A visit to the India Art Fair 2012

Mon 30 January 2012

The background

We had been slowly getting interested in the world of art - especially of Indian modernists, over the past couple of years. The interest had been sparked by our first visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art and being exposed to the variety of artists in this ouvre in India - ranging from one of our favorites S.H. Raza,to V.S. Gaitonde and Amrita Sher-Gil from the 50-60s to the new generation of Jitish Kallat, Subodh Gupta and Vivan Sundaram.

We had heard of the India Art Fair a couple of weeks before the event in 2011, but the recent shift to Delhi and my continued presence in Hyderabad, resulted in us not being able to visit then. However, this time round in 2012, we decided that we had to make it come what may. While we did have a few hiccups due to some unexpected travel, we still managed to visit the Fair on two days, for around half-a-day each time.

Day 1 at the India Art Fair

We got into the Fair only late in the afternoon, around 3-4 hours before it was too close. Except for some hiccups faced at parking1, we managed to get in quite smoothly. We spent the next couple of hours visiting the first hall of the Fair, where (conservatively) we were able to see less than 10% of the artworks on display. This might give you an indication of how large the Fair was2. We did nothing but browse during this time, with no intention of taking photos/notes or anything of the like, focusing on just walking and soaking in the atmosphere.

Around 5PM we exited the Fair hall, as there was an interesting panel discussion moderated by a college friend of my wife's that we were interested in attending. This was a panel on "Collecting affordable art - replace with correct title" and was comprised of individual collectors who would share their experience and learning in doing so. Very interesting for us indeed, given that even what most people would consider "affordable art" was way outside our league.

The panel started off on a great note, with a short documentary on the Vogels, a famous New York-based couple who had managed to compile one of the largest collections of modernist art in the world, despite having only the modest means of a postman's and teacher's salaries at their disposal. The documentary was called Herb and Dorothy and I have to admit, that getting to see it was worth the price of admission to the Fair itself.

Post the screening, the collectors came on and gave an introduction to their portfolios, their collecting history and their take on how to go about collecting "affordable art". It was quite interesting for us as it not only enabled us to get a glimpse into how and why people collect art, but also provided us with some practical tips on how to start going about it. A couple of rules of collecting made up by the panel, I thought, summed up the key considerations for a new (and frugal) art collector:

  • The Three Rs
    • Read up about the art market
    • Recce art galleries on a regular basis to find out about trends in the market
    • Recce artists we like online to find out about their new collections and galleries they are associated with
  • The Three Ss
    • Save up for collecting art
    • Scope new and upcoming artists by visiting art college exhibitions and platforms such as Khoj International Artist's Association
    • Create a Strategy for your art collection - what type of art, what period of art etc.

One of the panelists, Parmesh Shahani also recommended a book that he said was a great introduction for new collectors of Indian Art. This book - "Collecting Art: An Insider's View of the Indian Art World" by Abhay Maskara was thankfully available at the Fair itelf, and we were able to get our hands on one of the few copies remaining3.

The Abhay Maskara book

We ended the day on this positive note and could not wait to come back for the next day (which was also the last day of the Fair)

Day 2 at the India Art Fair

The focus for us on Day 2 was to spend quality time at the Fair - it was by then quite obvious to us that we would not be able to cover even half of it in the time we had. Given that, we focused on spending more time at each stall, taking photos of artwork that we found interesting and making notes for future reference.4 Some of these are presented below for your viewing pleasure5:

Untitled - Chhote Lal

Four-starred house - Anita Dube

Virtually Extinct - Nandan Ghiya

Concluding thoughts

India Art Fair really lived up to all the expectations that we had of it when we decided to visit. We were not only able to see some great artwork (with the convenience of having it all in one place) but were also able to get some amount of education through the panel that we attended, the book that we bought and just watching the wheeling-dealing between buyers and gallery owners whenever we caught it. The level of organization and the well-behaved crowd6 was also a huge positive.

This is definitely going to be part of our permanent Delhi calendar.

  1. We were surprised to see such a turnout I have to admit. Never expected that an Art Fair would have so many people in Delhi out and about ↩

  2. And of the crowd that had turned up as well. There were a couple of exhibits where there were even queues forming up (a pleasant rarity in Delhi!) ↩

  3. Apparently there was a huge demand for the book, and not just because of the plug made by the panelist - always a good indication of the quality of any book ↩

  4. Who knows, maybe even for future wishful purchase! ↩

  5. I have no idea what copyright laws cover photographs of artworks. I'm assuming that it would be considered permissible as fair-use and given that, I will just put up the photos until I receive a take-down notice or clarification otherwise ↩

  6. Always a huge pain, that results in us skipping mega-events such as the Auto Expo, India International Trade Fair and pretty much anything else held at Pragati Maidan ↩

Category: India

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