Stage set for 16th India Art Fair in Delhi
India Art Fair returns with 120 exhibitors, featuring 41 new artists, galleries, and institutions from Feb 6-9 in Delhi, showcasing diverse artworks.
At least forty-one artists and artist collectives, twelve institutions and seven galleries will make their debut at the India Art Fair, one of the country’s most anticipated commercial art events slated to be held between February 6 and 9 at NSIC Exhibition Grounds in Okhla in south Delhi. The fair, which has steadily grown since its first iteration in 2008, will host 120 exhibitors (including galleries, private museums, collectives, designers and design studios) this year. International participation too will see an uptick with at least thirteen galleries and nine institutions, of whom eighteen are returning to participate in the 16th edition of the fair.

High-value sales are expected from Mumbai and Delhi galleries including Nature Morte, Gallerie ISA, Chemould and Vadehra, as well as galleries like Gallery Ske (Bengaluru) or Experimenter (Kolkata and Mumbai) given their roster of some of the top-selling contemporary artists in the country. International galleries like David Zwirner, Galleria Continua and Lisson Gallery, too, will aim to sell big — Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei sold two works for over US$750,000 (nearly ₹6.5 crore) last year, as reported by The Indian Express. This year, Weiwei’s works will include pottery from the Yangshao Culture (5,000–3,000 BCE) glazed and wrapped in fabric as well as more recent pieces made using Lego bricks. Other famous international artists being shown this year include Anish Kapoor, whose stainless steel and lacquer polished circles return to the fair alongside an untitled alabaster sculpture, as well as Serbian artist Marina Abramovic, who shot to fame for performance art in the 1970s after she once stood in a Naples studio for six hours surrounded by 72 objects (which included a loaded gun) inviting viewers to use any of them on her.
However, art works across different price points will be available at the fair. Delhi-based Pichvai Tradition and Beyond will showcase works ranging from ₹10,000 going up to up to approximately ₹7-8 lakh. Exhibit 320 will showcase 10 artists with works ranging from ₹2.5 lakh to ₹20 lakh. Gallery Espace, which recently marked its 35th anniversary, will show 20 works with a price range from ₹90,000 to ₹90 lakh. This includes a print by Zarina Hashmi, Duststorm (Home is a Foreign Place) and a piece by abstractionist Jeram Patel. However, the booth will focus on contemporary artists, including those working across different mediums like Ishita Chakravarty, a Zurich-based artist, whose ceramic works will be on display and Harendra Kushwaha, an artist of Nepali-origin, whose works weave paper in geometric and abstract shapes and sizes.
“It’s important for young collectors to look at artists of their times and grow up with them,” said Gallery Espace founder Renu Modi.
The fair introduced a design section in its last iteration, which garnered a lot of interest and also drove up sales — a Nacho Carbonell coffee table was sold for $324,000 ( ₹2.8 crore) while a Karl Lagerfeld water fountain fetched $162,000 ( ₹1.4 crore), Art Insider reported. This year, the section will showcase an exhibit of 17 emerging designers and studios curated by Alaiia Gujral, whose works range between ₹2 lakh and ₹8 lakh. Limited edition and hand-made collectible designs by 11 studios including Gunjan Gupta, Vikram Goyal, Ashiesh Shah among others, will accompany the design exhibit.
“My goal is to elevate contemporary Indian design by creating a platform that puts the focus squarely on the designers and their work. This will include furniture, lighting, objects, textiles, and digital works,” Gujral said.
For collectors, Indian and international, the fair presents an opportunity to see new works of artists they’re keen on acquiring. Arjun Agarwal, a 39-year-old social entrepreneur and businessman from Bengaluru who collects primarily contemporary art, is excited to see Harminder Judge, a British artist of Indian origin, and Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, a Sri Lankan Tamil artist based in Australia, both of whose works he has previously acquired. Both artists will be shown at the fair by Jhaveri Contemporary, a Mumbai gallery, which brings nine artists this year. “I have a wide collection that spans textile, painting, digital prints, sculptures and works in paper. I like to buy art that I identify with. It’s a mirror to what I’m thinking about at the time,” Agarwal said, adding that his purchases, if he makes any, will be within a ₹5 lakh to ₹15 lakh range.
London-based collector Sally Schwartz has a particular interest in contemporary artists from India and Pakistan. She is most excited about seeing a work by Sameen Agha, the winner of the prestigious 2024 Sovereign Asian Art Prize, at the Indian Art Fair. She last saw Agha’s works at the Lahore-based artist’s solo exhibition at Indigo+Madder, a contemporary art gallery in London last year. “She produces heart-wrenching works that allude to the complexities of home, belonging, yearning and loss, using the medium of marble and metal. I believe she is showing a new piece in the Fair and I can’t wait to see it,” said Schwartz, who is on the Tate’s South Asian acquisition committee in London.
Schwartz is also excited to view Mohit Shelare’s large four-panel piece, which she saw the Amravati-based artist working on when she visited his studio in November 2024. “His works explore the interrelationship between the body and social systems of violence, like caste, and force the viewer to take notice of everything, even that which disgusts or horrifies. His works are mesmerising, and you can’t look away,” she added.
“The platform that the India Art Fair has given to galleries is unprecedented to Indian galleries. It is one of those fairs that have catapulted galleries into collections that are not just pan-Indian, but also important institutional ones in India and around the world. Big museums like the Tate have bought from me, for example,” said Shireen Gandhy of Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, who will be showcasing Shelare at the fair.
While footfall has seen a steady uptick over the years, viewers this year will also have the opportunity to travel across different parts of Delhi to view art. Claire Fontaine, a collective founded by Fluvia Carnevale and James Thornhill, an Italian-British artist duo, will show LED installations in five different parts of the city — Chanakyapuri, Aerocity, Humayun Tomb complex, NSIC grounds (the site of the fair) and Khrikee — inspired by their celebrated series Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Andrea Anastasio and produced by the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre.
The fair will also host a series of talks, where the focus will be on the global majority — people with Indigenous, African, Asian and Latin American roots who make up more than 80% of the global population — and their impact on the global arts and culture ecosystem. The talk series curated by Shaleen Wadhwana will see a host of speakers including Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and Jennifer and David Stockman chief curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, who was recently named as the artistic director of the upcoming Documenta16 in 2027, the first Black woman to do so since its inception. Specially curated walkthroughs will also be conducted, and in a first, visitors can also opt for tours in the Indian Sign Language, Spanish, Marathi, Gujarati, German, French, and Odia.
This fair has been an annual event held in the Capital city since 2008 — when 34 exhibitors occupied halls number 8 and 9 at the Pragati Maidan — and has transformed over the years. Once called the India Art Summit for Modern and Contemporary Art, organised by Neha Kirpal and Hanmer MSL’s Siddharth Gautam, it has seen a few changes of hands since. UK-based Angus Montgomery Limited, which acquired a stake in the India Art Fair in 2011, took sole ownership in 2019 from MCH Group, after the Switzerland-based company decided to sell the 65% stake that it had acquired in 2017.

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