Art Talk
Time is on my side 'A talk by Vivan Sundaram'
Kiran Nadar Museum of Arts Saket, New Delhi
Today, 6 pm onwards.
‘Time is on my side’
My talk is a
collage of notes and images. Of the volatile synergy of culture and politics
half a century ago in London, of ‘times they are a changin’. When institutions
were critiqued from within and by the rush of new ideas from outside.
In 1966 I enrolled
at the Slade School of Art. Of the visiting tutors, Ron Kitaj was exceptional.
The ‘History of Cinema’ course by Thorold Dickenson showed a series of World
War II films. The cinema of Godard, Resnais and Fellini obsessed me. I was also
tuned to American Underground films. I experienced Living Theatre, Bread and
Puppet Theatre up close – in the very commune where I lived. I went to lectures
and concerts of Buckminster Fuller, Stockhausen and Ginsberg. John Berger came
to the Slade to speak on his recent book, Art and Revolution. We
mobilized an activist critique of Enoch Powell’s racist ideology.
1968! The year
of the barricades. Rallies. A global upsurge against US imperialism and the
Vietnam war. I marched in two huge demonstrations called by Tariq Ali. And
travelled to Paris and Berlin – also in 1968.
London was then
a hub of transnational culture. The vortex shaped me.
- Vivan Sundaram
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