No riding boots were to be found at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Race Course in the middle of November. On a Saturday afternoon, braving traffic, an unseasonal temperature spike and the risk of whiplash, well-heeled visitors to Art Mumbai walked into a veritable garden of curiosities at the race track. The question was, which to stop at first: the frazzled man perched on a stool directing them to the red velvet curtains studded with giant eyeballs (Tejal Patni’s immersive installation Vichitra: Spot The Difference), to admire the pink botanical pillar (Alex Davis’ An April Stack) or the giant fibreglass woman’s head (Ravinder Reddy’s Devi), the white maze with walls covered in signatures (KNMA’s interactive installation), or the cocktail bar serving iced and curry-leaf spiked potions?
A visitor signs the KNMA’s interactive maze
Many may have missed the jaw-dropping invite-only celebrity-studded parade thrown by fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani on the opening night. Inspired by his book, Tarun Tahiliani: The Journey to India Modern, released earlier this year to mark 25 years in business, it was a whimsical procession of fashion and art, complete with folk musicians, giant chariots and models in frames named after artists such as Ram Kumar and Ravinder Dutt.
Tarun Tahiliani’s models
But at sundown on day three, most visitors watched filmmaker and Art Mumbai cultural ambassador Karan Johar on stage, quizzing the entire cast of Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives, which included internet personality Shalini Passi, on art, personal politics and who really was passé in current pop culture.
The cast of Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives
Inside three tented spaces, visitors clutched coffee cups and wine glasses as they viewed art mounted on walls and pedestals, suspended from the ceiling and splayed on the floor by 71 galleries from around the world, across all eras, mediums and genres — not to mention the odd celebrity, such as Gauri Khan or Madhuri Dixit, trying their hardest (and failing) to not steal the spotlight from art.
Karan Johar at Art Mumbai
Success brings rivalry
“The phrase ‘bigger and better’ has been floating around,” laughs co-founder Minal Vazirani over a phone call a few days after the second edition of Mumbai’s first real art fair came to a rapturous close. Indeed, aside from the remarkable carnivalesque atmosphere, the numbers speak loud: a 40% increase in the number of galleries participating, a 60% increase in sales of tickets, new world records for artworks by Ganesh Pyne (Akar Prakar gallery), J. Sultan Ali (₹8 crore, DAG), Shanti Dave (₹4 crore, DAG), and Rajendra Dhawan (₹1.5 crore, DAG), and some galleries reporting sales for 80% of all art on display.
J. Sultan Ali’s painting sold for ₹8 crore
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy DAG
Vazirani is thrilled as much by an inbox stuffed with encouraging feedback, as with the fact that several gallerists have already signed up for the 2025 edition. “Our main aim was to try and create accessibility through art. It was a slice of history combined with a dose of the contemporary. It made for a fantastic mix of art, culture and experience.”
Minal Vazirani
There is a note of satisfied exhaustion in Vazirani’s voice as she relays these data points that demonstrate the astonishing speed with which Art Mumbai has been able to entrench itself in the city’s increasingly vibrant art scene. Two months earlier, though, she and her partner Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder and CEO of auction house Saffronart, could not help but express their frustration when it was announced that Delhi-based India Art Fair, the OG of the Indian art market that has been around since 2008, will launch a new fair in Mumbai. Called IAF Contemporary and focusing on “contemporary art and collectible design”, it will be hosted at the Jio Convention Centre from November 13-15, 2025.
The Vaziranis did “not understand the logic”, reported the American publication The Art News, and “doubted the business sense of the decision”, given the two fairs would be located five miles from each other and overlap in dates. Now, though, Vazirani is more circumspect. “IAF has done a great job over the last 15 years in Delhi,” she notes. “We’re not really aware of any in-depth plans of theirs, except that it is to be a design and contemporary art fair. The one thing that this does attest to is that Art Mumbai has become such a significant anchor for art in Mumbai and in South Asia that it has become the most important calendar point. I assume that’s why there is an interest in adding to what we’re doing, because we do attract a significant client base.”
