Melange of moods and colours

As a premier art event, India Art Summit (3rd Edition/ New Delhi/ Jan 20-23, 2011) attracted 84 galleries from 20 countries and played host to works of over 500 artists from India and abroad. Besides creating a platform for artists, galleries, collectors, aficionados and general viewers, it also set off several other art events and exhibitions at galleries across Delhi.

According to one estimate, Hall 18, Pragati Maidan, which hosted the Summit, had more than one lakh visitors during the four days. Long queues were seen at the entrance, especially on the last two days.

Here is a sample of activities inside the booths set up by the participating galleries.

Scene One. A man sits on a stool. A heavy hammer rests on his side. A small bowl is seen placed behind him, on the floor… A simple yet engrossing painting on an easel.

But as seconds trickle by, the man begins to make slight movements. All of a sudden, he lifts the hammer, swings it hard, and quickly returns to his original position. Just then, a white horse magically appears before him, and stands as an apparition. It looks here and there for a while, before slowly fading away into nothingness. The man sits and waits… An occasional water drop falls on the bowl and makes a mild sound.

Set in a loop, Ranbir Kaleka’s single channel video projection on painted surface, ‘Cul-de-sac in Taxila’, infuses an extraordinary experience of suspense, drama and mystery. This work, along with his other ‘video-paintings’ titled ‘Kettle and Sweet Unease’, draws visitors to booth C3 of Volte Gallery. Kaleka’s celebrated video, ‘Man with Cockerel’, also makes its quiet presence felt in a corner.

Scene Two. The silence in and around booth B4 (1x1 Art Gallery, Dubai) is occasionally interrupted by a startling sound.  It emanates from Chittrovanu Mazumdar’s ‘Red Blaze/ The Carriage of Nights’, a kinetic installation of an open railway trolley fitted with red and black coloured vehicle horns moving back and forth on a six-foot track. For the artist, the carriage represents journey as an idea, while the tracks are a promise of discovery of new spaces, a new language, and also a trap, a caged journey, which is its own completion.

Scene Three. Booth B5, Experimenter, Kolkata. An exciting array of artworks is on view: New York and Dhaka based Naeem Mohaiemen’s archival prints of images and texts; Pakistani artist Bani Abidi’s multiple images of intercommunication devices attached to houses in Karachi; and revolving lights set off strategically into an aluminium panel carrying the word ‘PREMONITION’ by Raqs Media Collective.

Scene Four. The main attraction in this booth set by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai is V N Aji’s strikingly large but grim works; densely coloured and impeccably structured, they set out to ‘evaluate the notion of the portrait through an ironic appropriation of religious imagery and the reinvention of contexts.’ Also catching the eye are Parul Thacker’s works made out of a curious combination of holy ash, Himalayan crystal, nylon monoplant and silken fibre, handmade paper, hand stitched with ari needle; and Manish Nai’s jute yarn/ newspaper printed carton which creates a play between dimensions, materials and textures.

Scene Five. Curator Shaheen Meerali assembles a fine grouping of Indian, Iranian and Paris based artists for Exhibit 320, New Delhi. If Priti Vadakkat (in her huge watercolour) makes a poetic interpretation of the politically distressed Kashmir Valley, Madhu Mangal Basu derives inspiration from a Bengali proverb - ‘All the universe is contained in a pot’ - while creating his painting on canvas. Equally riveting are the photographic impressions of Raha Rastifard in ‘I & Amrita Sher-gil’, and mixed media installations of Nandan Ghiya and Sandip Pisalkar.

Generations of artists

Expectedly, the Summit was dominated by works of several generations of Indian artists. From Rabindranath Tagore and Jamini Roy to Souza, Raza, Ramkumar, Akbar Padamsee, Bikash Bhattacharya, Arpita Singh, Bhupen Khakhar, Jogen Chowdhury, Yusuf Arakkal, to Nalini Malani, Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, to Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, N S Harsha, Jitish Kallat, Sudarshan Shetty, Mithu Sen, Iranna, Manjunath Kamath… the who-is-who of modern and contemporary art were represented by leading galleries of the country.
     
And, much to the relief of many, a few paintings of the barefoot badshah M F Husain too made their way into the Summit. There was a bit of drama, though, when his paintings were hung, taken off and brought in again. The three paintings seen in the Delhi Art Gallery booth comprised a large diptych titled Karachi V with energetic horses, and two untitled works, one showing a woman with tanpura; and another featuring village women (acrylic on canvas with artificial beads and stones pasted on it).

While many of the Indian exhibits seemed familiar to the viewer in form and substance, there were some exciting innovations and interpretations on view, particularly from the younger artists. These included Shilpa Gupta’s massive ‘Singing Cloud’, made up of hundreds of microphones; Saravanan Parasuraman’s 150-kg ant hill made entirely of tiny cycle balls; Sakshi Gupta’s ‘Bird’ sculpture created from metal scrap; Gautam Kansara’s video installations and prints; Mithu Sen’s highly erotic paintings; K George’s massive figurative head with pasted newspaper; Kumari Nahappan’s ‘hot’ installation of chillies; Avinash Veeraraghavan’s complex inkjet print; Anjum Singh’s installation — ‘Spill’ — made of magnets on iron; Anant Mishra’s fibre resin and mixed media works titled ‘When the Gods were born’; Manjunath Kamath’s meticulously woven digital prints; Thukral and Tagra’s ‘Pehno’ featuring, among others, a colourful pool game table; the endearing, playful ‘Decoy’ by Pors and Rao; and many others. Ved Prakash Gupta’s comical chimps were a hit with both grown ups and kids.

