India Art Fair 2023 in New Delhi was more than just a splash of colour in the winter sunshine as it brought together the best and the brightest in a showcase of incredible talent.
The art fair is India’s one big moment annually when everyone comes together—artist, collector, investor, promoter, art-lover, critic—at the crossroads of conversation and bonhomie. Students and young artists come to gaze at the possibilities that it offers, but for the collectorati, it is a ratification of the world they occupy, so they come as first-pickers, to be seen and admired, to lunch with Kiran Nadar, to attend raucous after-parties, to be part of panel discussions and as audiences, to relax with a cocktail at Caara or grab a Fio sandwich while making plans to attend the next art soiree in Dubai.
Queues, unheard of among India’s entitled elite, began to form soon after the fair opened on Thursday, and by Saturday, the first day it threw open the gates to the public, had grown longer. The first was a chaotic lot that clustered in front of the first commissioned painting by Raja Ravi Varma, a family portrait of a prominent legal family that was painted in 1870. The other was a humongous composition based on the Ramayana, among the last works by M. F. Husain painted in London in 2011, the year he died, that required a flight of steps to walk up to view it in its full splendour. A little over 140 years separated the two paintings, but between them they summed up the spread and diversity offered by Indian modernism. Both exuded a rawness—the former a work by an as-yet-untested master in the making, the other revealing the shaky hand of a 98-year-old behemoth—that made them personal and appealing.
Director,
India Art Fair
The moderns have commanded the heights of Indian art for decades and been the bulwark of the annual India Art Fair but were less in evidence at this fourteenth edition. You could spot the occasional Jamini Roy or F. N. Souza, but they were more noticeable for their rarity than their profusion. If anything, the Progressives were easier to spot at the three auction previews organised by Christie’s, Pundole’s and Saffronart, all of them coincidentally at The Oberoi. As to why S. H. Raza was almost nowhere to be seen—blame that on the major retrospective that opened at Centre Pompidou in Paris days after the conclusion of the fair. If you had any sense, you’d hold on to your Razas till the benefits of that event percolate down to send his already staggering value skyrocketing even further. The moderns are now a global brand and their appeal will make them international stars for all times to come.
Elsewhere, the energy was younger, a transformational shift one saw with mid-range artists stepping out to challenge homogeneity. There were international artists if you took the trouble to go looking for them—Anish Kapoor, for instance, whose installations perk up cities around the world, and Ai Wei Wei, who’s had a great run outside Chinese authoritarianism. But it was the confidence of the Indian artists that stuck out—a boldness of language that is creating its own waves and establishing Indian art on the world stage in unprecedented ways.
The art fair is India’s one big moment annually when everyone comes together—artist, collector, investor, promoter, art-lover, critic—at the crossroads of conversation and bonhomie. Students and young artists come to gaze at the possibilities that it offers, but for the collectorati, it is a ratification of the world they occupy, so they come as first-pickers, to be seen and admired, to lunch with Kiran Nadar, to attend raucous after-parties, to be part of panel discussions and as audiences, to relax with a cocktail at Caara or grab a Fio sandwich while making plans to attend the next art soiree in Dubai.
The art fair jamboree might feel like a party but it is also a serious commercial event and the 2023 edition was as big as they get. It’s received the thumbs up from almost everybody who attended and has ended on a stridently positive note. Here, then, is a peek into the making and goings-on at the fair.
The Grounds
India Art Fair is a lesson in how well things can be done in India provided there is the will. But it also shows up the abysmal lack of infrastructure for hosting such events in the capital city. The NSIC Grounds in Okhla are hardly ideal for such a prestigious event and the traffic snarls leading up to the fair are legendary. Sadly, alternates remain elusive. Maybe Pragati Maidan (where the fair began in 2008) will bounce back as a venue once it is completed for the G 20 summit later this year, but for now India Art Fair has announced it isn’t moving and the next edition is slated at the same location from February 1-4, 2024.
