What to expect at the country's biggest art event, India Art Fair 2020

In a depressed market, the Indian art world's big annual event will play safe instead of cutting-edge, pretty rather than zany

Ai Weiwei’s ode to climate change, an iron sculpture based on deceased tree roots from Brazil, might be the gawking point that Damien Hirst’s dots or Marc Quinn’s bloodied fibre-glass head were in previous editions, but India Art Fair 2020 is going to be less about shock-and-awe than about sales. Provocative works might capture eyeballs, but converting footfalls into rupees is the big challenge when the economy is sliding, and India is looking less like the powerhouse it was touted to be. Safe is being preferred over shocking, even as the annual jamboree of the art world, all bells and whistles, has settled into an annualised stupor. 

The art fair’s potted history has been no less varied than its wares, its 12th edition in 13 years arcing across an ambitious genesis to international spotlighting. Launched in 2008 — just ahead of the Lehman Brothers crash that led to a global recession and put a spoke in the price of art — it has struggled to remain relevant in a fast-changing world. From Pragati Maidan’s leaky buildings to the traffic-choked NSIC Grounds in Okhla, its choice of venue has pointed to New Delhi’s lack of statured exhibition infrastructure. Begun by Neha Kirpal in 2008, she sold part of her stake to Sandy Angus and Will Ramsay in 2011, then the balance to the MCH Group in 2016. MCH decided to demit soon after, and it is currently owned by Sandy Angus and helmed by Jagdip Jagpal.

An installation by Pakistani artist Rasheed Araeen. Courtesy: Aicon Art

An untitled work by Saskia Pintelon. Courtesy: Saskia Fernando Gallery

The fair has also struggled for an identity. At a time when art fairs are a dime a dozen, it was conceived as a crossroads for international art — as much about Indian collectors acquiring global artists as about international collectors hoping to spot contemporary Indian art. That hope was soon thwarted. Indian buyers scarcely knew the names of Indian artists, leave alone international ones; international galleries found Indian customs extortionate and withdrew; the international flavour of the fair changed to Indian and South Asian; and lack of buyers and high rentals meant Mumbai galleries boycotted the fair before being wooed back by Jagpal. In the last few years, India Art Fair has moved from more to less, opting for quality and visitor experience over a mind-numbing sameness. 

Inevitably, an art fair is about sales, and the question everyone asks is: “How did it do?” In this conundrum, the struggle to find artworks between the safe and the experimental has proved a challenge for galleries and artists. Increasingly, artists are vocal about their need to create art that does not necessarily feed bottomlines, something galleries are loath to encourage in the great gloom of the Indian marketplace. This is where the art fair has stepped in with a smorgasbord of involvements driven by institutions and museums, art projects and artists in residence.

Started by Neha Kirpal in 2008, the India Art Fair is helmed by Jagdip Jagpal (right) since 2017

Much of what you will see at India Art Fair 2020 is contemporary art, but if you’re expecting zany cutting-edge, you are in for a disappointment. Galleries are choosing the predictable over the risky, so a certain decorative trope marks the narrative. Which is why the return of international galleries such as David Zwirner is to be welcomed. David Zwirner’s choices for Indian visitors might not break new ground but are nevertheless a pointer to what international collectors are looking at. In particular, check out Canada-based Marcel Dzama’s anachronistic art that features humans, animals and hybrids that the gallery is hoping will find a resonance among Indian collectors. Regionally, I’m partial to Sri Lankan artist Saskia Pintelon’s primarily grey paintings where figures are not referenced by history or geography. New York’s Aicon and London’s Grosvenor galleries straddle the universe of Indian moderns along with South Asian masters and contemporary artists, and I’m looking forward to Pakistani artist Rasheed Araeen’s airy, primary-coloured installations. Danish sculptor Olafur Eliasson’s silvered glass spheres should be a selfie draw for visitors looking for something whimsical or unusual by way of background. 

Indian galleries will play up the well-knowns for their appeal across all ages: 

THIS IS NOT A STILL LIFE by Sameer Kulavoor. Courtesy: Akar Prakar

F N Souza, S H Raza and M F Husain will point to the near absence of Tyeb Mehta and V S Gaitonde, who are more likely to be spotted at auctions given their price points. Early Bengal modernists will be scattered amidst galleries — you can count on at least a few exceptional Jamini Roys — and there should be some outstanding works by Mrinalini Mukherjee (her retrospective at The Met in New York was extremely well received) and at least one work — a chair by Prabhakar Barwe (following his retrospective at NGMA in Mumbai and New Delhi) — that breaks the mould of the conventional.

Watercolours on postcard by Gaganendranath Tagore. Courtesy: Akar Prakar

What does abstract art in 2020 look like? Saubiya Chasmawala’s doodle-like calligraphy might have some answers. Experiments across medium include Idris Khan’s digital prints on aluminium, and Jaykumar’s handpainted black and white photographs. With the #MeToo taint still fresh, Subodh Gupta is likely to be more absent than present, leaving room for young talent to find a place. The most sought after by lay buyers? Paresh Maity, Jayasri Burman, Seema Kohli, G R Iranna, Sidharth, Anjolie Ela Menon, Thota Vaikuntam — take your pick.

 Among art projects, I am looking forward to Sameer Kulavoor’s painted canvas façade outlying the three tents of the fair. Touted as the country’s largest commissioned canvas painting, it depicts everyday bazaar scenes: an appropriate choice for the melee. Is it for sale? That might depend on the offer… Anita Dube’s installation of skeletal flowers and bodies is an intellectual ode to loss in a technocratic age. The artist, a former curator of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, knows a thing or two about sparking discussions around art at the interstice of commerce and social reality. Rathin Barman’s installation of defunct colonial buildings being revived as heritage spaces with found objects and materials has a significance given the Indian government’s push to establish a new parliament and ministries. There are daily performance art pieces in the auditorium, as well as workshops led by four artists in residence, all of which I would recommend: New York-based Ghiora Aharoni and Renuka Rajiv’s paper collages, paper artistry with Manisha Parekh, and cartooning with Gagan Singh. The Focus section has solo booths by K S Radhakrishnan, Subodh Kerkar, Ratheesh T and others.

 India Art Fair opens to the public on January 31 and winds up on February 2, allowing three days for visiting, viewing, bargaining, basking in the sun (hopefully). Tickets are for sale online for Rs 600, with a weekend package for Rs 900. If you’re lucky to have a pass for January 30, you’ll get to the fair sans gawking crowds; if not, you can get a preview pass for Rs 4,000 — worth every last rupee. There are plenty of art events, openings and launches outside the fair grounds too — plan for the Defence Colony Gallery Night on January 28, a preview at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art on January 29, several gallery openings and auction previews across town on January 31, parties every night (you’ll have to snaffle invitations), and among the exhibitions I’m keen on are Ravinder Reddy’s recent works at Vadehra Art Gallery, and Prodosh Das Gupta’s sculptures at Triveni Kala Sangam.

The F&B at the venue is some of the best in the city, there is a bookshop with the most extensive collection of art books you’re likely to find under one roof. And, as pièce de résistance, there’s BMW’s art car — this one painted by Andy Warhol in 1979. You can’t get any artier — or consumerist — than that.