Indian contemporary artist Vivan Sundaram died aged 79 following a hemorrhagic stroke earlier this month. Sundaram, who has created works for nearly six decades, is best known for his multidisciplinary studio practice steeped in activism and political awareness. Reports indicate that the artist had been suffering for a few months before his death. News of his death was confirmed by Chemould Gallery in Mumbai.
“To say Vivan took a risk is an understatement,” said Shireen Gandhy, Creative Director of Chermould Gallery. Hyperallergic. “If you look at his practice, there’s a tremendous allegiance to art history, but at the same time he feels discharged when he approaches his issues with acute candor.”
Sundaram was born in the city of Shimla in northern India in 1943. He is the son of Kalyan Sundaram, the first post-partition law secretary and second chief electoral commissioner of India, and d ‘Indira Sher-Gil, the younger sister of Hungarian-Indian modern artist Amrita Sher-Gil. Sundaram pursued a bachelor’s degree in painting at Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, Gujarat, between 1961 and 1965, followed by a postgraduate degree as a Commonwealth Scholar at the Slade School of Fine Art, London from 1966 to 1968 under the tutelage of American artist RB Kitaj. Sundaram began studying film history at Slade and incorporated this interest into his works throughout his life.
Sundaram was deeply influenced by his time in Europe, especially the May 68 student protests against capitalism, imperialism and class discrimination in Paris, France. Sundaram returned to India in the early 70s and began to tackle national and global disparities in his artistic practice inspired by British pop art, kitsch and abstraction. Between the 70s and 80s the artist developed several series of works addressing and showing solidarity with oppressed populations, including but not limited to Sikhs who suffered during the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 in India, and Jewish Europeans who perished or fled during the Holocaust. Invested in Marxism, Sundaram also founded the Kasauli Art Center and the Journal of Arts and Ideas to create more opportunities for artists and writers to collaborate and work experimentally.
It wasn’t until the early 90s that Sundaram began to incorporate more unconventional materials into his practice. When approaching the Gulf War, the artist began to couple engine oil slicks with the making of charcoal marks in a homonymous series made up of 40 works that were at the triangular intersection between drawing, painting and installation. This material transition unlocked Sundaram’s interdisciplinary interests in combining film, photography, collage, printmaking and sculpture throughout his practice, culminating in exhibitions of multimedia installations such as Collaboration/Combined (1992), Memorial (1993), and Barge (1994). Sundaram practice has continued to respond to current events and continuing injustices through the use of archival information and recycled materials regarding its topics of exploration. 12 bed service (2005) explored the histories and practices of Indian waste pickers through the use of worn shoe soles and rusting bed frames, an interest that was further explored in Garbage can (2008).
Sundaram also explored his own lineage through his work, examining and remixing documentation and archival information regarding his aunt Amrita Sher-Gil and his maternal grandfather and amateur photographer Umrao Singh, both artists in their own right during the pre-independence India. These deconstructions and revaluations of his family are observed in The Sher-Gil Archives (1995) and Resumption of Amrita (2001).
Sundaram was celebrated in two 50-year retrospective exhibitions in 2018: Come in and you’re no longer a stranger at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi and Disjunctions at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, both of which commemorated his conceptual and material evolution while praising his lifelong commitment to activism and social awareness.
“He was a rare person in his creative and intellectual energy,” lamented Roshini Vadehra, director of the Vadehra Art Gallery, who has also worked with Sundaram. “His political and militant side was the one we all admired and from which we drew our strength.”
Sundaram is survived by his wife, art critic and historian Geeta Kapur. His final rites and cremation will take place tomorrow at noon at Lodhi Crematorium in New Delhi. A series of drawings by Sundaram from Heights of Macchu Picchu (1972) is currently on display at the Kochi Biennale in Kochi, India.
