9th India Art Fair to continue focus on South Asian arts

New Delhi: The ninth edition of the India Art Fair that begins here today, will continue to nurture global interest in South Asian arts with a renewed focus on showcasing established and emerging artists and galleries from the region on the international platform.

With participating galleries like Britto Arts Trust from Dhaka, Nepal Art Council from Kathmandu, Theertha International Artists’ Collective from Colombo and Blueprint 12 from New Delhi, the fair seeks to promote cultural discourse in South Asia with intimate conversations between collectors from India and across the globe.

“India Art Fair continues to play an increasingly significant role presenting the best of the region to a global audience, and creating a leading platform for both national and international artists, galleries and cultural institutions,” says Neha Kirpal, Founding Director of India Art Fair.

The 2017 edition of the fair will feature both longstanding representatives of Indian art and new exhibitors from around the globe who are keen to develop relationships with the Indian art market, including Kalfayan Galleries (Athens), Grey Noise (Dubai), 1×1 Gallery (Dubai), Sabrina Amrani (Madrid), PhotoInk (New Delhi), TARQ (Mumbai) and Lukas Feichtner Galerie (Vienna) showing a breadth of contemporary art practices.

An extensive ‘Art Projects programme’ spanning the outdoor and indoor fair space will also be a major focus of the fair this year, during which 16 specially-curated art projects by artists like Sudarshan Shetty, Reena Saini Kallat, Avinash Veeraraghavan, Rathin Barman, Parul Gupta, Kanu Gandhi and Hemant Sreekumar among others, will be presented.

The fair will also unveil a new space ‘Vernacular in Flux’, curated by Annapurna Garimella, which will present a rich showcase of vernacular art with a focus on Gond, Madhubani and Mysore painting.

The fair will also explore the intersection between filmmaking and the visual arts in India from the 1960s to the present day, in its ‘Art on Film’ programme. The initiative will see filmmakers and artists working across different genres to push the boundaries of their respective media.

The three-day-fair that opens to the public tomorrow, will be held at NSIC grounds in Okhla here.