65 Indian artists to rub shoulders in Artissima, Italy’s Leading Art Fair
Marking the end of a season of upended exhibitions the fair’s special feature ‘Hub India’ art show in Turin, Italy hopes, re-emergence of the creative economy and physical art-viewing worldwide.
Artissima, Italy’s phenomenal Contemporary Art Fair, returns with an unpredictable focus on Indian artists as the fair’s special feature ‘Hub India’ will showcase work by 65 contemporary artists from the subcontinent.
An exclusive section of the fair will be devoted to Indian galleries and institutions, offering a cross-section of startling breadth and complexity with works by 65 influential Indian contemporary artists. Participants include Nature Morte (New Delhi), Gallery Espace (New Delhi), Emami Art (Kolkata), Akar Prakar (Kolkata and New Delhi), Art Alive (New Delhi), Latitude 28 (New Delhi), Shrine Empire (New Delhi), Sakshi Art (Mumbai), Jhaveri Contemporary (Mumbai), Vadehra Art Gallery (New Delhi), Volte (Mumbai), and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (New Delhi).
Artissima, Hub India is associated with many players from the world of culture and art. Discussing the multi-part project, the curators outlined some of the main issues in a joint statement: Crossing the cultural sphere between modern and contemporary art, this curation rejects the colonial attitude of linear progress; rather, it uses tradition as a means of innovation, a continuous rebirth.
As a plethora of artists join with their curatorial team toiling for over two years during the lockdown, on Zoom and social media, to sort out a collection that represents India’s ‘glocal’ resonance, the fair under the themes, ‘Classical Radical’ and ‘Maximum Minimum’.” will certainly bring about the emerging practices for new and unfamiliar audiences in the Western world.
The show will consist of ‘Maximum Minimum,’ an exhibition at the Artissima fairgrounds, and ‘Classical Radical,’ a tripartite show at Museo d’Arte Orientale (MAO), Palazzo Madama and Accademia Albertina. The event will also provide a first look at Sama, a feature-length documentary film directed by Onir, Mukherjee, and Quadrio on contemporary art in Italy and India.
The show will offer an immersive look of subcontinent’s ancient spiritualism to its modern materialism, its colonial past to its growing global centrality, its migratory flows from the largely agrarian and rural towards rapid urbanization, from dogma to technology, from marginal to mainstream, from historical monuments to contemporary architecture.
The theme ‘Maximum Minimum,’ invites many artists Bharti Kher and Tanya Goel of Nature Morte, a contemporary art gallery in Delhi. They work with abstract motifs like Kher’s ever-present bindi and Goel’s screen, which become symbolic of identity and history. Gallery Espace is another poignant showcasing work by Puneet Kaushik, G.R. Iranna, Manjunath Kamath, and Dilip Chobisa. While Kaushik’s quiet and restrained watercolor and beadwork speak of the trepidation of the pandemic, Kamath employs historical reappropriations of imagery.
The Emami Art Gallery is represented by a selection of young and emerging artists as well as a few established names. Bholanath Rudra’s paintings, portraying prevalent environmental issues, are not messages of protest. They convey some of the most profound truths with soft and alluring watercolors.