International flavour was not to be missed at the Summit in which thirty-four overseas galleries participated. Among them were Lisson Gallery (London), Aicon (New York), Beck and Eggeling (Dusseldorf, Germany), Galerie boudoin Lebon (Paris), Grantpirrie (Sydney, Australia), Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna, Austria), Galerie Kashya Hildebrand (Zurich, Switzerland) and Grey Noise (Lahore, Pakistan).

Star attraction

While Anish Kapoor’s mirror was the star attraction at Lisson, Jason Martin’s stunning, jet-black abstract with massive waves and unconstrained movement also drew the visitor’s attention.

Korea-born Ran Hwang’s amazing installation, ‘Two Love Trees’, (48 x 108 inch) made of ordinary buttons and pins, was a head-turner at Hildebrand, which also hosted Korea-born, Paris-based Jung-Yeon Min’s masterful painting combining features of abstraction and realism; and Dutch artist Bert Vredegoor Born’s wondrous digital prints of magical light and mysterious darkness.

Featured in other booths were Pakistani artist Adeela Suleman’s stainless steel sculpture constructed entirely using drain covers; Tehran-born Australian artist Hossein Valamanesh’s evocative Daily Bread, an installation in four parts dealing with questions of identity, memory and experience; Italian sculptor Enzo Guaricci’s antiquated Times Newspaper made of marble powder and synthetic resin; Australian artist Caroline Rothwell’s Lexicon (Newton’s Tree) made of UV-stable structural polyvinyl chloride; and Su Blackwell’s paper houses which provoked the viewer ‘to reflect on the precariousness of the world we inhabit and the fragility of our life, dreams and ambitions’.

One also got a feel of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, André Masson, Marc Chagall and Salvador Dalí in the booth of Die Galerie, Frankfurt, which also displayed some fine bronze heads of Dietrich Klinge; and oil paintings of young German artist Torsten Holtz.

There were some eye-catching and stimulating photographic efforts also on view at the Summit. Photoink, Delhi; Flo Peters Gallery, Hamburg; Christian Hosp, Berlin; Wonderwall, Delhi and other galleries made people stop and watch the images. Among the let-downs of the Summit were the outdoor sculpture park and video lounge.

Responses

Generally speaking, the Summit evoked positive response from participants and visitors. “We got great viewership in terms of local, domestic and international collectors and curators,” said Roshini of Vadehra Art Gallery. “The fair also got a huge number of people who would not otherwise attend art events at private art galleries; this is great for overall exposure of contemporary art in India.”

Geetha Mehra (Sakshi Gallery), Prateek Raja (Experimenter), and Anahita Taneja and Shefali Somani of Shrine Empire Gallery were among the many who shared similar sentiments.

There were a few dissenting notes as well. Kourosh Nouri, director of Carbon 12, Dubai was not enthused by the quality of collectors, whom he found to be “exclusively interested in artists of Indian origin, regardless of the quality of art.”

What about business? Many galleries, particularly Indian, were more than happy. “Sales were excellent,” beamed Anahita and Shefali. “We sold 90% of the works to people we didn’t know. We are very happy to be able to attract a new clientele base.” Peter Femfert of Die Galerie found that “sales were ok, but we had lots of interesting contacts.”

No such luck for Nouri who said: “Zero sales, and absolutely no future interest generated. In an art fair the goal is not only to sell, especially in the first participation, but also to establish new contacts. From our side, we did not even make more than two interesting contacts!”

The participating galleries did not hesitate to voice their opinions and suggestions for future editions. Anahita felt the need for a curator “to act as a facilitator and make the event more arresting and interesting,” while Shefali looked forward to a better ‘fit-out’ for the event. “The distance between the booths was less; as a result, everything looked a bit crowded and all areas did not get equal importance.”

Prateek also felt that the fair layout needed to be designed by a young architect. “The layout is king in fairs and that needs to be edgier and edgier. Also, the tertiary programmes need more attention.” He even proposed that the literature festival and the Summit could be planned together so that it becomes a truly international event. “Attracts double the number of people and makes it a destination cultural week.”

Geetha Mehra wanted better video lounge, sculpture park and exclusive business hours to be allocated for collectors. Peter Nagy of Nature Morte felt that the organisers need to take better care of infrastructural problems at the venue. “Let’s hope that they learn from this year’s problems and mistakes so that next year’s Summit runs more smoothly.”

Finally, the question whether the India Art Summit had reached international levels lingered. Not as yet, was the near-unanimous opinion.

“I could say Glocal,” opined Prateek. “It is attracting a lot of international viewers and buyers… but to become a truly international event, it will probably take three more years if the strategy is right.”

Peter Nagy seemed to agree. “We did see a more international audience for the fair, which was very encouraging. While top-quality galleries from outside of India did participate (such as Lisson, Krinzinger, Hildebrand and Grey Noise), quite a few of the other ‘international’ galleries did not show art of the quality we aspire to and, consequently, dragged the overall look and feel of the Summit down.”

Peter Femfert felt that the Summit had a long way to go when compared to ‘real’ international events like Basel, NYC with Armory, FIAC (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) in Paris or Maastricht. “But I believe the event is on the right channel, especially as your markets are new. Certainly, there is a need of ‘cleaning’ some of the stands, and the fair should not show decoration or applied art but concentrate on contemporary and modern.” He also urged for lower taxes for art imports.

“Learn from Art Dubai,” was the final word from Nouri, “so that the Summit becomes an international fair, and not just an exclusively Indian event.”