Indian Art Fair and Summit 08 - artmarketblog.com Today marks the start of the Indian Art Summit, India’s modern and contemporary art fair, which is taking place from the 22nd to the 24th of August.
News-Antique.com - Aug 25,2008 - Today marks the start of the Indian Art Summit, India’s modern and contemporary art fair, which is taking place from the 22nd to the 24th of August. According to the Indian Art Summit website (http://www.indiaartsummit.com) the “India Art Summit™ 2008 has received an overwhelming response with over 90 applications from galleries and art businesses. The art fair will house 34 of the best exhibitiors of Indian art representing over 12 regions from India & overseas. The India Art Summit™ will therefore showcase the most diverse range of modern and contemporary paintings, sculpture, photography, mix media, prints, drawings and video art by veterans and upcoming artists from across the country. The 3 days in August will see the largest congregation of art collectors, a new wave of investors and art lovers from different geographies.”
It is no secret that the market for contemporary Indian art is red hot but you may be surprised to learn that an Australian gallery was partly responsible for one of the first major international touring shows of contemporary Indian. The exhibition, titled “Edge of desire: recent art in India”, was a joint initiative of the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Asia Society in New York that, according to the exhibition catalogue, captured “the breadth and depth of practice in India and demonstrated why Indian art today plays such a vital role in the current international art scene. The first stop for the traveling exhibition was the Art Gallery of Western Australia from the 25 Sept 2004 - 9 January 2005 after which the exhibition moved to the United States where it was shown at the Asia Society and Museum from March 1 – June 5, 2005 and then the Queens Museum of Art from February 27 – June 5, 2005.
The fact that Australian’s have shown such an interest in Indian art is not that surprising when you consider between similarities between Australia’s beloved Aboriginal art and Indian art. Both cultures, for instance, have extremely old and unique visual and pictoral traditions that are key components in the visual representation and expression of various components of their culture with a particular focus on spiritual and religious beliefs. Both cultures have also experienced, and continue to experience, a sort of identity crisis at the heart of which is a struggle to maintain and preserve their traditions in a rapidly developing and progressing world. This struggle between tradition and contemporary society is often played out on canvas with many Australian Aboriginal and Indian artists having adapted the traditional visual representation of their social values, spiritual beliefs and cultural practices to the modern mediums of video, photography and installation. Many of Australia’s indigenous artists also use art as an expression of the trials and tribulations that a relatively unchanged ancient culture have faced, and continue to face, in a rapidly changing environment - just as many contemporary Indian artists do.
As an art collector and investor whose latest purchase was a print by the fantastic Indian artist
