We keep speaking of art for everyone but, the reality remains that we fail to represent more than half of the real scenes. Be it artists or their causes, there is a certain amount of lobbying one cannot escape. And so when the India Art Festival came to Delhi with its fourth edition, it was a delight for everyone, including the artists, visitors as well as the organisers. It brought together 35 art galleries, 500 artists from 40 cities across the world, with a wide range of works including paintings, sculptures, photographs, ceramics, textiles and installations from rural as well as urban backgrounds. There were artists from as far as Chennai, Tripura, Jammu and Ahmedabad. Says Rajendra, art festival director, “Despite demonetisation and GST implementation, growth-wise art has gone up. There has been a 20 per cent increase in the sales. In the global art market, India still has 1% or 1.2% share. The India Art Fair is an international festival which has its own benchmarks. But, a whole lot of artists and galleries are left out of the circuit. There is nothing wrong with it; it is a different kind of a set up. India has 80,000-90,000 practising artists and hardly 400 galleries, including private and public. For Jehangir Art Gallery, there is a waiting list of five years. So where do these young and budding artists go?"
Even though this was the fourth edition in Delhi, it is the 12 edition of the festival itself, with Mumbai being the host. “We are also hoping to move to other cities because this is the most affordable art fair in the country right now. The continuous support from the art lovers, patrons and art world at large has made an exceptional growth possible for this festival,” says Rajendra.
It appears that the struggle for young artists who are fresh graduates is double. The pressure of having to create something world class is met by the fact that they aren't already established in the scene. “There are huge number of artists who are not being represented by galleries or being inducted in to that system. One gallery can hardly handle 40 artists per year so everyone cannot be accommodated. This is a place for them to get noticed along with established artists,” says Rajendra.
Special stalls
This year’s festival saw very special stalls like one put up by blind artists from a school in Lajpat Nagar and another by the inmates of Tihar Jail. A few students from Delhi School of Art trained and guided almost 200 inmates, who in turn had created some fantastic works. The sales, Rajendra says, have been mostly on part of corporations and institutions.
“They are getting good sales as many corporations want to put up these artworks in their lobbies or receptions, which are not safe enough to put up a famous artist’s work which could be worth ₹2 lakh. Instead, they choose something worth ₹20000," says Rajendra.
In one of the Mumbai editions, too, an institution came up with colours for blind artists with flavours, like yellow with a lemon flavours, or orange with an orange flavour and white with vanilla.
“The art scene in Delhi has become event driven and bigger art events are drawing more crowds than solo or group exhibitions in the individual art galleries. Economical art fairs in terms of participation cost are easy for exhibitors to exhibit and recover basic participation cost, hence they participate every year.
Almost 90% of art galleries and 60% of artists are repeat participants at IAF; this growth is phenomenal in such trying times," he adds. The works, of course, were everything from acrylic to water colours, and charcoal to name only a few.
Needless to say, it is but important that such events keep hosting young and established artists alongside each other, so that a platform of equality can be created.
One of the fine things about the festival is also the fact that it only hosts contemporary artists, who are still living, as a policy. This sort of an approach ensures a certain kind of empowerment rather than misplaced nostalgia.
