DIGITAL COPY ON MAGZTERNagy tapped into both: the locally
available talent and the money. More
significantly: he cross-connected. He
relentlessly promoted, interpreted,
decoded, showcased the talent he
spotted to the international museums,
curators, critics and made them part
of the international art discourse.
Nagy’s Delhi artists were suddenly
doing residencies in Prague and Milan,
showing in London and New York,
Venice and Paris, participating in major
contemporary Indian art showcases
at the prestigious Tate, London and
at Pompidou Centre in Paris. The
artists were hungry, they grabbed the
opportunities, worked hard, acquitted
themselves most creditably at every
venue garnering huge critical acclaim,
commercial success. Nagy shrugs off any
praise for his role in playing Diaghilev
to his painter prodigals: ‘Sure, sure, I
promoted them. But that’s what good
gallerists do for their artists, don’t they?
Everywhere?’
Delhi 2016 is today acknowledged
as the art world Medina to Mumbai’s
Mecca: home to the internationally
acclaimed Raqs Media Collective that’s
curating the Shanghai Art event this
year, venue of the annual India Art
Fair that kicked off in 2008 drawing
ninety one galleries/institutions from
91countries and is a staple in every
art aficionado’s calendar. It boasts of
200-odd local galleries, great private
art institutions like the Kiran Nadar
Museum and the Devi Art Foundation
not to mention Khoj, the Asian
experimental art lab run by the dynamic
Pooja Sood that’s made waves across
the international art scene. A thriving
local community of painters, sculptors,
installation/performance artists, video/
film auteurs has ensured Delhi a
permanent place of eminence in the
Indian art firmament.National Museum,
New DelhiWall Mural at the Rail
Bhawan, New Delhi,
Satish GujralNational Gallery of
Modern Art, New Delhiwith and seeing those things suddenly
becoming relevant on the other side
of the world through this younger
generation.’ Nagy was excited enough
to want to give a go-by to his career as
a practicing artist and open his own
gallery! Meeting artists in Delhi further
reinforced his resolve: Anita Dubey’s
ingenious use of the votive Nathdwara
eyes to make a stunningly contemporary
statement in an Artaud-inspired group
show bowled him over as also Subodh’s
‘sheer materiality’. ‘He was preparing a
show for Chemould in the tiny space
he had in a tiny West Delhi DDA flat.
I went visiting him and there it was:
the first round pile of bartans with the
fiberglass lotus sticking out and I said
‘I’ll show this’. Because it just sort of
clicked. Immediately! In terms of the
international language of the found
object, the readymade, something so
cliched as that stainless steel bartan and
the attendant connotations and just
fusing it together into a very succinct
sculpture that was well designed and
had beauty but also critical comment.
And I had that experience with a lot of
other artists here...’
Vivan Sundaram and Geeta Kapur
tried to dissuade Nagy from opening a
gallery in Delhi, suggesting Bombay as
the more artistically and commercially
viable option. ‘But I disagreed with
them. Here’s the thing: Anita, Subodh,
Bharti, Dayanita, Manisha Parekh,
Madhvi Parekh, Manu Parekh, Mithu
Sen, Shiela Makhijani, Vivan...all of
them were living here, producing their
work here by showing at Chemould, at
Sakshi, in Bombay. It didn’t make sense.
Delhi had the market. I went for the Art
Today openings. That was glamorous.
And it certainly looked like serious
money's the play out there!’ And thus
was born his gallery in 1997 – Nature
Morte.(^44) / ARTS ILLUSTRATED / FEB 2016 - MAR 2016 /IAF - Delhi Connecting Art