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India Art Fair: A sneak peek into the festival of arts in the Capital

Updated on: May 1, 2017, 17:01:33 IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By , New Delhi
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A glimpse of the India Art Fair last year, where visitors got enough to click and talk about. (Waseem Gashroo/HT Photo)
A glimpse of the India Art Fair last year, where visitors got enough to click and talk about. (Waseem Gashroo/HT Photo)

Find yourself or lose yourself at this annual confluence of art when the best in the contemporary and vernacular converge in Delhi.

The alleys are created. The booths are set. And Delhi is ready to convert itself into the art capital of the world, for it’s time for the India Art Fair. Brimming with aesthetics and creativity, the event, in its ninth edition, has attracted 72 Indian and international galleries. Six leading Nepali artists will also display their works in the fair.

The cultural discourse in South Asia will be highlighted at the speakers’ forum, which will have artists, curators, critics, administrators, academics, and collectors discuss about different aspects of art. In addition this year, there’ll be an Art Projects programme, spanning across outdoor and indoor spaces. This includes 16 especially-curated projects by artists such as Mithu Sen, Thukral and Tagra, Sudarshan Shetty and Hemant Sreekumar.

A hand-coloured black and white print, Night Prowl, by Rajesh Soni on display at the Tasveer Arts booth at the fair.
A hand-coloured black and white print, Night Prowl, by Rajesh Soni on display at the Tasveer Arts booth at the fair.

A newly-curated space, by Dr Annapurna Garimella, titled Vernacular in Flux that will present vernacular art on Gond, Madhubani and Mysore paintings, will appeal to visitors. “Building on the success of Platform last year, and the positive reception it received, we are bringing back this significant section for the 2017 edition of the fair too. This year Platform participants include Britto Arts Trust (Dhaka, Bangladesh), Nepal Art Council (Kathmandu, Nepal), Theertha International Artists’ Collective (Colombo, Sri Lanka) and Blueprint 12 (New Delhi, India),” says Neha Kirpal, founding director, India Art Fair.

Storyteller Devi, a mixed-media art work by Vinita Dasgupta at Art Lounge Gallery.
Storyteller Devi, a mixed-media art work by Vinita Dasgupta at Art Lounge Gallery.

Film buffs must keep an eye for the Film Programme, curated by Godrej India Culture Lab with Avijit Mukul Kishore and Rohan Shivkumar. Art on Film is an intersection between film-making and visual arts in India from the 1960s till today. Meanwhile, we tell you what to look out for and where.

Catch It Live

What: India Art Fair 2017

Where: NSIC Grounds, Okhla

On till: February 5

Timings: 11am to 7pm

Nearest Metro Station: Govind Puri on Violet Line

An akhara photograph in Tigri by Namrata Alex and Soaib at Evidence Room: A Retrospective of Negotiating Routes.
An akhara photograph in Tigri by Namrata Alex and Soaib at Evidence Room: A Retrospective of Negotiating Routes.

Some collateral events around the city:

Evidence Room: A Retrospective Of Negotiating Routes, a group show by 12 artists at Khoj Studios, S-17, Khirkee Extension

The Open Hand, different international projects at 24, Jor Bagh

Dreams of the Mind, by contemporaray Hungarian artists at Hungarian Information and Cultural Centre, 1/A Janpath

Horizon: Against Nature in collaboration with Artium Basque Museum of Contemporary Art at Instituto Cervantes, 48, Hanuman Road, CP