Pushing the boundaries

Emerging and established artists and galleries in South Asia and promoting cultural discourse in the region will be the main focus of the ninth edition of the India Art Fair that began here on February 2.

The three-day Fair 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, according to the organiser of India Art Fair.

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  conversations between collectors from India and across the globe.

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), 1x1 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.