Inside six hours of day one on the India Artwork Honest, curator Alaiia Gujral has bought 10 items of the collectible design showcase ‘Shifting Horizons’. Within the dimly-lit, sparsely-decorated sales space, she has introduced collectively items by 17 rising designers, together with a fibre-board, teakwood and brass swing, pure dyed rattan and white ashwood stools, and a ceramics-based “illuminating sculpture”.
“Hopefully, a number of extra will go,” Gujral says with somewhat chortle, perched on designers Nitush and Aroosh’s Vidya Vrtta, a light-weight set up product of chrome steel, fake fur and glass, taking a breather from answering questions from patrons, many interested in what furnishings is doing at an artwork honest. “Artwork and design are all the time in dialog. I’ve been insistent on showcasing new designers and never-seen-before works by outstanding ones. It’s inexpensive and we have now a great vary. It’s good which you could personal one thing completely different in your house.”
Shifting Horizons showcase
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Alaiia Gujral
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Elsewhere within the conjoined tents at Delhi’s NSIC Grounds — whose facade is struck by with artist Ayesha Singh’s minimal, monochrome art work Skewed Histories and Website Strains — DAG’s multicoloured partitions stand out towards a sea of white, its sales space abuzz with guests. On show is a present titled ‘DAG Previous and Current: 18th-Twenty first century Trendy Artwork’, wherein Bengal wash fashion watercolours, mountain landscapes, Anglo-Indian artwork in addition to Progressives and different modernists vie for consideration. “It appears everybody desires to be on the artwork honest this 12 months,” exclaims Ashish Anand, director of DAG. “The Indian artwork world has grown in quantity and its discernment. Viewers, and collectors are actually hungry for extra discoveries.”
Artist Ayesha Singh’s minimal, monochrome art work Skewed Histories and Website Strains
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Courtesy of India Artwork Honest
DAG’s multicoloured sales space
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In a 3rd tent throughout the inexperienced carpeted path lined with makeshift cafes, a stage and out of doors artwork reveals, hoards journey over themselves to giggle on the captions accompanying the textile-based works of Viraj Khanna and take selfies with the artist, who can also be displaying a brand new set of khakha-based portrait-like acrylic on paper work at his present Love Me, Love My Canine at Kalakriti Gallery. “There’s a younger collector base that’s fascinated with shopping for my work,” observes the medium-agnostic artist. “Lots of people who journey and are seeing plenty of textile in worldwide gala’s — they’re selecting it up. Most of them are from Mumbai, I don’t know why. There’s additionally individuals who’ve worn our clothes [his mother Anamika Khanna’s designs] they usually need to see what’s taking place subsequent.”
Viraj Khanna
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A rising artwork market
For one weekend this month, a nook of New Delhi transforms into its personal backyard of earthly delights on the sixteenth version of the annual India Artwork Honest (IAF), the place artwork in all method of form, type, materials, provenance, and pedigree takes centrestage. At its largest version but, 120 Indian and worldwide exhibitors present classical, trendy and modern artwork — by the superstars, the standard suspects and rising artists from world wide.
A customer at London’s Lisson Gallery sales space
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Courtesy of India Artwork Honest
It additionally spills out right into a larger-than-usual radius — the place artwork stands at the side of style (Kunel Gaur x Nearly Gods at Dhan Mill Compound), superstar (at Shalini Passi’s official IAF social gathering), meals (The Kindness Meal at Neem ki Haveli in outdated Delhi), music (Parvathy Baul responding to Jayasri Burman’s work at Artwork Alive gallery) and, after all, extra artwork (lunches, talks and retrospectives at galleries reminiscent of KNMA, Bikaner Home and Vadehra Gallery).
The curatorial group’s canvas too has grown wider by the 12 months, with expertise, conventional craftsmanship, and sustainable supplies being deployed to world and time-melding impact. The outcomes flip up in immersive artwork installations reminiscent of Goa-based artists NON-LINEAR and CURSORAMA’s Biolume, the profitable fee for the BMW x India Artwork Honest ‘The Future Is Born of Artwork’ venture; and out of doors installations like Mumbai-based Yogesh Barve’s I Am Not Your Dalit, supported by Artwork & Charlie who make their IAF debut this 12 months, wherein LED tickers reminiscent of these discovered at railway stations suspended from a glass ceiling broadcast Ambedkar’s message.
