Now you can buy pocket friendly art for your living room!

Why must art only be for the elite? It is a summer of making art accessible

May 26, 2018 04:23 pm | Updated 04:35 pm IST

 Artist: Birendra Pani

Artist: Birendra Pani

Everything has a season and art is no exception. Come summer, galleries and festivals begin to promote art that is accessible and attainable. The reasons are many: it could be about diversifying portfolios, or increasing the buyer pool; getting more eyeballs or giving artists exposure to newer venues and audiences. Sometimes the mantra is ‘pocket friendly art’ that helps galleries get through the lean summer months when many people are on vacation.

The Imagine Festival (erstwhile Palate Art Fest), which opened in Marchattempted to promote art, music theatre and food under the same umbrella. The festival has grown since its inception two years ago , showcasing art from top art galleries, artists and institutes such as Art and Aesthetic, Artoholics, Delhi Crafts Council, and artists Prenita Dutt and Parul Mehra.

We spoke to experts from events that promote accessible art to understand what drives them and how successful these initiatives are.

Renu Modi, director of Gallery Espace, is known for her selection of blue-chip artists, like Zarina Hashmi and Amit Ambalal, whose works fetch lakhs, sometimes crores of rupees. But she thinks that supporting emerging and mid-career artists is important. “If I make my brand accessible it does increase viewership. Why should art only be conceptual or for the elite?” she asks. While her artists are still big names — Manjunath Kamath, G.R. Iranna and others — the gallery showcases their smaller works and prints to keep it within an accessible price bracket. However, the ‘affordable art’ label can create confusion about quality, says Modi.

 Artist: Lokanath Pradhan

Artist: Lokanath Pradhan

Bhavna Kakar of Latitude 28, however, feels that art needs to have a certain element of focus to it. “When it is focused, art sells. An event like the Imagine Fest works well as a promotional strategy, and it helps get more eyeballs, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into sales,” she says. An event like Art Dubai, or Art Basel Hong Kong is actually a better summer venue when it comes to sales, says Kakar.

Artist Vasundhara Tewari Broota, honorary director of art institute Sangeet Shyamala, has been participating in the Imagine Fest and also hosts exhibitions at the Surrendra Paul Art Gallery. The gallery showcases emerging artists alongside established names. “The location of an art gallery within an educational institute like Sangeet Shyamala allows a very different crowd access to good art. This is not necessarily a crowd that frequents galleries. A space like ours creates a platform for dialogue and ushers in more people who can interact with art and artists,” says Broota.

Their exhibition earlier this month, ‘The Modern Masters of India Part II’, featured Anjolie Ela Menon, Arpita Singh, Ganesh Pyne, Jogen Chowdhury, Paramjit Sen, and Rameshwar Broota. While the prices were not modest, the exhibition facilitated an interaction with Anjolie Ela Menon, who spoke about her process and passion.

An earlier exhibition in March, ‘Small Format’, showcased artists working in smaller formats or with Giclee Prints, making them more affordable without disturbing their established market price. Birendra Pani, Ravi Kashi Kumar, Hifzul Sheikh, Satish Sharma, Meena Deora, Shruti Gupta Chandra, Murali Cheeroth, Pratul Dash, Mekhala Bahl, Ravi Kumar Kashi, Rajesh Sharma, Valentina Churilova, Ritu Mehra, Chetnaa, Manju Tomar, Anjoo Kaushik were among the artists. The small format works, 1x1 to 2x3 feet canvases, paperwork and mixed media, are easy to display, suitable for the average urban home or flat. “The works are affordable, the shipping costs less, they are easy to store and display,” says Broota.

Last month, the CIMA Art Mela made its way to the capital’s India Habitat Centre, offering a roster of names like Arpita Singh, Jogen Chowdhury, Paramjit Singh, Ganesh Pyne, Thota Vaikuntam, Manu Parekh, Madhvi Parekh, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Paresh Maity, Prabhakar Kolte, Suhas Roy and Jayasri Burman at prices between ₹3,000 and ₹75,000. “CIMA’s intention is to take art to the general public. To reach art lovers who want to begin collecting, and also learn about art and artists,” says Rakhi Sarkar, director of CIMA, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

 Artist: Rajmahamed B. Pathan

Artist: Rajmahamed B. Pathan

The exhibition is usually a no-frills affair with many works hanging unframed with just mounts and clips to suspend them. But it’s not known as the biggest art mela without good reason. In Kolkata, serpentine queues wait to enter.

The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) and Lalit Kala Akademi hosted a massive exhibition of graphic prints, affordable to all — etchings to woodcuts, silkscreen prints, monotypes and photo etching. ‘Eminent Printmakers of India’ was the first ever Print Biennale of India 2018, featuring over 200 artists from across India. It was a mixture of established names and emerging ones: Jyoti Bhatt, Sanat Kar, Devraj Dakoji, P.D. Dhumal, Kavita Nayar, Yusuf Arakkal, K.G. Subramanyan, alongside Chandan Bez Baruah from Assam, Chayan Biswas from Kolkata, Shripad Amrut Gurav from Goa and Mumbai-based Tapan Deepak Madkikar.

The exhibition was not sale-driven, but meant primarily to create awareness about printmaking as a difficult and demanding medium. Unfortunately, printmaking has been somewhat of a stepchild in the art fraternity, never really getting the importance or price tag of an ‘original’ oil or acrylic. “Besides the fact that the exhibition explored the length and breadth of the printmaking landscape, it showed that prints are a viable collectible, and valuable aesthetically and economically,” says Adwaita Charan Gadanayak, Honorary Director, NGMA.

This summer, look out for workshops, affordable art and emerging names, at venues such as Arpana Caur Academy of Fine Arts and Literature Gallery. By August, the regular exhibitions will resume, and it will be business as usual.

The writer is a critic-curator by day, and a creative writer and visual artist by night. When in the mood, she likes to serenade life with a guitar and a plate of Khao Suey.

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