The life and career of Vivan Sundaram – who died in Delhi today – is especially hard to pin down, and that is how he wanted it. Both his life and work, inevitably, are deeply intertwined with all of 20th century India as he moved from colonial histories to those of contemporary radical activism, from Nehruvian nationalism to hallucinating images of dystopian globalisation.
Sundaram (May 28, 1943-March 29, 2023) was born in Simla, grandson of the photographer Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, the nephew of Amrita Sher-Gil. He studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda (1961-65) and at the Slade School of Art, London (1966-68).
It was there, in the middle of the student protests of May 1968, that his work took a definitive turn, interested as much in pop art as in radical organisation, as he lived in a commune in London till 1970.
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