A major event showcasing South Asian art, India Art Fair 2024 returns to the NSIC Exhibition Grounds in New Delhi from 1 to 4 February, 2024 for the biggest edition yet. Lookout for exhibitor highlights, major artist commissions, Outdoor Art Projects and talks line-up. Led in partnership with BMW India, India Art Fair 2024 features 108 exhibitors, including 72 galleries and major regional and international art institutions. The fair welcomes a total of 30 new exhibitors, including 7 new design studios in its first ever collectible Design section.
Leading Indian and international contemporary galleries will showcase masterpieces from Indian modernists to emerging artists alongside contemporary masters of traditional arts and renowned diasporic South Asian artists. ‘Art Across —’, the fair’s Talks Programme, supported by JSW, features a rare coming together of leading artists, designers, gallerists, global museum heads, patrons and market specialists, building a shared vision for the future of South Asian art, design and culture
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Major artist commissions include an immersive installation by Sashikanth Thavudoz, winner of the expanded ‘The Future is Born of Art’ Commission led in partnership with BMW India. The Outdoor Art Projects installed across the fairgrounds feature an interactive installation by Sajid Wajid Shaikh, winner of the new MTArt Agency x India Art Fair Artist Prize. Inclusivity and sustainability remain special focuses for the fair with an expanded space for the Inclusion Lab and several special projects reflecting on nature and ecological crises.
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To mark its 15th edition, the fair hosts its most ambitious programme of Talks, Workshops and Performances yet, activating the fairgrounds as a place of direct engagement with artists, designers and arts specialists. Beyond gallery presentations, the fair also sees the installation of new commissions and large-scale Outdoor Art Projects, led by artists and supported by the fair’s network of South Asian and international arts organisations, foundations and patrons. New Delhi’s rich cultural offering is showcased by an extensive Parallel Programme of gallery exhibitions and activations across the city, celebrating the thriving arts scene of the region and beyond.
Fair Director- Jaya Asokan, India Art Fair
Jaya Asokan, Fair Director, India Art Fair comments, “The 15th edition of India Art Fair is truly a celebration of the best of the best in South Asia, and we are proud to be able to host the wide spectrum of creativity in the region, from the most established artists and designers to the emerging stars of tomorrow. Our programme of commissions and projects is our most ambitious yet and we are proud to have such an illustrious group of experts taking part in our talks programme and workshops. This year, more than any other, we will see the real power and potential of South Asia at India Art Fair, a testament to our long-standing commitment to our artists, exhibitors and partners.”
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EXHIBITOR HIGHLIGHTS – India Art Fair 2024 features some of India’s most important contemporary galleries alongside established international names showcasing rare masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as examples drawing from South Asia’s traditional arts heritage. Top Indian galleries show masterpieces from Indian modernists, in addition to works by Company School painters and senior contemporary artists such as Thota Vaikuntam and Manu Parekh (both Art Alive Gallery). Also on view are South Asian artists with a global presence, as well as emerging artists working across diverse mediums. New artists at the fair include Jatinder Singh Durhailay (Anant Art) showing contemporary miniatures, J. Demsky (Method) bringing futuristic works, textile artist Akshata Mokashi (Galerie Splash), photographer Tenzing Dakpa (Indigo+Madder), printmaker Jayati Kaushik (Exhibit 320) and installation artist Jonathan Trayte (Akara Contemporary).
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The 12 international galleries at the fair show renowned South Asian artists in the diaspora and working from countries in the region beyond India. The Platform section spotlights the contemporary masters of traditional arts, with presentations spanning art forms from across the region by its six exhibitors: Delhi Crafts Council (DCC) (New Delhi), Gallery Ragini (New Delhi), Inherited Arts Forum (New Delhi), OJAS ART (New Delhi), Serenity Arts (New Delhi / Thimpu) and Shrujan – Living and Learning Design Centre (LLDC) (Bhuj).
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The fair’s expansion into the collectible design space is reflected with panels featuring participating designers including Ashiesh Shah, Gunjan Gupta, Karishma Swali and Vikram Goyal, alongside leaders in design and creative industries including Loïc Le Gaillard, co-founder of Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Greg Foster, Artistic Director of Jaipur Rugs, V Sunil, Founder of Motherland magazine, conservation architect and India CEO for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Ratish Nanda and leading architect Diana Kellogg.
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PERFORMANCE ART – Activated by artists Jyothidas K V and Sajan Mani, India Art Fair’s Performance Art programme BODi-Verse invites audiences to engage their bodies and consider the pluralities of ways in which they interact with their natural and social environments. The performances by artists Manmeet Devgun, CYNK Collective, Jyothidas K V and Sajan Mani use ritualistic movement and immersive soundscapes to simultaneously ground and shake the audience-participants’ senses of identity as they pertain to gender, caste, class and other social categories.
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OUTDOOR ART PROJECTS – India Art Fair 2024 sees more art than ever installed across its fairground site. Among the projects are दीवारों के भी कान होते हैं। (Walls have ears too) by Sajid Wajid Shaikh, winner of the first MTArt Agency x India Art Fair Artist Prize; Western Flag by John Gerrard, from the collection of and supported by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Elevator to the Subcontinent by Gigi Scaria supported by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA); Transformations, an immersive ‘mountainscape’ created with sustainable materials to serve as a canvas for physical and digital interventions by artists Skarma Sonam Tashi and Philipp Frank supported by sā Ladakh and The German Embassy; an installation reflecting on the possibilities of deconstruction by Pulak Sarkar, supported by Bangladesh Art Week; an ephemeral ice sculpture by Doyel Joshi and Neil Ghose Balser supported by Howareyoufeeling.studio; and an interactive public project, The Art Maze, created by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), inspired by the diverse works in its collection. In addition, India Art Fair Artist in Residence, Siddharth Gohil aka Khatra creates a 100-metre long carpet with a kaleidoscopic typographical motif welcoming visitors into the fair; and artist duo Thukral & Tagra design the India Art Fair Facade, which will be repurposed into collectible bags by the dalit-run Chamar Studio after the fair. Thukral & Tagra also present an interactive digital project created on iPad through which visitors can create and take home their own ‘digital gardens’, supported by Today at Apple.
