High ‘five’ for Indian art

It’S celebration time for Indian art. At this year’s Art Basel fair in Switzerland from June 16-20, five art galleries of the country — Chemould Prescott, Chatterjee & Lal and Sakshi from Mumbai, Nature Morte from Delhi and Gallery SKE from Bangalore — will show some of their best works.

Shireen Gandhy from Chemould Prescott says, “Art Basel has recognised the presence of India in a big way. I am showing the borrowed works of the late artist Bhupen Khakhar  and works of Atul Dodiya.”

Nature Morte from Delhi will show works by Atul Dodiya, Thukral & Tagra, Gauri Gill, TV Santhosh, Suhasini Kejriwal, Schandra Singh and Aditya Pande. An excited Peter Nagy of Nature Morte says, “We will get to meet many important collectors, curators, critics and gallerists from all over the world (during the event).”

Sunitha Kumar from Gallery SKE says, “We are in a section called ‘Art Statement’ which displays a solo project of a young artist who hasn’t had a solo show at any big museum. It’s a big deal for us to be a part of Art Basel. Over 40,000 people look at the works each year.”

Geeta Mehra from Sakshi ends saying, “It is nice to see that they (Art Basel) can’t disregard what is happening in Indian art. So it would be great to be there.”