There’s additionally a deeper deal with collectible design — now in its second 12 months — by 11 established studios, together with Vikram Goyal, Ashiesh Shah, Jaipur Rugs, together with Gujral’s rising designer showcase, and the unstoppable rise of textile and fibre-based artwork, exemplified within the reputation of the Chanakya College of Craft’s sales space which, phrase on the grapevine has it, bought 50% of its IAF assortment throughout the first day-and-a-half.
Vikram Goyal on the IAF
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Courtesy of India Artwork Honest
“Our job actually is to show folks to completely different types of artwork, whether or not it’s craft-based or design or digital artwork,” says IAF director Jaya Asokan, sitting on the BMW VIP Lounge, minutes earlier than she is to hitch Chanakya College’s Karishma Swali to announce a serious new craft prize. “The extra they see it, the extra openness there’s to interact with and buy it.”
Jaya Asokan
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Courtesy of India Artwork Honest
Aside from the democratisation of artwork, the business facet is, naturally, the honest’s (certainly any such honest’s) main perform. The chatter round India’s thriving artwork and luxurious market grows louder by the season — reportedly pegged at ₹3,000 crore in registered public sale gross sales in 2023. (Hurun India’s Artwork Checklist for 2024 confirmed a record-breaking ₹301 crore in gross sales by the highest 50 artists — a 19% improve from the earlier 12 months.) Whereas that’s nonetheless a fraction of the worldwide market dimension of $70 billion, it’s being propelled, little doubt, by western and institutional curiosity in Trendy masters. However who’s the Indian artwork purchaser and what do they need?
IAF 2025
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Loyalists and youthful collectors
“The Atul Dodiya shutter obtained plenty of consideration at our sales space,” says Roshini Vadehra, director of Vadehra Artwork Gallery. “Lots of people noticed it for the primary time or after a few years in Delhi. The picture was one thing that caught everybody’s eye, and folks loved it with a mixture of fascination and humour.” She is referring to the modern grasp’s Weeping Ancestors, whose mechanically operated store shutters roll up and right down to reveal painted historic figures mourning a conflict-ridden current.
Atul Dodiya’s Weeping Ancestors
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Courtesy of India Artwork Honest
Vadehra Gallery bought 90% of their sales space on the primary day, with costs starting from $2,500 (approx ₹2.17 lakh) to $300,000 (approx ₹2.6 crore), together with works by Dodiya, Sudhir Patwardhan, Shilpa Gupta and Vivan Sundaram. “There’s a combine of individuals shopping for,” she provides. “Positively a big proportion seems to be of their 40s and 50s, however there are additionally plenty of youthful folks desirous to enter the market.”
Roshini Vadehra
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Gulshan Sachdeva
Vadehra’s ideas are echoed by Anand of DAG, who’s seeing youthful collectors rising in numbers, at the same time as their loyal purchaser base stays steadfast. By day three (of 4), DAG “concluded wholesome gross sales of a number of works with particular person costs ranging between ₹40 lakh and ₹1.5 crore every… together with J.P. Gangooly’s mountain panorama and an identical scene by M. Sain; S.H. Raza’s summary set inside an outdated window body; Laxman Pai’s wondrously trendy rendition of spring painted in Paris; Nirode Mazumdar’s imagined scene of a folkloric story from his Quest sequence; and Madhvi Parekh’s 1975 work, an oil on canvas board composition”.
Ashish Anand of DAG
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Worldwide and diasporic artists are in excessive demand, too. On the primary day, the worldwide gallery David Zwirner bought a portray by Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera, a portray by Colombian artist Oscar Murillo, a sculpture by Pakistani-American artist Huma Bhabha, and a portray by Kochi-born artist Sosa Joseph, amongst different works.
“We’ve began representing plenty of worldwide artists now, which might’ve earlier been rather a lot for Indian consumers at these value factors, however now they’re shopping for,” says Shreemoyee Moitra, lead of exhibitions and initiatives at Akara gallery. At their IAF sales space, Moitra enthusiastically takes guests by the processes and origin tales of the artists represented, together with U.Ok. sculptor Jonathan Trayte, Tokyo-born artist Keita Miyazaki, Sri Lanka-born painter Anjuna Gunarathne, and Mumbai-born New York-based sculptor and artist Tarik Currimbhoy — whose surgical metal sculpture titled Pendulum bought on day one. “We’re getting an ideal response for youthful modern artists from younger collectors — they’re in search of artwork that’s accessible, reachable, but good.”
