An artist who rephrased India’s Art expression

A pioneering multi-disciplinary artist, Vivan Sundaram’s works were an expression of his vibrant and very receptive political mind. Sundaram’s hunger for a change through his art remained unsatiated throughout his career. He will always be fondly remembered for speaking his mind on his leftist views and for his path-breaking works that inspired generations of young and contemporary artists. His prolific, multi-disciplinary work drew inspiration from history, literature, film, tradition and more. An institution in himself, Vivan Sundaram was always deeply engaged with all the constituents of the art world. 

India’s one of the most prolific and venerated artists, Vivan Sundaram’s body of work was a treat to human senses. With an early exposure to Indian and European art and culture, Sundaram’s projects were rich in aesthetics involving the use of varied media like painting, sculpture, printmaking, photographs, objects, video, sculptural installations, video art and other three-dimensional constructs. His prolific, multi-disciplinary work drew inspiration from history, literature, film, tradition and more. An institution in himself, Vivan Sundaram was always deeply engaged with all the constituents of the art world. His passing away is a great loss to the cultural landscape of the country and world. 

In a statement to Chinha Art News, Shireen Gandhy, Creative Director of Chemould Prescott Road, the Mumbai-based gallery that represents Sundaram, said, “In the early 90s, if one looks back at a breakthrough of mediums, where the norm of artists working in traditional oil paintings (something that Vivan very much did too), Vivan would be considered one of the earliest ‘breakthrough artists.’ He truly was the trailblazer. For someone like Vivan, his marxist ideology, his sense of justice, his strong politics intersected into his art practice.

Recalling Sundaram’s engine oil drawings after the Gulf war in 1991-92, She said, “It was possibly the first time when he broke out of mediums like charcoal, pastels or oils. These were large works on paper made with engine oil – the bottom of each work with trays of oil that felt like bloodspill (and less like an oil spill). I think it was a moment of reckoning both for us as gallerists and for the audience for works to be perceived in this courageous way.” 

Born in Simla, Himachal Pradesh, in 1943, Sundaram came from a sophisticated upper class family. 

After graduating from the Doon School,  he was trained at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, and later at Slade School of Fine Arts in London. He was the founding member of the Kasauli Art Center, the Journal of Arts & Ideas, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT), and a managing trustee of the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation (Amrita Sher-Gil was his aunt). 

In a statement Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) said, “Vivan Sundaram has been an initiator and organizer of varied and inventive projects as an extension of his artistic practice. He has had a long-standing identity as an artist-activist engaged with artist groups and collectives, and has used different artistic strategies for collaboration and activism – some of it straightforwardly political/ left oriented.” In his own words, “… my politicization in the May 1968 student movement took on a specific ideological orientation by association with comrades from the CPI(M), though I have never been a member of the Party”,  the press note continued.

On the art front, there was the setting up of the Kasauli Art Centre in 1976 – its informality and hospitality as well as active exchange and organized discourse. As a founding trustee of SAHMAT from 1989, Sundaram has been part of some head-on politics in the period especially from 1990 to 2003. He has curated on behalf of SAHMAT, many small and big exhibitions – installed and roving shows – that were exhibited across the country and that engaged with the public domain through innovative formats. 

Through the Kasauli Art Centre, Sundaram gave to the country, a workshop that not just attracted artists, but also communists, feminists, and theorists creating an alternate world and space for people with unburdened free expression who dared to break the box. This led to his 1981 exhibition “Pace for People” from the artists associated with the workshop, thus marking the turning point and transforming the Indian contemporary art scene. 

Sundaram’s seminal works be it From Persian Miniatures to Stan Brakhage (1968) and May 68 made during his days at Slade; after his return to India in 1971 and produced his first ink drawings “The Heights of Macchu Picchu” (1972), ‘Emergency drawings’ done in response to the 1975 Emergency; and 12 Bed Ward (2005) featuring 12 bed frames lined with the soles of shoes instead of mattresses or the game-changer installation 1993’s Memorial – a project with a combination of media paying homage to 1992 Babri Masjid demolition; all were an expression of his vibrant and very receptive political mind. Sundaram assumed the role of curator as well as a conductor for most part of his career, commenting on the social and popular culture. His hunger for a change through his art remained unsatiated throughout his career. He will always be fondly remembered for speaking his mind on his leftist views and for his path-breaking works that inspired generations of young and contemporary artists. 

When his well-known project “Re-take of Amrita,” visited New York in 2006, New York Times critic Holland Cotter said, “Anyone interested in modern art in India will find these pictures fascinating for the glimpse they give of Amrita Sher-Gil’s life. Anyone interested in how art can alter the unalterable, making the past at once brighter and sadder, will treasure Mr. Sundaram’s art for that.”

The final years of Sundaram’s life saw some of the widest recognition of his work. In 2018, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi hosted a full-dress retrospective for Sundaram. A separate survey initiated by Enwezor also took place that year at the Haus der Kunst in Munich.

His works have been shown in Germany, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Gwangju, as well as within institutions such as; the Biennale of Sydney, the Taipei Biennale, and the Sharjah Biennial, Herning Kunstmuseum; The Queens Museum of Art, New York; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; and Tate Modern, London. In 2008 his work was shown in “Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art,” at the International Center of Photography, New York. The artist has published over fifteen books, most recently, Making Strange, Trash, Amrita Sher Gil: An Indian Artist Family of the 20th Century, Re-take of Amrita and Vivan Sundaram is not a Photographer.

At the ongoing Kochi Biennale, his 1972 series of 25 drawings ‘The Heights of Macchu Picchu’ is on display.

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– Sonali Ghadyalpatil