This edition of the India Art Fair is bigger and better than any of previous I’ve visited, with a formidable number of established and emerging galleries and artists from India, South East Asia and beyond. A sign of the fair’s growth is the scale of its expanded programme of special projects, curated sections and parallel exhibitions, all of which help amplify the event’s impact beyond the commercial activity that goes on at its core.
Here are five of my highlights – all worth exploring even after the fair has packed up and left town for another year.
INDIA ART FAIR ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
Launched in 2021, the Artists In Residence programme champions regional, often under-represented, voices. Since the inaugural cohort of Gurjeet Singh, Arpita Akhanda, Haroun Hayward, and Indu Anthony, dozens of boundary-breaking artists have been showcased through the strand, with this year’s selection featuring impressively diverse practices.
Royal College of Art alumna Imon Phukan presented The Forest That I Return To – a series of new textile and paint works that explore imagined worlds through which humans and animals move fluidly. Using scraps of fabrics carefully collected from her time in living in London and her hometown in Assam, she builds highly-textured sculptural pieces that draw from her personal experiences of migration, identity and womanhood. Playing with the theme of environments where not everything is visible or linear she invites the viewer to wander through a landscape that is complex, nuanced and layered – in parts hidden in others revealed.
Perhaps better known for his painting, Bhushan Bhombale presented Fragments of an Astronomer’s Mind – a large-scale sculpture that experiments with quotidian shapes and materials, and blurs the line between art and architecture. Inspired by and clearly referencing Sawai Jai Singh II’s Jantar Mantar observatory in Jaipur, Fragments of an Astronomer’s Mind sees the artist ponder on the beauty of human imagination, and the way the simplest shapes – curves, triangles, squares – can be arranged to reflect and celebrate the most esoteric subjects, including the cosmos and time. For Bhushan, balance can be achieved through the art, which can also help us explore, hopefully fulfil, our desires for a better world in the future.
THE DESIGN SECTION
Now in its second year, the fair’s design hall has expanded to comprise 11 exhibiting studios and Shifting Horizons, a new section curated by Alaiia Gujral, which brings together young Indian designers working with traditional techniques but contemporary aesthetics and subject matter.
A standout here was Rashid Rana’s triptych, One and Three Carpets, presented by Aspura, a new gallery specialising in collectibles. The simple and sublime installation sees the artist respond to an antique Kashan rug with a new photomosaic carpet and a contemporary rug – the first edition to be released by the Aspura.
BMW’s THE FUTURE IS BORN OF ART
Now in its fourth year, BMW’s The Future is Born of Art commission platforms promising young Indian artists or collectives on a global stage. This year’s brief asked for responses to the theme Ecocentrism – a worldview in which ecological and technological thinking coexist – with a selection of brands electric vehicles as reference points. The winning piece, entitled Biolume took inspiration from the phenomenon of bioluminescence. Artist-duo Non-Linear (Dennis Peter) and Cursorama (Yash Chandak), merge mesmerizing visuals captured from nature, with cutting-edge generative art processes to immerses the viewer within an installation that plays with light, motion and sound – evoking the fragility our ecosystems and reminding us of humanity’s responsibility to the planet and our fellow inhabitants. @bmwgroupculture
YOUNG COLLECTORS PROGRAMME
The fair’s Young Collectors’ Programme is slightly misleadingly titled. Although it does aim to specifically reach audiences aged 21-45 and inspire a new generation of collectors from the region, I would argue the dynamic programme of young voices has the potential to engage people well beyond that age-bracket!
Taking place at a number of off-site hubs, highlights of the programme included Listening Room by Tarun Balani at Triveni Kala Sangam. Through the improvised, immersive sound installation Balani’s shared stories and messages his experience of climate change, and invited visitors to contribute their own experiences.
At STIR Gallery – the Delhi HQ of the publishing and curatorial platform, Strangers House presented, The Panorama Beyond The Colour Line. Curated by Prabhakar Kamble, Shamooda Amrelia and George Varley under the artistic direction of the Strangers House founder Sumesh Sharma, they aimed to disintegrate fundamental lines of separation, whether colour in terms of the work or the creators, inviting artists with a focus on radical subject of experimental practices, but all of whom push boundaries.
THE BEST OF THE MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES
Although not officially part of India Art Fair’s programme, several institutions schedule their exhibition calendars to coincide with the influx of the international arts community attending the event. Though the launches might be timed with the fair, many shows continue beyond its presence, and are a must see if you’re in the Indian Capital over the coming months.
My highlights include the Of Worlds Within Worlds, a landmark retrospective of living legend Gulammohammed Sheikh, at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), exploring the life and legacy of one of India’s most celebrated contemporary artists.
Back at STIR Gallery, the second edition of SUSTAINIA, curated by artist duo Thukral & Tagra, with writer-curator Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi, focuses on the community as a pathfinder to address the urgent questions of sustainable livelihoods.
At Bikaner House, Vadehra Art Gallery presents a compelling Shilpa Gupta survey, full of profoundly impactful immersive installations through which the artist interrogates notions of borders, resistance, and shared humanity.
Khoj Studios’ Peers Continuum: Relays of Reciprocity, is a special exhibition and fundraiser celebrating 20 years of the organisations ground-breaking Peers Residency. The show features work donated by alumni of the programme, which is known for fostering experimental practices and community-driven art initiatives.
Finally, a must see is The National Gallery of Modern Art’s presentation of work by one of my absolute favourites, Amrita Sher-Gil – to my mind one of the greatest painters of all time, who created an extraordinary body of work before her premature death aged 28. Although low on actual paintings, the exhibition is profoundly moving in its telling of Sher-Gil’s childhood and short adulthood in Hungary and India, through photographs by her father, images by her uncle, and the words of all the family members.
Words Bakul Patki
