About four years ago, I came across the catalogue published by Tulika books on Vivan Sundaram's Retake of Amrita exhibition. At the time, I wrote a little review of the work based on the catalogue (probably a review that I would NOT want to revisit at this late date!), and have since curiously watched as the show seems to have been travelling extensively since at least 2002....through Europe, Canada - I think maybe Singapore?? - and to the US.
All this preface is to say that I finally got to see the work in the flesh at the Sepia Gallery and wow - I have seen this work reproduced so often that I did not expect to be blown away by the real thing. Guess what? I was completely and utterly blown away.
Of course scale is always the first thing that jumps out after spending years looking at photos or slides, but it was the composition of the whole thing itself that produced, well, very intimate and raw emotive space. And that, I think, is not so much the impact of the individual photos which were taken between circas 1911 and 1950 by Vivan 's grandfather, Umrao Singh - but rather it came from Vivan's own manipulation of the photos to reveal relationships, tensions, and uncertainties between his family of "actors". You become invested in the trajectory of their lives and, like a theatrical event, you want to know how it all turns out in the end for every one of them.
I was also surprised and delighted to see parts of the actual Amrita Sher-Gil archive on display - photos that Umrao took of himself and his family that Vivan later manipulated for the Retake show. Just the disclosure of the archival photos was a glimpse into an important - yet surreal - moment in Indian history, underscoring Amrita's canonic place in Indian modern art while at the same time questioning her real ties and sense of identity linked to India.
I say the last because although much of her work drew on Indian subjects, she did so with the pov of a European modernist, and with the eyes of the European elite of which she and the whole family were very much a part. Her physical and psychological distance from - rather than her connection to - India is so striking in these images. The fact that Amrita (as a figure) and her paintings were so aggressively swept up by the nationalist movement is thus a more fascinating comment on the tensions and contradictions of early postcolonial nationalisms than I had previously recognized.
There was also a 10 min set of videos in the show that employ photographic stills, video and music - facing each other and tracing in not-so-subtle ways, the narratives of Amrita's mother and sister (Vivan's mother). Although I was mesmorized by the flickering photos and their "movements", I still found it the least compelling aspect of the show as the music was a little too monumental and over the top; and one had to wonder about the real messages, obviously the artist's mother's history is a personal narrative, but it is difficult to tell as the mother (Indira) does not give nearly as much away in the images at Amrita. And as for Vivan's grandmother, Marie Antoinette, her death by suicide is a little too sensationalized here with the jerky and somewhat odd video manipulation of the images, it comes off as somewhat forced or obvious.
I guess here stands my love/hate relationship with the archive-as-art or even as a parallel to art: Marie Antoin's story - I suppose like Amrita's - is best presented in the context of art as a l little obscured and mysterious - at least ambiguous. And there is a line here between the "real" archive and the "surreal" art. At what point can I as the viewer interpret the work - and when am I forced to yield to the historical "truths"? I know the story of the family - or at least how it is told in the public realm - but can one view "Retake" without feeling as though their interpretations need historical narrative "corrections"?
All this preface is to say that I finally got to see the work in the flesh at the Sepia Gallery and wow - I have seen this work reproduced so often that I did not expect to be blown away by the real thing. Guess what? I was completely and utterly blown away.
Of course scale is always the first thing that jumps out after spending years looking at photos or slides, but it was the composition of the whole thing itself that produced, well, very intimate and raw emotive space. And that, I think, is not so much the impact of the individual photos which were taken between circas 1911 and 1950 by Vivan 's grandfather, Umrao Singh - but rather it came from Vivan's own manipulation of the photos to reveal relationships, tensions, and uncertainties between his family of "actors". You become invested in the trajectory of their lives and, like a theatrical event, you want to know how it all turns out in the end for every one of them.
I was also surprised and delighted to see parts of the actual Amrita Sher-Gil archive on display - photos that Umrao took of himself and his family that Vivan later manipulated for the Retake show. Just the disclosure of the archival photos was a glimpse into an important - yet surreal - moment in Indian history, underscoring Amrita's canonic place in Indian modern art while at the same time questioning her real ties and sense of identity linked to India.
I say the last because although much of her work drew on Indian subjects, she did so with the pov of a European modernist, and with the eyes of the European elite of which she and the whole family were very much a part. Her physical and psychological distance from - rather than her connection to - India is so striking in these images. The fact that Amrita (as a figure) and her paintings were so aggressively swept up by the nationalist movement is thus a more fascinating comment on the tensions and contradictions of early postcolonial nationalisms than I had previously recognized.
There was also a 10 min set of videos in the show that employ photographic stills, video and music - facing each other and tracing in not-so-subtle ways, the narratives of Amrita's mother and sister (Vivan's mother). Although I was mesmorized by the flickering photos and their "movements", I still found it the least compelling aspect of the show as the music was a little too monumental and over the top; and one had to wonder about the real messages, obviously the artist's mother's history is a personal narrative, but it is difficult to tell as the mother (Indira) does not give nearly as much away in the images at Amrita. And as for Vivan's grandmother, Marie Antoinette, her death by suicide is a little too sensationalized here with the jerky and somewhat odd video manipulation of the images, it comes off as somewhat forced or obvious.
I guess here stands my love/hate relationship with the archive-as-art or even as a parallel to art: Marie Antoin's story - I suppose like Amrita's - is best presented in the context of art as a l little obscured and mysterious - at least ambiguous. And there is a line here between the "real" archive and the "surreal" art. At what point can I as the viewer interpret the work - and when am I forced to yield to the historical "truths"? I know the story of the family - or at least how it is told in the public realm - but can one view "Retake" without feeling as though their interpretations need historical narrative "corrections"?