Shreemoyee Moitra, Akara gallery
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The educated Indian purchaser
No matter who they’re, the place they arrive from and what they need to purchase, one factor everybody agrees upon is that the Indian artwork collector in the present day is a educated, well-informed species — whether or not it’s a veteran collector like Kiran Nadar or a Gen Z one like Viraj Khanna.
At this 12 months’s IAF, Nadar purchased three works by the Kolkata-born modern artist Buddhadev Mukherjee from Artwork Publicity gallery — who bought a complete of six works by the artist for $44,000, together with one to a different Indian collector, and a pair to a U.S.-based collector. “My pursuits have turn into extra different,” says Nadar, on the sidelines of opening a retrospective on the poet-painter-critic Gulam Mohammed Sheikh at her Saket museum. “For anyone who had 500 works and has grown that within the final 10-12 years to fifteen,000 works, it’s a number of leaps ahead. I’m fascinated with youthful artists, too, however I additionally attempt to make the method of accumulating an artist or a interval in-depth. Be it Husain or Souza or Raza, if I had 10 works then, now I’ve 50-100 works. Nonetheless, if I see one thing, I actually simply go for it. I’m not usually instructed I’m making the unsuitable determination,” she laughs.
Khanna remembers that his first artwork acquisition was a Jayasri Burman portray, however he has since felt extra drawn to youthful artists with whom he can relate extra, and to the issues “I actually can not do, reminiscent of a hyper-realistic portray or when somebody’s doing one thing radically completely different and pushing the boundaries of artwork historical past”. He has not too long ago acquired a Jayesh Sachdev Ganesha sculpture made with AI, and he calls himself a “huge collector” of Hyderabad artist T. Venkanna’s “brave and susceptible” works. “I respect and worth when an artist is being actually courageous,” he says. From IAF 2025, he’s added work by Indore-born 27-year-old artist Shailee Mehta and London-based 28-year-old artist Raghav Babbar. What about collectible design? “I’ve but to analysis that house, so I don’t fairly perceive it but.
‘Shift in direction of emotional and cultural worth’
“Many modern artists might not but have a longtime secondary market presence, however true accumulating isn’t about short-term hypothesis,” observes Moksha Modgill, CEO of Geek Artwork, an Indo-Japanese gallery quickly to open within the south Delhi neighbourhood of Saket.
Moksha Modgill
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Their IAF sales space, curated across the theme of the medium because the muse, is grabbing eyeballs for Harsha Durugadda’s sculptural sequence — the artist comes from a lineage of temple sculptors in Hyderabad, Thai artist Pannaphan Yodmanee’s multi-media, layered portray The Three Worlds and The Three Moms, and Delhi-based artist Tarini Sethi’s steel sculptures. “Accumulating is about constructing a long-term relationship with artwork. An art work can turn into a part of one’s house, household, and private legacy — an heirloom that transcends generations. This shift in direction of emotional and cultural worth, fairly than purely monetary funding, is changing into extra pronounced,” provides Modgill.
Harsha Durugadda’s Geology of Spirit
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For Bhavna Kakar, director and founding father of Delhi-based gallery Latitude 28, this may increasingly have one thing to do with the evolution within the Indian artwork apply itself. “There’s a rising choice for artwork that straddles custom and innovation — works that incorporate unconventional supplies, discover indigenous information methods, or interact with socio-political themes,” she says. Take, for instance, the Baroda-based artist Ketaki Sarpotdar, patiently taking each curious customer who discovered themselves arrested by her large-scale portray on the outside wall of Latitude 28’s sales space, by her strategy of layering metaphors from Panchatantra and Tulu people tales to unpack her enduring fascination with crowd psychology.
Latitude 28’s sales space
“Collectors in the present day are extra keen to take dangers, investing in experimental practices fairly than purely aesthetic or ornamental works,” says Kakar, including that Sarpotdar’s work was purchased by a museum (undisclosed) for ₹22 lakh. “Regional variety can also be changing into extra evident, with curiosity rising past the standard metropolitan hubs of Delhi and Mumbai to incorporate consumers from cities like Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kochi.”