Yays, nays and maybes
News of a new fair, while exciting, has raised questions, mainly: is it fair to have two art fairs at the same time? “We are all very surprised by this decision that IAF has taken,” says Sunaina Anand, founder of Art Alive, a Delhi-based contemporary art gallery that has participated in both IAF Delhi and Art Mumbai since their inception. “They could’ve come to Mumbai five years back, but they didn’t. I’m sure they have a plan, but on the first instance of hearing this, the entire industry has had the same reaction — why the same dates?”
Sunaina Anand of Art Alive
Ashish Anand, director-founder of the modern art-dedicated DAG, is of the opinion that IAF Contemporary will add another interesting dimension to Mumbai’s vibrant art landscape. “I believe that together the two events will account for additional eyeballs and footfalls since it expands the choices available for the whole gamut of the art world. But it would have been a win-win if held at different times.”
Ashish Anand of DAG
The clash in dates feels like IAF is acting out of impulse, observes Anant Ahuja, co-founder of Irregulars Alliance, a forum dedicated to young and emerging artists who had, in 2019, put together a small but notorious ‘anti-fair’ at the same time as IAF 2019, but were unable to continue due to logistical and support issues. “Art Mumbai was a big challenge to the status quo, a big blow to the India Art Fair. When they announced earlier this year, galleries were torn — where does the patronage lie? That’s a big question.”
Others are more optimistic. “Fairs all over the world have multiple satellite fairs and events at the same time — it is not uncommon,” says Roshini Vadehra, founder of Delhi-based Vadehra Art Gallery. “In fact, it adds to the energy and buzz in the city. I think the Indian art community has also built a good enough appetite to take this through.” Avid art collector Passi agrees: “In London, Frieze and the London Design Festival happen at the same time. So there is space for more, because there’s so much talent in India and it’s such a huge market. Having two fairs at the same time can also be helpful to us visitors to a city.”
Roshini Vadehra of Vadehra Art Gallery
Tahiliani, who met Jaya Asokan, the IAF fair director, at dinner some days ago, shares how she stated they will be doing something very different and keep it design focused. “When there’s a fashion week, there are hundreds of shows happening simultaneously, it’s not one at the cost of another,” he says. “I don’t understand the dynamics of art, but I think in a way, if multiple things happen, if multiple venues are created, there can be more levels of art. That’s how all great cities work.”
Even though Hena Kapadia, founder of Mumbai-based contemporary art gallery TARQ, is yet to decide whether she’ll put up booths at both events when the time comes, she believes the more the merrier. “We participated in two different shows in Hong Kong earlier this year — TARQ had a presence at Art Basel, as well as at the Supper Club at the Fringe Club… I think where there’s a will there’s a way.”
It’s always tough to have fairs opening on the same dates, adds Vazirani, “which does make it difficult to attend or participate in both”. IAF fair director Asokan, who has previously said it will be a collaborative process, was unavailable for comment. While time will tell on how that plays out — a clash of titans or an alliance among giants — everyone the Magazine spoke with agrees that this moment in India’s art history attests to a massive spike in appetite for art among collectors of all sorts.
Jaya Asokan, IAF fair director
For collectors, more the merrier
The Hurun India Art List 2024, at the top of which presides British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor, indicates that sales by the top 50 artists reached a record-breaking ₹301 crore, a 19% increase from 2023. 92% of the featured artists — also including Gulam Mohammad Sheikh, Arpita Singh and Thota Vaikuntham in the top 10 — saw a rise in sales value, which meant the threshold for an artist to enter the Top 25 in the list increased from ₹35 lakh in 2021 to ₹1.9 crore in 2024, a rise of 443%.
While modern art, masters and otherwise, continue to grab headlines for the nine figure sums they fetch, insiders feel that India is bullish on contemporary art as well. “Who are the consumers of gallery based art?” muses Chennai-based collector Jaiveer Johal. “They are institutions, collectors and people who are building their homes. The moderns have gone up because of a lot of institutional interest from India and abroad, from KNMA to LA County, and international museums who have stopped collecting classical art for various reasons of provenance.”
Jaiveer Johal
“For the kinds of houses that India is building right now, it’s impossible to fill it up with modern art. The only way to do it is with contemporary art,” he adds. “Then there are the collectors — most senior collectors are now focused on filling the gaps in their collections, which is why you see great quality selling at great rates, okay art is selling at okay prices. Look at the Pundole’s recent auction. A miniature sold for ₹18 crore, but other artworks sold for ₹75,000 also. Collectors know quality.”
