The crowds this year may be somewhat thinner at than the previous three editions of the India Art Fair — it is more difficult to get to the NSIC grounds in Okhla than it was to centrally-located Pragati Maidan — but there’s no mistaking the buzz in the air.
Visitors throng the booths of 91 galleries from 20 countries spread across 12,000 sq metres, assessing the 1,000-odd artworks on display and brandishing mobile cameras every once in a while to click a painting or sculpture (for most, this is the only way they will ever “own” a work of art) even as gallerists, artists and scholars network with collectors and buyers, striking deals and forging connections.
Buyers and museum curators have come in droves this year, and not just from Europe and the USA — also from unlikely places like China, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Jerusalem. Clearly, India Art Summit is acquiring clout in the international art fair circuit.
One reason for this is the involvement this year of Will Ramsay and Sandy Angus, who last June bought a 49 per cent stake in Seventh Plane Networks, the company that organises the art fair. Neha Kirpal, the low-key founder and director of the fair, holds the remaining 51 per cent.
Ramsay and Angus are art fair veterans. Ramsay founded the Affordable Art Fair in London in 1999, which has since grown into a franchise with 14 annual fairs all over the world, and also Pulse Art Fair, dedicated to contemporary American art, which now has three fairs in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. Angus, on the other hand, is chairman of Montgomery Worldwide, a company which specialises in exhibitions in sectors as diverse as construction, food, motoring and technology. Interestingly, Ramsay and Angus co.-founded Art Hong Kong in 2008, a leading fair of international, primarily Asian art. Last May, MCH Group which runs Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, two of the biggest and most well-regarded art fairs in the world, bought a 60 per cent stake in Art Hong Kong.
Ramsay and Angus are both in attendance this year, bringing to the fair their wealth of experience and expertise to ensure that the arrangements are in line with international standards. Passing by Robert Bowman Modern, the London gallery which is at the fair for the second consecutive year, Ramsay directs a worker to check out the lights. “I have two directors from the Affordable Art Fairs who came down a month ago to work on the fair this time. Also it’s thanks to Will and Sandy that we’ve got 20:20 Events, who work on the Frieze Art Fair in London, to create this huge tent for the fair,” says Kirpal.
The next step of the collaboration, says Kirpal, will be to help Ramsay put up Affordable Art Fair in Delhi sometime in October this year. Delhi will be the second Asian city after Singapore last year to host the fair. “We haven’t yet decided on the price cap,” says Ramsay, “but Neha tells me that Rs 1 lakh is an important psychological barrier.” Internationally, Affordable Art Fairs maintains a price cap of less than £4,000 for the artworks it offers.
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But is India’s art market large enough to accommodate two such large fairs? Would an “affordable” art fair eat into the very market that India Art Fair wants a slice of? “Good art does not have to be expensive. We would like all those who come here, young executives, small businessmen, or students who see works here that they like and can’t afford to come to the Affordable Art Fair, to become collectors,” says Ramsay. “And then we would like these collectors to come to India Art Fair,” adds Kirpal, laughing.
Angus, however, sounds a note of caution to these happy projections of a growing art market. “The lack of infrastructure is India’s main problem. I had wanted to organise an art fair in India a few years ago. I even came down and scouted for a venue. I had the idea that it should be in Mumbai. But there just wasn’t any suitable space.” Angus, who was born and grew up in India, says he’s now talking to government officials to build a permanent exhibition space.
But the more intractable problem, all three partners agree, is the lack of an inviting customs duty regime in India, since it means foreign galleries face a lot of difficulty getting art into the country and selling it here. “This year, just a month ago, in fact, the culture ministry declared the art fair a temporary museum. This will help foreign galleries sell artworks here, especially from next year onwards,” says Kirpal.
The fourth edition of the India Art Fair, at the NSIC grounds in Okhla, ends today