MUMBAI.- Chemould Prescott Road announced its new exhibition by Vivan Sundaram titled POSTMORTEM (after Gagawaka) which runs through January 3, 2015.

The artist reflects on the exhibition: “In POSTMORTEM (after Gagawaka), the body is ‘stripped bare’ and placed upfront. The mannequins are dissected and show their neutral attributes. In close- up, the gaze meets the hand’s touch; you see the hollow shell packed with body samples. Internal organs, displaced from their functional locations, find new couplings in the dismembered figure. The assemblage is playful, erotic, and violent.

The visual language of The Anatomy Lesson comes to us from almost four hundred years ago. Here, inanimate figures are cut open on the operation table, a basic ply board bench that is also a coffin, closet, frame and support. A series of postmortem procedures leads to post surrealist propositions. This exhibition made up of sculptural installations continues from his earlier series of installations of fashion garments made from discarded material (Gagawaka, Making Strange in 2012). Emanating out of this earlier series - the mannequins - the bearers of these garments began to gain another form that gave birth to this current series Postmortem (After Gagawaka).

Born in 1943, Vivan Sundaram and studied painting at M.S. University, Baroda and The Slade School of Fine Art, London in the 1960s. Since 1990 he has turned to making artworks as sculpture, installation, photography and video.

He has exhibited in the Berlin Biennale 8 (2014), Biennials of Sydney (2008), Seville (2006), Taipei (2006), Sharjah (2005), Shanghai (2004), Havana (1997), Johannesburg (1997) and Kwangju (1997).

He has participated in group shows in London (Tate Modern, 2001), New York (International Centre for Photography, 2008, Queens Museum, 2005), Tokyo (Mori Museum, 2008), Munich (Haus der Kunst, 2006), Vienna (Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, 2006), Karlsruhe (ZKM, 2007), Chicago (Chicago Cultural Centre, 2007), Berlin (Haus der Kulteren Welt, 2003), Rotterdam (Museum Boijamns van Beuningen, 2001) and Copenhagen (Arken Museum of Modern Art, 2012-13), among others.

He has had solo shows in many cities of India as well as in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Toronto, Montreal and Copenhagen. His recent solo exhibition, GAGAWAKA: Making Strange, was exhibited at Lalit Kala Academy, Delhi and Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, (2011-12), POSTMORTEM (after Gagawaka), Vadehra Art gallery, Delhi (2013) and Re-Take of Amrita, The Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas, Texas, (2014). His forthcoming exhibition GAGAWAKA: Making Strange and POSTMORTEM curated by Miwon Kwon and Saloni Mathur will travel to Fowler Museum at UCLA, which opens on 18th April 2015.

In 2010, Amrita Sher-Gil: Tulika Books, Delhi, published A Self-portrait in letters and writings, edited and annotated by Vivan Sundaram.

Vivan Sundaram lives and works in Delhi.