India Art Festival began its Mumbai Chapter in the year 2023 and it brought about a revolutionary change in the city’s art market. Here’s all you need to know..
It’s been an artsy January for the city of dreams. From the streets of Colaba that showcase the rustic colonial architecture to the bustling roads of Bandra, every space in the city embraced art in its true sense. One such celebration was the phenomenal art fair- India Art Festival. The exhibition brought galleries, dealers, buyers, designers and art connoisseurs to Mumbai this year. Started on 19th January, this 4-day fair was lit up by About 50 galleries, 550 artists, and 5000 artworks across 152 booths. The exciting event aimed to bring together the art community: from big-time galleries to independent artists and is the biggest talent hunt in Indian art where emerging artists with potential get discovered and inducted in to gallery system. On the heels of successful runs in Bengaluru and New Delhi – the Mumbai chapter was definitely the most promising one.
“India Art Festival(IAF), a contemporary art fair founded in 2011 is a biggest Indian Art Fair Network, hosting art fairs at New Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. IAF is India’s flagship Art Fair brand, that aims to democratize the Indian art market by mingling rural artists with the metro-bred highly articulate urban artists and by creating a simple but refreshing ambience for very ‘art viewing, buying and selling’ process outside the confines of unapproachable art spaces,” states the official website of the India Art Festival.
Coming back to the Mumbai edition, this year had four panel discussions in the Harmony Hall, Nehru Centre where the festival was commenced. The discussion included Niyatee Shinde, art curator and writer’s ‘Assembled Emotions: on Modes Of Writing About Contemporary’ as well as the perspectives of artist Baiju Parthan and art writer Abhijeet Tamhane on subaltern writing, the evolution of India’s modernity from colonial to a global entity and tensions between mainstream and periphery. There was also a session on the history of art education in the country by professor Indrapamit Roy.
Here’s the fun part: the exhibition timings were from 12:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m. and entry was FREE for all art enthusiasts! In all, the celebration was a grand success where ‘art-heads’ came together to share, celebrate, learn and commemorate the culture, history and beauty of the subject.
