Art which couldn’t make it to renowned galleries finds a place at the India Art Festival. By Team Viva
An art exhibition can be engaging, fun and deeply intellectually satisfying and serious. But when several galleries join to present their artists at one single venue, the effort leads to a series of conversations between artists, curators and viewers, and between the works of art themselves.
“Monopoly in art deprives several artists from the art fair circuit. What we need is the expansion of choices presented to buyers and collectors by showing them diverse visual art products by both rural and urban artists. India Art Festival (IAF) aspires to do exactly that,” said its director Rajendra.
The second edition in Delhi kicks off on January 19 at Thyagraj Stadium with the participation of 35 art galleries and 400 associated artists with independent ones from six countries. Twenty-five cities from all over the world will feature in 100 specially designed booths. Thus, a total of 400 artists and close to 4,000 artworks will be on display. “We represent them who cannot represent themselves. Usually art galleries feature artists who are saleable but in IAF, we select artists who are looking for platforms with affordable rates and are able to recover their cost,” explained Rajendra.
The art festival follows a pattern where 60 per cent space belongs to art galleries and the remaining 40 per cent to independent artists. “This is done deliberately. Otherwise we would not have been able to run the festival for the last eight years in different centres. The known labels pull the crowd and this serves as an advantage for unknown faces as well.”
During the four-day event, galleries and artists from rural and urban area will display all kinds of artworks, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, original prints, serigraphs and installations. “There are nine artists from the Northeast, who only speak in their local language but can visually communicate with you about their work,” he said. Visitors will see an unbridled and refreshing creativity — seascapes, landscapes, cityscapes, rural and urban scenarios, nudes, figuratives, still-life, semi-abstracts and abstracts, highly realistic, religious and spiritual artworks — under one roof.
“In the last eight years, many of IAF-discovered artists have been inducted into the gallery system and have become part of the mainstream art circuit. The large number of visitors, including artists, gallerists, buyers and connoisseurs, has led to success of eight editions of the IAF at Mumbai and New Delhi,” he added. IAF attracted a little over 200,000 visitors in their last editions. IAF facilitates artists to create a network with the art galleries and help galleries to build a bond with art dealers, collectors and buyers.