A reluctant monsoon seems to have finally set in. As the cool showers bring down the mercury the KGAF prepares vehemently to plunge into its seventeenth year. The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, it is, arguably the first of Art Festivals in India with its inception in 1999, an annual community celebration of the arts held in Mumbai. Later of course, we got the hugely popular India Art Fair initiated by Neha Kirpal in 2008 held in New Delhi, the first to create a common exhibition platform at an international level on that scale. India’s first biennale, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, despite several impediments, commenced with much critical applause in 2012. Then there is the United Art Fair that changed hands recently, now under Riya Gandhi, and is all set for another year of art. The India Art Festival in Mumbai being another success story, and now the trend has set in strongly, the list goes on, with art fairs & festivals being announced in various towns and cities all over the country and beyond… It is fascinating how the celebration of the silver anniversary of King Umberto and Margherita of Savoy and the idea of the artists’ evening meetings at Caffè Florian led to one of the most prestigious international exhibitions and the now ‘Venice Biennale’(started 1895). Venice Biennale being the predecessor of all art festivals; for instance Art Basel, documenta in Kassel, Germany, Berlin Biennale, Dhaka Art Summit & Art Dubai etc. and also several more interesting ones that are coming up recently. Art festivals maybe described as cosmopolitan spaces branding cultural and urban regeneration and democratizing and promoting inter cultural dialogue through art. In this age of biennales and art fairs, with every fair and art festival using similar yet different ingredients in the cauldron of concept/ thought, investor, inventor and visual stock, Art & Deal has tried to capture the politics of aesthetics and business with this issue. Tanya Abraham reports the collective effort exercised by the curators to astounding effect at the Whitney Biennale, New York. Kurchi Dasgupta calls for an open discussion on the need and fate of biennales and art fairs, focusing on the athmandu International Art Festival and Colombo Art Biennale. Manoj Nair invites a critical debate on what goes at the rear of the making, the politics, the work, the success, the failure and thus the credibility meter of these festivals. This issue also profiles the phenomenal artist Sanjay Bhattacharya with works that transcend us into the artist’s realm. The viewer can’t help but feel nostalgic peering at his realistic yet mysterious landscapes. Dr. Dipendu Das outlines the rituals and traditions that shape the radical Bengali festival of Charak Puja. Waswo X. Waswo critiques the process of museumification” in his show ‘Sleeping through the Museum’ at Sakshi Art Gallery, Mumbai. As ever, we endeavor to bring you the best of national & international coverage, to glance into the
art scene and its intriguing elements, globally. Do send us your feedback at artanddeal@gmail.com Happy Reading!!
Siddhartha Tagore
