INVC NEWS
The Show was inaugurated by Hon. Shri Manish Sisodia, Dy. Chief Minister, Delhi. Eminent Artist D P Sibal, Smt. Arpana Caur- Eminent Artist, Shri Suhas Bahulkar- Chairman NGMA, Mumbai, Mr. Augusto Montiel Ambasador of Venezuela, H.E Mr. Dave Chandalal Persad- High Commission of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and Sandeep Marwha – Chairman Marwha Studious and Founder Noida Film City.
At the time of the Inauguration the Chief Guest Manish Sisodia said “i am very delighted to be here at the opening of this grand festival and i congratulate Mr Rajendra to bring this 3rd Edition in Delhi also this is the best place for all art lovers to visit”
On its growth, art festival director Rajendra says ‘Like Mumbai, India Art Festival developed ‘good visitor base including art buyers, art collectors and art lovers within a short span of time in Delhi. If exhibitor galleries and artists get good response in terms of sale, they are bound to participate every year; almost 90% of art galleries and artists are repeated participants in the art festival; it shows the acceptance of the mixed module of art festival with galleries and independent artists by Delhi’s liberal art community”.
The dual-module pattern that the Art Festival has adhered to over the years – the art galleries section and the ‘artists pavilion’ has proven successful in the last eight editions until today. This year too, apart from 400 master and established artists represented by various art galleries, the art festival offers an outstanding panorama of the Indian art choices in the ‘Artists Pavilion by 70 independent artists hailing from various places from Chennai to Jammu and Tripura to Ahmedabad. The independent artists include mid-career, established as well as young rising stars of tomorrow. The India Art Festival has successfully expanded the periphery of art choice presented to city art buyers. The young talent teeming with the unbridled form of creativity brings refreshing and new radical visual art voices to the art festival.
While smaller art fairs all over the India and Delhi have become firefly phenomena, the India art Festival not only stands a surviving example to adversity in the market play but also have achieved 20% growth year-on-year since it started in Delhi. The modest start with 80 booths in the first edition in Delhi now reaches to 126 booths in its third edition displaying 4500 artworks by 470 artists. As the contemporary art scene grows bigger, the India Art Festival is sure to continue its upward trajectory in the coming years.
Analysing the growth of art festival in the sluggish art market, art experts say “The evolution of strong secondary art market in India in the last decade created opportunities for mid-level and smaller galleries to exhibit even living master artists who were once treated as the monopoly of few major art galleries. The artwork of almost all master artists associated with major galleries floats in the secondary market and lands even in the smaller galleries for sale. These galleries look for opportunities to reach out to the larger buyer base in the metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai. As the figure of mid-level to smaller art gallery spaces outnumbered major art galleries in India, participating galleries increased rapidly in the India Art Festival”.
Apart from providing opportunity to unrepresented rural and urban artists, the main tenet behind “artists’ pavilion” is to create a dialogue between the viewers and the art maker, the artist. This works on multiple levels of engagement as it is necessary for the viewer to know the art practiced as it is needed for the artist to develop perspectives beyond their own lens of understanding, which the viewers provide. The Artist’s Pavilion also encourages dialogue between the art market and the artists directly. Here the sale and purchase of the artworks are on an open platform and the buyer or collector can approach an artist and the choices are numerous. This kind of freedom is rarely possible as both the artist and the buyers benefit from this arrangement.
