One of the leading events on India’s cultural calendar, the India Art Fair returns with its 17th and largest edition this year. The four-day event, to be held in New Delhi from 5 to 8 February, will feature a record 135 exhibitors, spanning galleries, institutions, and design players. “We always try to focus on something new,” says festival director Jaya Asokan. “This year, we’ve introduced the Swali Craft Prize and an AMA Artist Award.”
In a conversation with THE WEEK, Asokan talks about the highlights of this edition, shifting collector trends, the rise of art initiatives in tier-II and III cities, and the relationship between art, religion, politics, and society at large.
Edited excerpts:
Now in its 17th edition, what are the highlights at the India Art Fair this year?
With a record 135 exhibitors, this is our largest edition yet. These include galleries, institutions, and design players.
A key thing to see is that in our ten years of partnership with BMW India, we’ve now done five editions of ‘The Future Is Born of Art’ commission. This year, it has been awarded to Afra Shafiq. She has created the façade, which she calls ‘A Giant Sampler’. It will be realised on the India Art Fair façade with an AR layer—if you download an app, the motifs move, and so on.
Then there is the talks programme, anchored by the prompt ‘What Makes Art Happen’, which brings together artists, thinkers, and cultural leaders from around the world.
Then there is ‘Artists-in-Residence’. Every year, we choose about three to four artists who are not gallery-represented and are quite young, and give them this platform. This year, we have Dumiduni Illangasinghe from Sri Lanka and Arun B., among others.
We also have a performance art programme called ‘Breakfast in a Blizzard’, curated by HH Art Spaces and led by Yuko Kaseki, Uriel Barthélémi, and Suman Sridhar. This will also be quite interesting within the fair programme.
Beyond the highlights, what are some additions to the fair this year?
We always try to focus on something new that we didn’t do the previous year. So, we’ve introduced the Swali Craft Prize. Initiatives like these push us towards being more of a year-round format rather than just a four-day event. That’s a significant departure from the past.
We also have an AMA Artist Award this year, which will be given to Umar Rashid, who also has a booth at the fair. So, we’re increasingly trying to do more non-commercial initiatives.
Are there also changes in what collectors are looking for today?
Absolutely. We’re seeing more repeat buyers and younger, more research-driven collectors. There are also far more institutional acquisitions. All of this points to a broader and more informed collector base than we’ve seen in earlier cycles.
The art fair has a strong focus on South Asian art. Given the region’s diversity but also its differences, how do you see it playing a role in building dialogue or synergies across this region?
I think this applies not just to South Asia but globally. Our strength is that we are a regional fair. We don’t want to be a standardised, cookie-cutter fair of the West, and that’s the beauty of it.
While we welcome international galleries, the fair is always skewed around 80–20. People come here specifically to discover Indian and South Asian art and culture.
What’s quite beautiful is the kind of synergy that happens. For example, Britain’s David Zwirner Gallery came here and discovered artist Mahesh Baliga through a gallery at the fair, and then went on to do a show at their London space. Similarly, representatives from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art came, acquired works, and have now signed an artist for a major show in 2027.
So, the fair brings people together and facilitates these dialogues, whether across Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, or even London and Los Angeles.
We’re also seeing art initiatives emerging in tier-II and III cities. Jodhpur had an art week last year, for instance. How do you view this expansion? Is it metro saturation or a growing appetite in smaller cities?
I think it’s the appetite. Like this year, we have people from Raipur, Surat, and Ludhiana. Of course, it also has to do with the country’s economic state. There is wealth, and new centres of wealth.
There’s also an aspirational element to art. For some, it’s a luxury item; for others, motivations vary. But there’s definitely a surge of interest in smaller cities. And it’s part of our mandate to educate and expose audiences, which is why we did the IAF EDI+IONS in Hyderabad last year. Unless we start initiatives in smaller cities and build that appetite and education, the ecosystem won’t grow.
Earlier this year, we saw controversy around an artwork at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. How do you look at the relationship between art and religion, politics, and society at large?
Art and artists will always be reflective of the times they live in. A lot of them speak directly to religion, politics, ecology, and social activism. These themes are pervasive in artists’ lives, and it’s very difficult to take them away. Sometimes, the idea is also to incite a reaction, not just to paint a pretty picture. Artists will continue to respond to these issues.
