Ask Jaiveer Johal how he came to be a collector and the Delhi-raised, Chennaibased entrepreneur instantly answers, "I've done it for as long as I can remember." He recalls, as a child, he'd squirrel away pretty things: crystal bowls, beautiful briefcases, silver plates. "If anything ever went missing, people always knew where to find it," he adds, quickly clarifying that said thieved objects "were limited to the confines of my own home". Before him, no one in the family-Johal's grandfather, Sardar Darbara Singh was a former chief minister of Punjab and his father was a scion of a successful conglomerate-devotedly amassed art. "They bought it to fit this wall or that. If there wasn't space for it, it was out of the question," he recalls of his parents and grandparents, who frequently purchased idiosyncratic pieces on their travels.
As he grew up, so did his interest in collecting. First it was books, then antique maps, and afterwards, during his years in London where he moved to study global politics, piquant art of all manner. He notes that he doesn't use everything he buys. "Being surrounded by books you haven't read shows you how little you know. It keeps you humble," he says of his "anti-library", named after the eponymous term coined by author Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's no different with art; Most of his collection is in storage. A glorious gallimaufry in his apartment in Chennai's MRC Nagar is but a microcosm of his artistic expression. Many of his pieces among them Zarina Hashmi's Home is a Foreign Place (1999), displayed opposite the bar-are informed by a spirit of displacement, of a sense of isolation, sentiments that have haunted him through the years.
This story is from the January - February 2024 edition of AD Architectural Digest India.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the January - February 2024 edition of AD Architectural Digest India.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Curator
AD’s Art issue would be incomplete without an essay on Peggy Guggenheim, the philanthropist and visionary who was collecting through the war years, and whose home-turned-museum in Venice has one of the most important holdings of modern art in the world.
Raw Mango Agama
TEXTILES HAVE BEEN INTEGRAL TO THE STORYTELLING AT AD IN PRINT. IN A NATURAL STEP AHEAD, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, THE AD DESIGN SHOW THIS YEAR OPENED WITH A GARMENT PRESENTATION. THE MOOD, THE MUSIC, THE PEOPLE, THE TEXTILES EVERYTHING WAS MAGIC.
JAIVEER JOHAL'S CHENNAI HOME IS
FLANKED BY THE ADYAR RIVER ON ONE SIDE AND THE BAY OF BENGAL ΟΝ THE OTHER, AND ANCHORED IN A SEA OF ART AMIDST WHICH HE LIVES IN THIS BOLDLY DESIGNED ONEBEDROOM APARTMENT
D
IN A CHARMING ART DECO BUILDING IN MUMBAI'S HERITAGE PRECINCT, WITH THE BUSTLE OF OVAL MAIDAN ACROSS THE ROAD, COLLECTOR DARA MEHTA LIVES AMONG A STAGGERING COLLECTION OF ART IN A STARKLY MINIMAL HOME THAT IS MEDITATIVE AND RESTRAINED IN ITS INTERIORS DESIGNED BY NETERWALA AIBARA INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE AND ALL FOR THE ART TO SHINE THROUGH.
WELCOME TO THE AMINS BARODA HOME
THE CITY OF BARODA-NOW CALLED VADODARA IS INTRICATELY LINKED TO THE HISTORY OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART IN INDIA. REFLECTING THIS JOURNEY IS MALIKA AND CHIRAYU AMIN'S ANCESTRAL HOME AND THEIR INCREDIBLE COLLECTION OF ART.
60 Years of Chemould
In telling the story of Gallery Chemould, Jerry Pinto writes a short history of art in the city
Bijoy Jain
AT FONDATION CARTIER
Treasure Hunt at Alessi
Cristina Kiran Piotti visits the Alessi Museum in Omegna, Italy, and discovers India-inspired creations in the archive of an iconic Italian design house.
What's New at the Art Fair
Design gets a special space at this year’s India Art Fair, with the iconic Carpenters Workshop Gallery curating a section along with Ashiesh Shah.
The Life and Work of KG Subramanyan
In the year of the artist's birth centenary, Mortimer Chatterjee remembers this boundless creative genius across the histories of art, craft and design.