Brush With Genius

The India Today Art Awards were a celebration of artists and enthusiasts who constantly push boundaries to create and curate path-breaking work, blending genres and generations.

- Asmita Bakshi

Veteran artist Satish Gujral sat next to his wife, Kiran Gujral, the two a picture of royalty. Those in attendance hovered—heads bowed and hands extended—around the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the second edition of the India Today Art Awards held in New Delhi on February 5. Gujral graciously met all who came to see him, shaking hands and reciting shayari that was fitting for the occasion. The 91-year-old icon ruled the room, just as he does the world of art.

Matching Gujral’s zest for both life and art was the ST+ART team, which has transformed public spaces in cities into art galleries—curating and creating artwork on the walls of Delhi’s Lodhi Colony, and a hard-to-miss mural of Dadasaheb Phalke in Mumbai, among other feats. ST+ART was honored with the Street Art Initiative of the Year Award.

In the room that resounded with questions on art, abstract in nature as well as pointed in intent, was Nada Raza, who had curated a retrospective of the late artist Bhupen Khakhar, at Tate Modern in London last year. For Khakhar, known for his provocative figurations and ever-relevant representation of homosexuality, mortality and the struggle with disease through art, the Retrospective Exhibition of the Year Award was an apt tribute.