Delhi's date with contemporary art

Drawing on the synergies between seven like-minded galleries in the city, the fifth edition of the Delhi Contemporary Art Week (DCAW) will showcase a stellar line-up of artworks, walkthroughs, events, talks, workshops and more. The seven participating galleries have been committed to the vision of coming together to educate, showcase and promote contemporary art. The DCAW will start on September 1 and go on till September 7. There will be a preview on August 31.

Contemporary Art in South Asia is more exciting than it has ever been. All seven Delhi-based galleries have come together again to showcase a new wave of artists from India and the sub-continent. In addition to the curated shows by seven participating galleries, there will also be a curated group exhibition of interdisciplinary practices by established writer and curator Meera Menezes, titled ‘Legal Alien’; to be exhibited at the Old Building, Bikaner House, Delhi.

The exhibition explores the notion of alienation and looks at the possible factors that could lead to it. In the show, the artists ponder on alienation and interpret it in a variety of ways. While some of the artists explore the theme of migration—whether across country borders or from rural to urban areas—that can generate this feeling, others ponder on what it means to be a citizen of a country and still feel like an alien.

This is the second year in the running that the Bikaner House is hosting the event.

Ridhi Bhalla and Mandira Lamba, Partners, at Gallery Blueprint 12, say, “We aim to focus on emerging experimental voices through DCAW. We provide a platform to the South Asian region and extend a space where marginalised communities can talk about their identity. Each year, we introduce new voices who are constantly pushing the boundary. This year the curation is on material exploration. We look forward to engaging with the viewer on traversing these human experiences.”

Rasika Kajaria’s Gallery Exhibit 320 will showcase a group show of eight artists—Kumaresan Selvaraj, Sumakshi Singh, Gopi Gajwani, Sonali Sonam, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Harish Ojha, Rahul Kumar, Gunjan Kumar. Peter Nagy’s Nature Morte will be presenting two mini-solo exhibitions by Aditya Pande and Nidhi Agarwal. Both the artists—Pande’s art involving both the manipulation of computer-aided technologies and also more traditional media and Agarwal’s predominantly abstract work characterised by vibrant colours and aggressive brush strokes—will be showing a new suite of works.

Gallery Espace will present a selection of works by 11 artists. Founder-director Renu Modi says, “DCAW has become a fixture in the city’s cultural calendar, partly I think because the smaller format and the central venue of the event make it accessible to visitors. This year we will have a strong line-up of talks and workshops with arts institutions, along with a curated exhibition. DCAW presents an opportunity to reach out and create new audiences for art.”

DCAW has been instrumental in bringing forth a roster of young talented voices in the art. Founder-director Bhavna Kakar’s Gallery Latitude 28 brings together South Asian artists experimenting with mediums to create works that are diverse and innovative. The common thread unifying these artists’ distinct forms and techniques is the infusion of traditional styles with the new media to generate their own personal aesthetic to comment on the zeitgeist of contemporary times, depicting both socio-political and poetic life experiences.

Shrine Empire, co-founded by Shefali Somani and Anahita Taneja will showcase the works of Awdhesh Tamrakar, Divya Singh, Lavkant Chaudhary, Piyali Sadhukhan, Priyank Gothwal, Sangita Maity, Samanta Batra Mehta and Shruti Mahajan. The conceptualisation of artists brings forth diverse ideas about community politics, urban migration, gender, poetry within isolation, the absurdity of repetition in our everyday lives and temporalities of time and space at large. The gallery aims to build a collaborative space that encourages critical dialogues around art.

In a curation titled ‘Remember the Skin Whose Earth You Are’, Parul Vadehra’s Vadehra Art Gallery will showcase works by Anju Dodiya, Atul Bhalla, Atul Dodiya, Gigi Scaria, Praneet Soi, Sachin George Sebastian, Shailesh B.R., Sujith SN and Shrimanti Saha. The artists come together to emphasise the tonal saturations of brown in various real and imagined landscapes as a language of complicated movements. The minimalist renditions of colour promise austerity, which encourage the alacrity of transformation and are welcome to urgent conversations around how we culturally root to the Earth.

The DCAW was initiated as an attempt to generate discourse that befits the shifting lens of the contemporary. Coincidentally, all the seven participating galleries are helmed by women. The event is conceptualised to be the ultimate destination for established and emerging collectors, and art enthusiasts who are eager to be part of this conversation and want to know more.