VIVAN SUNDARAM | WAR GAMES (SET OF 4)

Acquired from Chemould Gallery, Mumbai in 1990

New Delhi, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Vivan Sundaram: A Retrospective: Fifty Years, Step Inside and You are no Longer a Stranger, 9 February - 20 July 2018

“Remembering Group 1890, Delhi, 1963: a crucial moment for affirming the tradition of the modern in Indian art. Remembering also the manifesto of Group 1890 proclaiming romance and rebellion in forms black. To these I return today as images in history.” (V. Sundaram, Long Night: Drawings in Charcoal, Paul’s Press, Delhi, 1988, title page, unpaginated)

These poignant words written by Vivan Sundaram underpin a powerful series of charcoal drawings on paper created between 1987 and 1988 that were made after the artist visited Auschwitz. ‘The Long Night series (1988), made in horizontal format as landscapes of penal settlements, broken bodies, the charred topography of mines, and embattled terrains. They bear haunting imprints from the artist’s journey to Auschwitz in the previous year and refrains of Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (1956).’ (N. Ginwala, ‘In the Living Present: Vivan Sundaram’, 2018, Accessed 15/1/20 < http://moussemagazine.it/natasha-ginwala-vivan-sundaram-2018/>)

Akin to black and white documentary photographs of war, these monochromatic landscapes contain a multitude of symbols and allusions that can be interpreted subjectively by the viewer. Heavily layered with charcoal resembling large clouds of smoke and vapor, they become almost claustrophobic in nature. Despite the simplicity of the medium, these drawings impart a complex message about the cost of war.