Slice of fare at upcoming United Art Fair on show in Delhi

New Delhi: A solely artist-driven fair with emphasis on younger, undiscovered talent, new to the marketplace and operating beyond galleries is putting up a preview here. The United Art Fair 2013, scheduled to begin in September at the Pragati Maidan grounds here with participation by over 400 artists, is showcasing a slice of the upcoming diversity of contemporary artworks in a special week-long exhibition beginning April 28. The show "Media Flourishes" at the Lalit Kala Akademi has been assembled by a 6-member curatorial team helmed by gallerist and art collector Peter Nagy and comprises photographer and artist Ram Rahman, art critic Alka Pande along with Heidi Fichtner, Mayank Kaul and Meera Menezes. An eclectic mix of works by sixteen contemporary artists from different parts of the country would be displayed. Participating artists include Anita Ghai Malhotra, Anand Jaiswal, Akash Gaur, Arundev, Basist Kumar,Devengana Kumar, Julie Skarland, Manil Rohit, Manisha Jha, Nidhi Aggarwal, Nilanjan Banerjee, Parul Gupta, Suresh Nair, Shive Verma, Tauseef Khan and Shobha Deepak Singh. "The fair will not only be an exhibition, but 99.9 per cent of the artworks displayed will be for sale," Nangy, an American artist and curator who established an art Gallery in Delhi in 1997, hosting experimental art produced in India said earlier. He said the worth of the artworks going to be included in the upcoming Fair would range between Rs 500 to Rs 5 crores. While Delhi-based Nidhi Agarwal paints aggressive, muscular abstractions that harbour figurative passages and landscape tendencies. Anand Jaiswal from Kurukshetra uses different objects and images from historic time Basist Kumar who hails from Santiniketan fuses singular portraits with iconic landscapes, resulting in diptych paintings that are indebted to both science fiction and symbolism. Tauseef Khan`s new series of paintings are portraits some of India`s best known monuments like the tombs of Humayun and Lodhi Gardens, the Jantar Mantar and the Taj Mahal. Devangana Kumar, a Delhi based artist and designer`s She layers her work with painting, printing and decoupage, juxtaposing images from popular culture, colourful Indian kitsch and even old photographs, transforming mundane objects into edgy collectibles. Anita Ghei Malhotra`s works are culmination of several years of studio-practice and doctoral research at Teachers College, Columbia University New York City and her spiritual experiences while she lived in Manhattan and Delhi. Shiv Kumar Verma, alumni of the Faculty of Fine Arts, M S University, Baroda uses natural materials like bronze and local mud to create sculptural works that represent human emotions and reveal shades of everyday living. Suresh K Nair an artist based in Banaras is better known as a contemporary muralist, though it`s not on walls of temples and palaces that he paints, but on canvas. Manil-Rohit artist duo from Lucknow based in Noida has used various iconographies which are sourced from the surroundings and popular media: graffiti, comics, packaging and animation. This is set to be the second edition of the Fair, which organisers say will include the usual paintings, sculpture and photography in the majority of works on display. However, this time the fair will also include examples from all fields of design (including graphic art, fashion, textiles, furniture, ceramics, and architecture) to expand on the definition of "art", say organisers. "By also accommodating works from the genres of folk and tribal art, crafts and ritual arts, the fair will expand on how we define "contemporary" in India today," say the organisers. PTI