The big race for space

BUSINESS CLASS

As the Indian art world expands at breakneck speed, dealers, both old and new, are in a frenzy to change, alter, renovate or move to a more innovative space.

It's strange that galleries which have accommodated their artists for decades suddenly find that their spaces are no longer attractive to coerce the younger generation of career-savvy artists.

Today, the younger lot of artists would rather not show, even with the most established of dealers, than lend their works to be exhibited in a poor space. This year will see the entire gallery scene take a big shift to bigger, better and certainly more exciting spaces to show art.

Peter Nagy's Nature Morte, which opened last year in a residential house in Delhi's Niti Bagh is largely responsible for this shift in taste. The gallery space spreads across three levels and works exceptionally well with the way Nagy curates his shows across mediums and scale.

Subodh Gupta's silver ambassador car sculpture, Natraj Sharma's fleshy large canvases, and more recently Manisha Parekh's paper works, are some of the shows that have worked brilliantly at Nature Morte's new space.

In the recent past, we have seen Saffronart's plush 80s style exhibition space come up in Mumbai's Prabhadevi as well as the Palette art gallery, designed by Vikram Phadke, in Delhi's Golf Links.

Coupled with the fact that Indian galleries abroad, like Bose Pacia and Talwar Art Gallery in New York, offer excellent spaces for the same Indian artists, the established dealers back home are forced to draw up plans for more exciting spaces.

If that's not enough, dealers like Usha and Ranjana Mirchandani of Fine Art Resource, who earlier worked out of a temporary base are also expanding to a permanent space.

Come to think of it, exhibition spaces of some of the country's more established dealers, are quite pathetic. Even works selling for Rs 10 lakh are shown in poorly-finished halls with damp patches, and have untidy caption labels and appalling lighting.

Not surprising then why galleries are forced to book up public spaces like the Habitat Centre in Delhi or the Jehangir in Mumbai to hold exhibitions.

There is no doubt that galleries have to offer their artists more square feet, if nothing else. Sakshi, India's biggest gallery located in the fashionable mills compound in Mumbai, has benefited tremendously by its sheer expanse.

It was able to show Atul Dodiya's large rolling shutters and recently, his pelmets, at its space in Parel, although Dodiya normally holds his shows at Gallery Chemould.

Faced with competition, some dealers are indeed attempting to create new spaces to show the art works, even though they might not necessarily have to. Vadehra art gallery is giving its young artists programme a big push as well by organising a big group show next month; it has hired space at New Delhi's Rabindra Bhavan.

Later in the year, Vadehra also plans to open a large space in Delhi's Okhla Industrial area. It will be dedicated to young artists. Indeed, the race for space has just begun.