identity and a position of solidarity with the exploited and the working classes. Sundaram´s political consciousness has always seized upon the topical, upon the question that needs to be asked. The Gulf War of 1991 occasioned a series of works in engine oil and charcoal on paper.
Though the use of unconventional media is not new to Sundaram, this series may be seen as being special in the move towards a more conceptually-oriented practice, that from then onwards, operates increasingly in three, and then four dimensions.
In thematic terms, Sundaram´s recent work remains concerned with social and environmental protest, and with an ´archaeology´ of the recent past. In terms of practice his interests in the apositional interventions of Dada and Surrealism. As well as such tendencies as Fluxus has led him to constantly reinterpret the role of the artist and the values of authorship and creativity, giving his recent work a strong conceptual content.
Several of his recent projects involving the use of photographs, found objects, video and three-dimensional constructs in a variety of materials, are expressly collaborative. His role here becomes that of the arranger, the conductor, and a curator in a quasi-archaeological dig that probes identities in the contemporary international context.
Some of his recent exhibitions have had the appearance of meticulously presented mini-museums, each one geared to the expression of a set of conceptual meanings that are coded into every detail of the organized space.
Author: Karin Bergquist
Bio
Vivan Sundaram lives and works in New Delhi, where he is a Visiting Professor at the Jamia Milia Islamia University.
1943: Vivan Sundaram was born in Simla, India.
1961-65: BA in painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda
1966-68: Post-Diploma from the Slade School, London.
In 1966 he held his first solo exhibition in New Delhi and has had numerous solo exhibitions in New Delhi, Baroda, Bombay, Calcutta, Bangalore, Madras, London, Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
Important group shows include Group Exhibition, New Delhi (1974), Pictorial Space, New Delhi (1977), Six who declined to show in the Triennale, New Delhi (1978), Place for People, Bombay (1981), Contemporary Indian Art, Festival of India, London (1982), the Second and Fourth Biennale, Havana (1987 and 1991), A Critical Difference: Contemporary Art from India, UK (1993), Rivers cape, Four International Artist Residencies, Cleveland, UK (1993), the Second Asia-Pacific Triennale of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (1996).
1943: Vivan Sundaram was born in Simla, India.
1961-65: BA in painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda
1966-68: Post-Diploma from the Slade School, London.
In 1966 he held his first solo exhibition in New Delhi and has had numerous solo exhibitions in New Delhi, Baroda, Bombay, Calcutta, Bangalore, Madras, London, Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
Important group shows include Group Exhibition, New Delhi (1974), Pictorial Space, New Delhi (1977), Six who declined to show in the Triennale, New Delhi (1978), Place for People, Bombay (1981), Contemporary Indian Art, Festival of India, London (1982), the Second and Fourth Biennale, Havana (1987 and 1991), A Critical Difference: Contemporary Art from India, UK (1993), Rivers cape, Four International Artist Residencies, Cleveland, UK (1993), the Second Asia-Pacific Triennale of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (1996).
Works
The table is laid
Exhibition / Installation,
2003
Configura 11, Germany.
Wood, glass bowl, milk, straw matting. Earthenware with curd, leaf plates with rice.
Re-Take of Amirita
Exhibition / Installation,
2003
Vivan Sundarams "Re-Take of Amirita"; is a strongly moving experience - also if one should lack the knowledge of Vivan Sundarams family history. The pictures appear clearly manipulating with "transparent" persons, surrealist tableaues - especially when mixed up with different times.
Great Indian Bazaar
Exhibition / Installation,
1999
Exhibition showed at galleries in Amsterdam, New Delhi and Bangalore
House from House
Exhibition / Installation,
1994
Boat installation, Montreal
Handmade paper, steel, glass video 78x78x78
Gateway from Memorial Exhibition
Object,
1993
Tin Trunk, Neon Light, Enamel Paint.
91x86x33
Projects
This artist took part in the following project(s) organized/funded by the culturebase.net partner institutions.
Images of Asia
(08 August 03 - 26 September 03)
