DiGiTal coPY oN MaGZTeRF
or Delhi at the turn of the
century, the art calendar
seems to split vertically into
the pre-Art Fair and the post-
Art Fair years. In the pre-Art Fair
period, you had a more evenly
distributive, dispersed presence
of smallish galleries and artist
initiatives, occupying neat slices of
the calendar, each playing into the
chequered patina of an ‘art season’.
Garhi studios with its lazy sun-
drenched studio activity and fraught
politics, Triveni Kala Sangam and
Art Heritage with their sedate
openings all moved at a predictable
pace. In this loop, critics, magazines
and academics could guide and
debate; and a hierarchy of powerful
individuals and institutions ruled.
These still waters were stirred from
the late 1990s onwards, by the
intervention of biennales of the
South, and then the ‘blockbuster’
shows of the West, but even at
the best of times, these did not
involve more than 20 recognisably
‘successful’ artists. When the
energetic Neha Kirpal and the IndiaThe Critic
cRiTic, cURaToR aND foUNDeR of THe aRT weBsiTe cRiTicalcollecTiVe.
iN, GaYaTRI SINHa sHaRes wiTH Us a TelliNG NaRRaTiVe of THe cHaNGiNG
DYNaMic aND PRoMisiNG sYNeRGies aRisiNG wiTHiN THe coNTeMPoRaRY
aRTs collecTiVe iN THe PosT-aRT faiR YeaRsArt Summit (as it was in an earlier
avatar) burst upon the scene,
everything changed. The art
calendar of the year became
compacted into the last four days
of January, compressing budgets
that would in the past have been
distributed over months. Coffee and
cheese straws and polite openings
got tossed out by the crush and
noise of rampaging opening parties
in a Delhi discotheque. The Fair,
self-designated as big buck-big
bang threw out the concept of
the White Cube and drew in
thousands of footfalls in modest size
nondescript stalls, changing the art
demographic. Critics and curators
lost pride of place to collectors, and
the hierarchies of art became roiled
in a single spectacular display. The
benefits appeared to be heightened
sales, and India’s engagements
with the global seemed sure, with
visits of curators, gallery managers
and museum groups that would
project Indian art on the map of an
international circuit.
A few years into the promise, India
Art Fair seems poised for earnest
stock taking. Much of the gloss
has become muted, and in recent
editions and possibly in forthcoming
ones, the locus of the Art Fair, its
successes and its limitations have
been tested. At its core are the
questions: whom does the Art Fair
address and how successfully does
it foster the art market? As one of
the youngest art fairs in Asia, how
does it compare with the successes
of older fairs in the region? India Art
Fair has experimented with differentmodels: abandoning the post of
Artistic Director – Girish Shahane
fulfilled this role for the 2015
edition – it is now promoting the
region, specifically South Asia, as its
unique identity, mirroring in a sense
what the Dubai Art Fair does for the
UAE and Art Basel Hong Kong does
for East Asia.
Even as its identity issues will
probably crest and settle, the
Fair should be recognised for the
fairly solid armature it has built
in recent years. For one, there
is a reservoir of goodwill and a
ramping up of standards in the
field that it energises, a slew of
events that extend into the heart
of the city’s museums, galleries and
not-for-profit spaces, extending
into Mumbai, Bengaluru and other
smaller cities. There is then the
Speakers' Forum, which is India’s
largest free site for talks.
Around this event, the release
of books and journals, satellite
talks and discussions becomes
like a marathon discursive field.
In its widest sense, the Fair has
extended from an event to a space, a
cartography of meeting, exhibition
and dialogue. As a model that is
still evolving in an increasingly
challenging neighbourhood. Even
as it realises its own potential,
India Art Fair is still formative but
necessary, an increasingly familiar
function that will draw in younger
and more diverse energies every year.Photograph by Saurabh Dua
IAF - Delhi Connecting Art/ feb 2016 - mAR 2016 / ARTs ILLusTRATeD /^85