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拍品專文
Produced between 2001 and 2005, Vivan Sundaram’s photomontages bring together three generations of his family, including his grandfather, the Indian photographer Umrao Singh and his aunt, the renowned Indian modernist, Amrita Sher-Gil. Digitally manipulating photographs from his family archives, Sundaram combines Umrao Singh’s self-portraits and portraits of his daughter with seminal paintings by Sher-Gil.
Sundaram writes, “Artists posing for the camera while painting or in front of their paintings when they are finished, is an established genre. I make Amrita ‘act out’ this role in multiple ways. The computer application Adobe Photoshop facilitates re-takes in front of paintings, the artist can slip between and behind the paintings, the painted figure can be seen to be real, as real as the artist or the model. On the other hand, Amrita as the photographer’s model melts into her figural compositions like a dream sequence in a cinema” (Artist statement, Re-take of Amrita, New Delhi, 2001, p. 6).
Sundaram edits the images in this series with a kind of sensitivity and vulnerability that allows the viewer insight into the processes of creation. We are shown the string that Umrao Singh sometimes pulled to snap his photographs, the blurred or sometimes abrupt edges left by Sundaram’s digital tools, and the ghost-like outlines of overlapping images; all creating narratives of fluctuating memories that live outside of the photographic paper.
With the inclusion of domestic interiors, mirrors and images of Sher-Gil’s paintings from a later generation, Sundaram’s photomontages disassemble conceptions of time, space and as a result, reality. The photograph no longer conforms to its perception as a fixed document, as chronologies and geographies are intentionally blurred. In writing about this series, Sundaram references Sher-Gil’s youthful aspirations and her tragic death at the age of twenty-nine, adding further dimension to the series as a reflection on the stages of life.
“Umrao Singh’s self-portraits explore a range of characterizations: an assertion of his physical being, his intellectual countenance, his melancholic moods, his liminal being. Umrao Singh’s portraits of his daughter reflect a recognition of her youthful aspiration. She is becoming an artist, but coupled with that is her desire for self-projection which her father’s camera frames into a stunning countenance. Enter, a contemporary ‘director’. I strategize the role she has already played in determining her pose and her setting… I add to the mélange of interpretations on the theme of artist and model” (Artist statement, Ibid., 2001, p. 6).
Sundaram writes, “Artists posing for the camera while painting or in front of their paintings when they are finished, is an established genre. I make Amrita ‘act out’ this role in multiple ways. The computer application Adobe Photoshop facilitates re-takes in front of paintings, the artist can slip between and behind the paintings, the painted figure can be seen to be real, as real as the artist or the model. On the other hand, Amrita as the photographer’s model melts into her figural compositions like a dream sequence in a cinema” (Artist statement, Re-take of Amrita, New Delhi, 2001, p. 6).
Sundaram edits the images in this series with a kind of sensitivity and vulnerability that allows the viewer insight into the processes of creation. We are shown the string that Umrao Singh sometimes pulled to snap his photographs, the blurred or sometimes abrupt edges left by Sundaram’s digital tools, and the ghost-like outlines of overlapping images; all creating narratives of fluctuating memories that live outside of the photographic paper.
With the inclusion of domestic interiors, mirrors and images of Sher-Gil’s paintings from a later generation, Sundaram’s photomontages disassemble conceptions of time, space and as a result, reality. The photograph no longer conforms to its perception as a fixed document, as chronologies and geographies are intentionally blurred. In writing about this series, Sundaram references Sher-Gil’s youthful aspirations and her tragic death at the age of twenty-nine, adding further dimension to the series as a reflection on the stages of life.
“Umrao Singh’s self-portraits explore a range of characterizations: an assertion of his physical being, his intellectual countenance, his melancholic moods, his liminal being. Umrao Singh’s portraits of his daughter reflect a recognition of her youthful aspiration. She is becoming an artist, but coupled with that is her desire for self-projection which her father’s camera frames into a stunning countenance. Enter, a contemporary ‘director’. I strategize the role she has already played in determining her pose and her setting… I add to the mélange of interpretations on the theme of artist and model” (Artist statement, Ibid., 2001, p. 6).