India Art Summit flies high on wings of hype

May I indulge in some philistine carping, dear readers? The India Art Summit 2011 is upon us.

Third year running and growing like young Jack’s beanstalk, it is rapidly becoming a must “do” for those in the business of art — both the connoisseurs and the fliterati.

The latter are endowed with antennae that allow them to catch the embryonic sounds of the buzz , and head there pronto, like drones.

So, there’s a Buzz (please note the capital B) this time. About twenty foreign galleries are participating. And many more Indian galleries, who were sceptical earlier, have found it worth their while to put up booths. Blue chip international curators, art critics, academics and museum directors will be taking part in the seminars being held during the summit.

Not to forget Anish Kapoor, the British artist of Indian origin, who wowed even the sceptics in the two art exhibitions of his work in India.

This time our proliferating socialite entrepreneurs of art have gone all out to make sure that their on site and off site events dazzle. Champagne will flow; and after hours parties will welcome the weary — stressed out from the day’s hard work.

No doubt, the Art Fair will be exciting; though I feel that the wings of hype should be clipped. I even overheard a gallerist boast, without batting an eyelid, “Forget Frieze, Delhi’s the place now”. We have a long way to go before we can go shoulder to shoulder with London’s Frieze Art Fair: it is top drawer.  

I am as excited about the India Art Summit as the next art lover. Though I wish the organisers had simply called it the India Art Fair. The seminars are only a small part of it, and limited to a very few. The real action is the Fair — the works exhibited and the thousands (many freshly initiated into the world of contemporary art) who throng there. After all, the Basel, Frieze, and Shanghai Art Fairs also include a series of seminars. But, they don’t attach the
hierarchical tag of ‘summit’ to it.

Perhaps, all this — the patting on the back — is part of the India Shining mantra with which we lull ourselves into complacency. But shine the torch in the corners into which all the dirt has been swept and you will see the poverty and misery piled high: it belies the boast of the soaring economy.

Certainly, a lot is moribund in the world of art in India. Take our National Museum: so many departments were closed down when the person in charge retired. Apparently, many manuscripts, miniatures (and God knows what else) are missing. Our National Gallery of Modern Art is stuck in a time warp, with mandarin-bureaucrats who know next to nothing about contemporary art calling the shots.

And we should not forget our contemporary artists. Some have made a bit of noise internationally — in auctions and in art exhibitions. But these are the tiniest of ripples. The only one to have made a palpable impact globally is
Anish Kapoor — and he is British.

Perhaps, we need to make a contribution to world art. Not for a moment do I advocate copying ancient sculptures and paintings — or even folk and tribal art. But learning from them and moving on from there might just do it.
What set me thinking about this is a remark made by the ebullient artist Manjunath Kamat. A smug curator from Europe recently told him that he admired Indian contemporary art because it was a “branch of Western art”.
Time to go back to the caves: Ajanta, anyone?