India Art Fair witnessed a host of artists with excerpts from the Serendipity Arts Festival, which is held every year in Goa, as well as their own body of work. Artworks by Iftikhar Dadi at the Jhaveri Contemporary, who served as an Advisor to 'Look, Stranger!' exhibition curated by Rahaab Allana at Serendipity Arts Festival; artworks by Sahil Naik at Experimenter, whose work showcased as part of Urban Re-imagined 2.0 curated by Ravi Agarwal at SAF- 2019; those by Nikhil Chopra at Chatterjee & Lal, who concluded a residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York with support from the Foundation, and as part of HH Art Spaces.
Also present was Maya Krishna Rao, Special Curator, from the 2018 edition of the festival, who performed a reprised iteration of 'Loose Woman', first commissioned for the SAF- 2018.
Speaking about the plans ahead in 2020, Rajgarhia said: "We have received an excellent response from the people here in Delhi, our patrons, partners, visitors and the friends of the festival. We are happy to have shared excerpts of the festival at the India Art Fair, where we also released our festival film and new catalogue for 2019-20. As an institutional partner, we are thankful to the fair committee for hosting us."
The art works showcased at the Fair prominently features emerging artists from the region like Farah Viraf Mulla, who participated in Dharti Arts Residency Programme 2019, the Foundation's flagship artist residency programme. In addition, Israeli multimedia artist Achia Anzi, supported by the SAF presented a LED- based light project composed of lines from poems penned by five thinkers and philosophers across time periods: Judah Abravanel (1464-1530), Henry Louis Vivan Derozio (1809-31), Aime Cesaire (1913-2008), Paul Celan (1920- 1970) and Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), curated by Ravi Agarwal for the SAF 2019.
The Fair also witnessed a selection of videos from Sudarshan Shetty's 2019 curation from Serendipity Arts Festival titled 'Look Outside This House'. Broadly, at the festival, the project was aimed to present indigenous inventions and informal industries that have origins in catering to real-life circumstantial needs with lasting social impact on communities at large.
The SAF also showcased its broad spectrum of research in the arts explored through its publication series titled 'Projects & Processes', which has recently released five volumes in partnership with HarperCollins India. The volumes present critical perspectives on projects at the Festival. The essays have been commissioned by Serendipity Arts Foundation and are authored by art writers from across the country.
(Sukant Deepak can be contacted at sukant.d@.in)
( With inputs from IANS )