India Art Fair releases programme for 2018

India Art Fair, the leading platform to discover modern and contemporary art from South Asia, announced programme highlights for its 2018 edition, which is to take place at the NSIC grounds, Okhla Industrial Area,New Delhi from 9-12 February 2018. Under the leadership of Fair Director, Jagdip Jagpal, the 2018 edition will feature refreshed and expanded programming across each of the fair’s sections and a testing out of new ideas.

This year sees a particularly strong representation of leading Indian galleries, enabling deeper engagement with artists from the local art scene alongside artists from South Asia. Galleries returning to the fair include Chatterjee & Lal, Jhaveri Contemporary, The Guild(all Mumbai), Threshold Art Gallery, Latitude 28 (New Delhi) and Kalakriti Art Gallery (Hyderabad). 

Prominent galleries showcasing the region’s Modern masters will include DAG (New Delhi/Mumbai/New York) and Dhoomimal Gallery (New Delhi). Offering insights into the region’s emerging art scene, the fair will also feature younger galleries like TARQ (Mumbai) and Anant Art (New Delhi), alongside first-time participants Samara Art Gallery and ZOCA (both Ahmedabad).

Platform, which acts as a springboard for emerging art practices and art collectives from South Asia, will grow to welcome Tribal Art Forms and Delhi Crafts Council (both New Delhi) for the first time. Pichvai Tradition & Beyond (New Delhi) will return, making vernacular arts a particular focus. Platform will also welcome back Britto Art Trust (Dhaka), Nepal Arts Council (Kathmandu), Swaraj Art Archive (Noida) and Blueprint 12 (New Delhi).

Complementing the fair’s regional perspective, carefully selected international galleries will showcase globally-recognised artists, many of whom have never exhibited in India before. David Zwirner (London/New York/Hong Kong), Blain | Southern (London/Berlin), Karla Osorio Gallery (Brasilia), Mo J Gallery (Busan) and Richard Koh Fine Art (Singapore/Kuala Lumpur) will participate for the first time. 

Presented within a dedicated exhibition space for the first time, Art Projects will showcase large-scale installations by Indian artists G. Ravinder Reddy (THE LOFT at Lower Parel with Emami Art), Shilpa Gupta (FICA), Nandan Ghiya (Exhibit 320), Tanya Goel (Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke), Sudipta Das (Latitude 28), Subba Ghosh (Anant Art) and Navjot Altaf (The Guild) alongside Pakistani artists Imran Qureshi (Nature Morte), Zoya Siddiqui (Shrine Empire) and South Korean artist Timothy Hyunsoo Lee (Sabrina Amrani).

More non-profit and public institutions will participate than in any previous year. India’s most influential cultural organisations partnering with the fair include Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, Floodlight Foundation and B M Anand Foundation. The fair will also engage with other leading non-profits like the Gujral Foundation, Devi Art Foundation and KHOJ.

Presented in a redesigned events space, India Art Fair’s public events programme will feature artist talks and industry debates, live events and digital artworks. Highlights include a moving image work by Hetain Patel, alongside a new strand of talks titled ‘I know what you did last summer’, which will invite established artists to present on recent international projects. The first participant to be announced is Waqas Khan.

India Art Fair will trial a professional learning programme, offering an in-depth view of topics related to the arts industry. India Art Fair will partner with Penguin Random House India for the first time to present a creative zone for children.