VIVAN SUNDARAM
Indian (1943 – 2023)
Born in 1943 in Shimla, Vivan Sundaram studied painting at M.S. University, Baroda, and the Slade School of Fine Art, London. With a diverse practice across sculpture, painting, installation, photography and video, he has had solo shows around the world, including New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Toronto, Montreal and Copenhagen.
The Tate Modern opened an exhibit titled Memorial 1993–2014, featuring a room-sized installation of Sundaram’s work in 2023. His last solo exhibition, GAGAWAKA + Post-Mortem (2015), engaged the audience in a compelling dialogue around material, fashion, ecology, body image and the idea of aging. He has exhibited his work at important international venues, including the Sharjah Biennale (2023, 2005); Kochi Biennale (2023, 2012); Sydney (2008); Seville (2006); Taipei (2006); and Shanghai (2004), among others, and has several museum participations, including the Tate Modern, London; the International Centre for Photography, New York; Queens Museum, New York; the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna; Chicago Cultural Centre, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen; and Haus der Kulteren Welt, Berlin, to name a few.
In 2010, the book Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self-portrait in Letters and Writings, edited and annotated by Vivan Sundaram, was published by Tulika Books, Delhi.
The artist passed away in 2023 in New Delhi.
“The first break that came in the course of my career was towards the end of the ’80s. There was a global change and a national change. I felt that my journey in painting, graphics and drawings had to reposition itself. The repositioning came when I wanted to connect with people in different disciplines, talking to photographers of all hues. I made a work called Stone Column Enclosing the Gaze. I was reading Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography which argued that photography had been there for 100 years but there were no “monuments” to photography..”
–VIVAN SUNDARAM
