Art fairs: Falling between expectations and reality

It has been raining art fairs in Delhi. There have been two in quick succession and the marquee has just been folded and put away on the supposedly bigger, better, snootier India Art Fair and its relative country cousin India Art Festival. Both tried to garner eye balls and pockets to varying degrees of success but the more I think about these art fairs and the ones in the last few years, the more I feel sorry to have been proved right in my assessment yet again.

The basic problem to my mind as I suppose with everything else in life is of expectations. All those participating – galleries and artists expect it to be a medium of direct sale. But the point is that if you consider it a trade fair of sorts, given its scale, then expecting direct sales is rather counter productive. If you look upon it like any kala mela or crafts fair where audiences can buy from the artisan, then it is fine to indulge in direct sales but if it is like any proper trade fair then it should only be a showcase of sorts and any minor or major sale that happens there should just be a bonus of sorts.

The problem starts when all those who hire space start hoping to break even and or making a killing at the fair instead of seeing it as an opportunity to network and project their high end wares to the world and perhaps even positioning their works internationally. When the world doesn’t congregate at the fair, they want to at least break even. Then it becomes a kala mela. The same old anda and murgi problem!

India Art Fair’s declarations in earlier years at the end touting some fancy figures – right or inflated – is of no consequence for the simple reason that as organizers they have no mandate to make any such announcements for it doesn’t fall under their purview. Their responsibility is only get the maximum number of participants of a certain quality as independent artists or gallerists and give them quality stalls and sizes as promised and media to ensure that the correct type of people come to attend the fair. What business the participants and artists eventually do and what profit they are able to garner is not the responsibility of the organizers and they should not feel pressured about it. Just as well that the India Art Festival made no such declarations – even though I suspect that they did reasonable business in the context of the reasonable stall fares as compared to the India Art Fair where the exorbitant fares are a huge deterrent.

Thankfully the India Art Fair this time stayed away from the earlier trend of trying to give it an intellectual dimension. For I have maintained that it was not the way to go for the simple reason that the fair is not a forum to showcase “intellect” or indulge in some juxtapositioning of jargon type of exercise by half baked curators and non-serious gallerists and more such types. It is not a biennale or triennial to go the seminar way. Even worse were the entry fees. Why should anyone pay registration fees of a few thousand rupees to listen to same Dilliwallahs who can be found in every opening from here to Dubai And there were not enough outside speakers to warrant registration fees. I would personally want to be paid to hear them pontificate – that is how much intellect they have! If I were a gallerist I would want speakers who could give practical tips as to how to position my wares better globally and not some swollen-headed critic/curator pontificating on some unpronounceable subject.

This time there were some murmurs about how the entry fees of Rs 499 was too high for students – my contention is two-fold, one what business do students have in a business fair and two, anyone who is a student of art obviously has parents or guardians who have deep pockets for art material itself is so expensive that ordinary people can’t afford it anyway and that too to let your ward study for a course that may not immediately get your ward a job after completing the course is the biggest luxury – what is a mere 499 !

The other gossip that I heard was that the left leaning artists have decided to boycott the India Art Fair next time to pitch their tents at the Kochi art jamboree. Good for them and even better for us. At least we will be freed of the left-leaning jhoola brigade who are arguably the most self serving creatures who browbeat and intimidate everyone till eternity to get their way and indulge in all kinds of socio-political shaming and bullying tactics. At least this way they can all fight in the same well and live in the snake pit for all I care! Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com Alka Raghuvanshi www.alkaraghuvanshi.com http://alkaart.blogspot.com