More than 50 art exhibitions were opened in the capital for and alongside the India Art Fair (IAF). These were in addition to the accumulated calendar of private dinners, parties and receptions held for the art world that gathered in the city. Since its inception in 2008, IAF has successfully carved a place in the cultural calendar for its home city. A coordinated slot when work held privately in artist studios, collections and archives comes on public view.
The weekend before the fair, a group of artists, professors, coders and students were in the audience of the International Artists Association’s symposium on digital and machine-oriented life, held today at the Goethe-Institut. The symposium took cues from the Khirki area of Khoj and a simultaneous exhibition at DLF Avenue Mall in Saket, which included ‘Are you human?’ asked Questions. On the agenda were delivery apps, AI (artificial intelligence), online love scams and more. We were also given some creative solutions. For example, artist Tara Kelton’s project manipulated a digital gig-work platform to get its employees to ‘donate’ rest moments.
This was followed by a series of exhibitions, as is now the tradition, with shows opening in the Defense Colony’s growing number of galleries on the same evening (two days before the IAF). Mumbai and Chennai pieces were recorded at GallerySKE and PhotoInk. Artist Sudarshan Shetty’s film, a long breath heldHighlighting the alternating silence and deafening roar of Mumbai, above, photographer Ketaki Sheth captured the film sets of Bollywood and Kollywood in black and white photographs of the 1980s-90s, interspersed with the familiar faces of Rekha, Kamal Haasan and Dilip Kumar.
line on the set of step-in-law’s daughterJuhu, Bombay, 1988 Photo Courtesy: Ketaki Sheth
(L-R) Revathi, Kamal Haasan and Gautami on the sets Thevar MaganMadras, 1992 Photo Courtesy: Ketaki Sheth
Dodia and Kallat give pause
At Vadehra Art Gallery, veteran artist Atul Dodiya’s large new paintings reflect the experience of looking at art, including paintings within paintings, viewers within frames. A few days later, in a talk on the art market at the IAF auditorium, gallerist Roshini Vadehra revealed that all the work had been sold even before the exhibition opened.
Atul Dodiya’s portrait of an artist
| Photo courtesy: Anil R.
It was not possible to run from Jitesh Kallat’s exhibition, projections on paper skyIn Bikaner House, nor digest it completely. Instead, it was useful to choose one theme or motif and follow its development through artworks created over the past decade. Take space administration. Large ‘sheets’ of the 1979 UN Moon Treaty prohibiting national ownership or military use of the Moon were crumpled and scattered at the entrance, as if a meaningless afterthought. Later, a woven tangle of highway signs included cities like Melbourne and Rishikesh as well as planets and galaxies in the distance. The drawings explaining Cold-War era transmission in the stars were created on paper tinted with beige-tone, known as ‘cosmic lattice’, the average color of light in space. Here an artist was “asking how the world is known, measured and imagined”, as Guggenheim curator Alexandra Munroe explained.
Jitish Kallat’s projections on paper sky
from weiwei to mehta
On the opening day, the fair’s corridors were filled with purposeful museum heads and private collectors. Galleries such as Vadehra, David Zwirner and Rajeev Menon Contemporary have reported that many, if not most, of the high-priced works available at their booths have been sold. Zwirner’s main sale was a picture by the German artist Wolfgang Tillmans. Photography, often sidelined in art market conversations, is increasingly gaining prominence at the fair. Only photography gallery PHOTOINK received the fair’s inaugural ‘Best Booth’ title from an independent jury. “The last five years have seen rapid growth,” said founder Devika Daulet Singh, noting the role of private museums and collection acquisitions in sparking interest from an expanding, older collector base for the medium.
Later in the day, the atmosphere changed as events around the fair grounds began and larger groups arrived. 30 Indian artists under the age of 30 honored at afternoon ART INDIA Magazine, at an awards ceremony with Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama.
The next day, a packed room at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) heard iconoclastic Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei deliver a speech on his first visit to India – discussing his life, dissident work and the political economy of India that is China. The conversation was held outside the museum’s newly opened retrospective exhibition of Tyeb Mehta, a champion of Indian modernism who is known for his auction-record-breaking paintings. Black And Mahishasura.
ai weiwei’s Who am I? At Palazzo Fava in Italy Photo Credit: Getty Images
Mehta’s quotes are scattered everywhere lifting weights (with lightness) One of them stressed the importance of Indian art to communicate beyond national boundaries – “To mind one’s own business would be suicidal in our situation,” he wrote to his friend and contemporary, Krishna Khanna. As if taking a cue, the museum is working vigorously with arts organizations internationally. It recently announced a new director, Manuel Rabate, who is currently finishing his time at the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi, and who will oversee KNMA’s expansion into a new massive million-square-foot building in Delhi.
An artwork by Tyeb Mehta
craft gets its due
Artworks exploring the history and fragility of textiles traveled from the Cheongju Craft Biennale in South Korea to the National Crafts Museum and Handicraft Academy. Notable highlights were a series of flags created by Korean artist Young In Hong while working with a women’s crafts community in Kutch, and in another almost hidden room, Bengaluru-based artist Kaimurai’s almost-devotional installation of indigo-dyed cloth.
Artist Kaimurai’s almost indigo-dyed fabric installation
In the Indian Air Force, talks on the craft are going on in several versions. It adopted the sister field of art ‘Design’ as a dedicated section two years ago. This year, artist Natasha Prinja, also known as Princess Pia, was awarded the first Swali Craft Award, an initiative by Karishma Swali and Chanakya Foundation to create solid support for the fair as well as those renewing handicraft traditions.
Natasha Prinja, also known as Princess Pea
Focus on the grassroots
Next to the hall dedicated to commercial galleries, a tent was dedicated to non-profit organizations and special artist projects. Siddhant Kumar showed Study from a cool harvestHis long-term research on heavy metal pollution in West Delhi, where he is now based, at the Prameya Art Foundation booth. An installation by Mumbai-based artist Teja Gavankar, breatheWhich came to the fair from the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa, was a thatched structure that moved like gills, ‘breathing’ in response to the weight of visitors as they sat on a hinged bench.
Teja Gavankar’s breathe
When visitors sat on an inclined bench the structure ‘breathed’ in response to their weight
The fair’s learning space was activated by Assam’s Anga Art Collective, and Patiala-based Kulpreet Singh focused on threatened animals, plants and fungal species in an adjacent installation, both presented by KNMA. In a way, a snapshot of the current art scene of the country.
An overview of Kulpreet Singh’s project extinction archive
Arthasila, a newly opened industrial building close to the Indian Air Force field in Okhla, has captured the leading edge of Indian contemporary art over the last 50 years. Some of the most notable works by artists supported by the Inlux Shivdasani Foundation are collected throughout the building, and speak to each other across generations. Particularly fascinating were Prajakta Potnis’s haunting image of eggs frozen for use in future emergencies, Sahaj Rahal’s co-controller video game set in a post-apocalyptic world, and Abul Hisham’s blurry paintings and intricate wooden beams.
As usual, during the closing time of the Indian Air Force, a large group of its trainees and volunteers posed for a group photograph in front of the fair tent. Many people return year after year.
India Art Fair team at the end of the fair
The conclusion of fair week means a long-awaited rest for those working behind the scenes. But many exhibitions will be open for the rest of us to see in the coming months. And outside of the gallery spaces, don’t miss the 10th Lodhi Art Festival and Aranyani, a new architectural pavilion at the Sundar Nursery.
The author is an arts professional, offering an insider’s perspective on the scene.