Now a Brand
India Art Fair brings in the biggest and the wealthiest—if not personally then via their consultants. No wonder the biggest brands want to associate with the event, and BMW’s car painted by an artist is now an annual feature. This year, the honour of that commission went to Indian artist Devika Sundar and the car was on display throughout the event. Clearly an artist to watch out for.
Navigating the Fair
This year’s visitor experience was more satisfying than previous editions with larger stalls that were better laid out and had curated their art instead of merely hanging up the most commercially successful artists to make a quick buck. The aisles were wide and well lit. Even on the public days, the crowds didn’t take (entirely) away from the viewing pleasure. Neha Kirpal, who started the fair, flew in from Mumbai and was pleased enough with what she saw. The fair was subsequently bought by Art Basel and is currently owned by Angus Montgomery Arts. Now if only they would do something about the toilets which remind one of the filthy loos in pre-liberalisation Indian airports.
You couldn’t get bigger than this—the first commissioned painting by Raja Ravi Varma for which he earned himself his first fee of Rs 265 in 1870. This was a transformational moment for the artist who launched his professional career hereafter. As for the people in the painting, they are, from left to right, Mangalore sub-judge K.P. Krishna Menon, Privy Council member Raman Menon, Madras barrister Krishna Menon, future Lady Shankaran Nair, wife of a Madras advocate general, and Indooly Amma.
Is that a flying saucer? Is it the sudarshan-chakra? No, it’s an installation by Anish Kapoor. The India-born, British artist is one of the biggest game changers with international cities vying for his works to go up in global spots. The latest is a reflective ‘bean’—a smaller version of his Chicago Cloud—that was unveiled in New York only weeks previously. Any wonder this disc was such a draw at the fair!
The soft palette and figuration reminded me of Neelima Sheikh’s paintings till a closer look revealed this to be a Manjunath Kamath collage. The contemporary artist is on a mellower streak this time round with a finer quality of fabrics that lend seamlessly with the painted portions to take us back to a time reminiscent of frescoes from an age gone by.
Unlike the international market, photography as an art form is still at a nascent stage in India. This is despite the Museo Photography in Gurugram dedicated to the medium, and Abhishek Poddar’s Bengaluru museum that just opened being called Museum of Art and Photography (MAP). Wondwerweall has always shown photographs at the fair, and a big draw this time was black and white images by ace photographer Raghu Rai. The art fair attempts to be inclusive and has been exhibiting tribal and folk art at its booths and, this year, even Chambal rumals in an attempt to provide visitors a bird’s eye-view of Indian art.
Contemporary artists engage with subjects and themes that are part of social and political life, and are, therefore, based around current issues in which gender, sexuality, social disparity, urbanisation and marginalisation, environment and climate change play a huge part. In 2022, a number of artists at the fair had shown works based on the theme of migration and the misery caused by the pandemic lockdowns. This year, less of that was in evidence—showing India’s resilience in dealing with it and putting it in the past.
The return of the contemporaries marks a change in the artists whose careers had been flattened by the financial chaos unleashed in the aftermath of the Lehman Bros crash of 2008. Though they continued to enjoy international popularity basis their visual narratives, the art market had moved definitively in the direction of the moderns who have continued to rule the roost both in popularity as well as financially. The Indian art market is expected to be in the range of Rs 2,000-2,500 crore currently and is slated to continue to grow as art buying during and since the pandemic has been on the rise.
One of the greatest—and my favourite—watercolourists is Anju Dodiya whose works are never easy to decipher without a context. Both she and her husband, Atul Dodiya, exemplify the finest in contemporary art and I never miss the occasion to catch up with their work. With both in huge international demand, it’s good to catch up with their work at the art fair in New Delhi. Though the contemporaries are only a small percentage of the Indian art market, they are the likely moderns of tomorrow but their values for investors are based on instant liquidity and auction benchmarks that is currently only just entering an upswing phase.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kishore Singh is presently Director, Delhi Art Gallery. A most prolific writer, he has a regular column in Business Standard. Author of several books, Kishore is a regular on seminars and talks on Indian art and artistes.
