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

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 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.

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