India Art Festival is now bigger and better

Offering an insight into current art trends from rural parts of India to the metro cities, India Art Festival (IAF) is all set to bring together 39 art galleries and 470 artists from 7 countries and 30 cities across the world under one roof at Thyagaraj Stadium, INA Colony.

Opening on November 23, the third edition of IAF is open to all forms of artistic expressions including painting, sculptures, photography, ceramics, textiles, and installations. The four-day festival will be inaugurated in the presence of Manish Sisodia, Dy. Chief Minister, Delhi as the chief guest along with other dignitaries such as Arpana Caur, eminent artist, Suhas Bahulkar, Chairman, NGMA, Mumbai, and Vasudeo Kamnath, President, The Bombay Art Society.

IAF, founded in 2011 by the publishers of Indian Contemporary Art Journal, is the only art fair held annually in Mumbai and Delhi. The dual-module pattern that the art festival has adhered to over the years – the art galleries section and the 'artists pavilion' has proven successful in the last eight editions. This year too, apart from 400 established artists represented by various art galleries, the art festival offers an outstanding panorama of the Indian art choices in the 'Artists Pavilion by 70 independent artists hailing from Chennai to Jammu and Tripura to Ahmedabad.

The festival which started with only 80 booths in the first edition has now reached to 126 booths, displaying 4500 artworks by numerous artists.

On its growth, Rajendra, Director, India Art Festival says, "Like Mumbai, India Art Festival developed 'good visitor base including art buyers, art collectors and art lovers within a short span of time in Delhi. If exhibitor galleries and artists get good response in terms of sale, they are bound to participate every year; almost 90% of art galleries and artists are repeated participants in the art festival. It shows the acceptance of the mixed module of art festival with galleries and independent artists by Delhi's liberal art community".

Apart from providing opportunity to unrepresented rural and urban artists, the main tenet behind "artists' pavilion" is to create a dialogue between the viewers and the art maker. This works on multiple levels of engagement as it is necessary for the viewer to know the art practiced so that the artist can develop perspectives beyond their own lens of understanding. What's more? This year, the festival has been digitalised. With 100% virtual coverage of the India Art festival through its e-commerce portal, all the artworks displayed in this edition are also made available online.