India Art Fair A Panoramic View

Menaka Kumari Shah, presently an independent art advisor, comes with a rich exposure to art as a former India representative of Christie’s, and a personal history as Princess of Tehri Garwal. Here, she presents evolutionary trends at this year’s annual art outing in the Capital.

It is with a sense of nostalgia and wanting more that this year’s instalment of the India Art Fair comes to an end. 2019 is the 11th year of the IAF and the second innings for Fair Director Jagdip Jagpal who took over from Neha Kirpal in 2017 with a brand new team supporting her! I missed IAF 2018 due to a wedding in the family and having skipped a year I found this year’s fair to be tight and crisp. I heard murmurings of how the organisers are vetting galleries and artists and even works of art more seriously, now.

IAF: AN EVOLUTIONARY JOURNEY

I felt there was more thought given to the layout of the three tents, with the India-based galleries in the first, international galleries in the second, with the third dedicated to institutions and sponsors. The fair included 75 exhibitors, all the heavy hitters of the Indian art world and a healthy dollop of international galleries. Vadehra Art Gallery showed Arpita Singh, Rameshwar Broota, Atul Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta and Arpita Singh with her stunning 2018 work titled Continents. Nature Morte exhibited Jitish Kallat, while the Delhi Art Gallery had a stunning Manjit Bawa depicting Lord Krishna amid cows, and a rather blush - inducing Souza figurative. Chemould Prescott Road, Chatterjee & Lal, Jhaveri Contemporary, Sakshi, Threshold, Latitude were some of the other exhibitors. Crayon Capital had just the one masterpiece, a mesmerising self-portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil on view in a perfectly darkened room that brought her to life!

GLOBALISATION AND THE IAF