Bhavna Kakar
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However so far as gala’s are supposed to be hubs to courtroom new consumers, Ashvin Rajagopalan, founding father of the Chennai-based gallery Ashvita’s, feels that he hasn’t met sufficient folks outdoors of the Indian artwork neighborhood on the IAF. “The irony is that individuals from Chennai who wouldn’t take some time to come back to the gallery, are coming right here and shopping for,” he says with a grimace, as he rests his ft after a protracted day of walks and talks on day two of IAF. “We’ve completed effectively, however we’re promoting as a result of we’re bringing one thing completely different, one thing persons are not used to, or not anticipating to see.”
Ashvin Rajagopalan
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Ashvita’s debuted at IAF this 12 months with ‘The Madras Line’, an academically inclined present on the Madras Artwork Motion begun by D.P. Roy Choudhury in 1929, and traced by his college students and later lecturers on the Madras College of Artwork, together with choose works by S. Dhanapal, Ok.C.S. Paniker and R. Krishna Rao, amongst others. By the tip of the honest, Ashvita’s bought 5 works by Choudhury to a Mumbai-based collector for $69,000.
Marketplace for collectibles
“House is on the coronary heart and centre of life-style in the meanwhile — a post-COVID phenomenon globally,” observes Mumbai-born Gunjan Gupta, whose design apply has spanned 20 years, and who was at IAF 2025 with Continuum I, the place totem poles and vases within the form of Mohenjo-daro dancing dolls have been an enormous hit. “There was no Indian design right here or overseas in 2006 after I began. On this time, the evolution has been unbelievable and vital. We’re at a really attention-grabbing second in time — Indians are proud to be Indians in a brand new approach.”
A Gunjan Gupta collectible
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Courtesy of Gunjan Gupta
The numbers converse to a vibrant marketplace for collectible design certainly. New York-based Carpenter’s Workshop made gross sales price $600,000 (approx ₹5.2 crore) at IAF, and Gujral’s Shifting Horizons pulled in a complete of ₹60-₹70 lakh with fashionable merchandise reminiscent of lamps by Creatomy, Jhankar’s partition display and Sharol Ahluwalia’s Kundalini stools. “95% have been Indian, 40+ consumers who’re design acutely aware and have been wanting so as to add assertion items to their properties,” she shares.
Artwork for each pocket
Contained in the IAF tents, gross sales stay brisk all through the 4 days. Nature Morte bought 70% of their sales space by the second day, together with a Jitish Kallat for round $100,000; Iram Gallery bought works by Promiti Husain and Sangeeta Sandrasegar, in addition to a big work by Dinar Sultana, to an Indian collector for $24,000; Shrine Empire bought two works by Nandita Kumar for over $30,000 every and a number of smaller works on the $10,000 value level.
Artist and curator Bose Krishnamachari on the Chanakya College of Craft exhibit
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Nonetheless extra inexpensive are the restricted version prints of Trendy masters at Archer Artwork Gallery. “Within the Nineteen Eighties, artists like Husain and Raza had the foresight that someday their work could be too costly to personal, in order that they determined to provide these limited-edition, hand-signed prints,” says Manan Relia. “And now folks realise that there’s worth on this too — and a nice instance of that’s Picasso’s prints, which might promote for $50 in his lifetime. Now you may’t get your fingers on something for lower than $50,000.”
“There’s a robust curiosity in artwork,” observes Anand, “however equally artwork is being seen as one thing folks need to determine with. India is poised to turn into an artwork superpower and we’re seeing this curiosity accelerating.” That is clearly evident by sunset on the opening day — the wine’s begun to movement, the digital music and chatter are getting louder, and the queues outdoors M. Pravat’s set up I Don’t Need You To See This are getting longer. “I used to be actually drawn to the textile artwork on the honest,” says a Delhi-based graphic designer, who’s now engaged on her personal skincare model. “I could not purchase something, however it’s superb — there’s artwork for each form of pocket right here.”
The author is an impartial journalist based mostly in Mumbai, writing on tradition, life-style and expertise.
Printed – February 14, 2025 11:50 am IST