“A fair is a commercial place, it’s not a biennale. I think what IAF and Art Mumbai have done very well is get younger people engaged with art. Of those 5,000 people that come in, if even 20 end up becoming collectors — that’s good. Our immediate challenge is to be able to create that appreciation for visual arts in cities like Chennai, which have a great culture of dance, music, theatre and film, but are trying to plug the gap between access and interest in visual arts.”Jaiveer JohalArt collector
According to Anand of DAG, the moderns continue to reign as favourites. He adds that, aside from seasoned collectors, the real spenders are the first-generation wealthy industrialists, business owners and professionals whose wealth has grown with an upswing in the economy — age, location and pedigree no bar. “While they are open to ideas and suggestions, they already have their opinions and strong likes with a wish list, at least to begin with, which is why prices for the moderns have been rising over the years.”
Passi, who has famously filled her Delhi home with contemporary art and collectible design, and hosts soirees for both IAF and Art Mumbai, believes the younger generation wants to experience and collect art they can relate to — a more desirable approach than the collector-investor who, she says, are hoarding art like gold. She exemplifies this philosophy herself. “I’ve been collecting Tanya Goel’s works; and in general have been making a conscious effort to collect women artists. Male artists talk about things like urbanisation, which I’m bored of at the moment. There’s also a lot of interest in minimalist art, which I really think looks like wallpaper. A few lines on the canvas in the 1970s by [Indian American artist and printmaker] Zarina Hashmi obviously had a different meaning and impact but now someone doing it is just boring and repetitive.”
Shalini Passi
If we look at the auction market for total global South Asian modern and contemporary art (the only publicly available numbers), “auction sales values were over $150 million in 2022 and nearly $190 million in 2023. The market was exceptionally strong in 2022, surpassing its previous peak from 2006-2008,” notes Vazirani, adding that greater wealth levels, along with an abundance of knowledge at your fingertips, and a connection with a broader cultural identity as a new India manifesting itself very much with the arts are key factors.
A ‘contemporary’ destination
To Vazirani, it is natural (not ironic) that Mumbai — home of the Progressive Artists’ Group since 1947, the J.J. School of Art since 1857, and the country’s most prominent contemporary artists in the 21st century — seems to be coming into its own as an art market destination. “When we started Saffronart [in 2001],” she estimates, “about 65%-70% of the transactions were from Mumbai.” That’s not unusual for a city that’s the financial capital of India.
“Mumbai has always shown contemporary in a better fashion,” suggests Ahuja, as to why all eyes seem to be on the city right now. “Younger galleries, more art nights, gallery weekends, walkthroughs: you can experience the gallery culture in a more democratic manner than you can in Delhi.” Add to that events such as Galerie Isa’s soiree at Altimus (an Art Mumbai collateral event) and parties such as Chennai gallery Ashvita’s cocktail do at Worli’s Slink and Bardot— it’s art pouring out of the white cube.
A display at Art Mumbai
Anand of Art Alive, though, feels that the need of the hour is to “create more centres”. “Hyderabad is a rapidly emerging market, Bengaluru is another great place. Chennai now has its own Madras Art Week, while Goa has the Serendipity Arts Festival right after. We’re going to both. That’s how we’ll have more engagement. If you expand the ecosystem, involve more people — more cross movement will bring more focus on India as an art destination.”
The Indian art landscape is an exciting one to train one’s eye on at the moment. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is back next year with artist Nikhil Chopra as chief curator; the Bengal Biennale, supported by JSW Foundation, takes off in Santiniketan this weekend. Institutions such as the Museum of Art and Photography in Bengaluru, the upcoming massive KNMA project, and Serendipity founder-patron Sunil Munjal’s yet-to-be-unveiled The Brij, an arts and culture establishment in Delhi, are creating even more space. “It feels like a lot, but for a country that has one of the oldest aesthetic traditions in the world, we have a lot of art to put out there,” says Vazirani. “I’m so proud that we are finally, as a country and an art community, stepping up and becoming the arbiters of our own quality. And saying to the rest of the world, that instead of being on the margins, we’re here to take centrestage.”
The writer is an independent journalist based in Mumbai, writing on culture, lifestyle and technology.
Published – November 29, 2024 01:11 am IST
