If there may be one factor that stood out on the just lately concluded fifteenth version of the India Artwork Honest, it’s the message that the second for artwork and design has arrived for India! The truthful showcased 108 exhibitors and featured 72 galleries alongside main regional and worldwide artwork powerhouses. Nonetheless, the true present stealer was embroidery and design arts.
India, identified for its artisanal work, is on the cusp of witnessing the artwork and craft divide slowly disappearing.
The inaugural collectible design part noticed the debut of seven design studios which included studios by the likes of Rooshad Shroff (Mumbai), Ashiesh Shah Atelier (Mumbai), and Gunjan. These studios showcased the fusion of furnishings and objects as artwork, alongside highlighting embroidery as a severe artwork kind, remodeling the modern works into exquisitely woven items of artwork in collaborations like MASH x Milayaa (Mumbai), curated by me and Karishma Swali & Chanakya College of Craft (Mumbai), with artist Barthelemy Tonguo and and Venkanna (Gallery Maskara) who breathed new life into this medium.
“This version of India Artwork Honest has been our most formidable to this point, with a report variety of members and brisk gross sales,” stated Jaya Asokan, the truthful director.
What stood out for me was Mithu Sen’s ‘A Prayer Unanswered, 2024’ from Gallery Chemould, Ayesha Sultana’s ‘Breath Counts, 2023’ at Experimenta, Tyeb Metha’s iconic work from Vadehra Gallery, Chatterjee and Lal and Nikhil Chopra’s fabulous drawing ‘Within the Line of Hearth’ and Dayanita Singh at Nature Morte.
A number of worldwide massive names comparable to Anish Kapoor, Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson and Ozioma Onuzulike had been a part of the truthful at Galleria Continua, Carpenters workshop, Neugerriemschneider, Berlin, Marc Straus (New York), as native collectors appeared to develop and embody worldwide names of their assortment. Particularly, the Ai Weiwei sculpture within the Gallery Continua sales space was outstanding.
It was nice to satisfy up with essential collectors from India and abroad, particularly Ms Kiran Nadar zipping round in her scooter, Kumar Mangalam Birla and Asha Jadeja Motwani who just lately introduced an essential artwork prize for a commissioned work by a lady artist, by way of her basis.
I loved the speak collection and panel discussions with worldwide museum administrators such Klaus Biesenbach, director of the Neue Nationalgalerie; Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg director on the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork (LACMA); Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, director and chief curator at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs Media Collective). The dialog with the US-based collector Komal Shah and Nishad Avari from Christie’s was insightful because it addressed amassing feminist artwork in a worldwide context.
The truthful, nevertheless, would have been incomplete with out the occasion circuit stuffed with previews from main public sale homes and artwork galleries hosted by Shalini Passi, collector and founding father of MASH. There was additionally a sublime luncheon hosted by Kiran Nadar (founder, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Artwork), nicely attended by worldwide and native company. The Uncooked Mango occasion was immensely standard with the younger artists, curators and the IAF group.
Artwork festivals are greater than exhibitions; they’re areas that present a platform for the artwork neighborhood to get collectively, ponder, collaborate, and have a good time new associations, push new boundaries, embody voices which were marginalised and create a market for the artwork world to thrive.
Dr Arshiya Manoor Lokhandwala
So, till subsequent yr, could the conversations and connections continue to grow, and the creative spirit hold hovering!
