Together for ART
An exhibit at the United Art Fair
For those decrying the omnipresence of galleries that artificially create scarcity and then hike the price of an artist, or who have monopolistic hold over the market, or who have been accused of rigging the art market, the United Art Fair at Delhi may be an solution to their problems.
The concept has worked before in the South East Asia and in Europe with the Other Art Fair, New Artist Fair, Art Jog and the like.
The United Art Fair suggests that screening of the kind of art to be displayed has been dispensed with: and only the criterion for filtering out participants in the fair was quality of art and not the aesthetics it represented. In an atmosphere of hostility, humiliation and marginalisation practised by a set of established cliques, led by a nexus of galleries, auction houses and critics who have become the determinants of what is considered acceptable and therefore saleable, this can only be a step in the right direction, where one can view all kind of arts, experimental as well as conventional.
The other issue is of diversification beyond the metros, to tap into talent in mofussil towns and qasbas of India, to look for art that is alternative. It is clear from the entries in the general section of the fair that the art being produced in localities and towns is naïve and innocent, one may even say provincial, in style, concerns, and mediums. This may be because the lack of exposure, but may also indeed lie in the lack of alienating and harsh experiences that have led to the production of what is often rather cynical or at least trend-oriented art that we get to see in majority of the shows.
There are glitches and gaps, but then this is the first edition of the Fair, that should be smoothed out by the next year. Any show, fair that provides exposure to artists, with no dependance on mainstream aesthetics, provides a level playing field for both the artists and the buyers.
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