Art Fair In Kolkata
Posted by artnavigator on June 3, 2008
Kolkata was abuzz with the news of an Art Fair organised by a conglomeration of art galleries, bookstores, and art colleges. The fair was organised in a newly-built Avani Signature building on Park Street which is being provided by the Avani group. The 3-day fest was spread out over around 24,000 sq ft of space on the ground and first floor of the building between April 25 and April 27.
This is one more sign of Kolkata raising its head in the field of art. Two years back the website named indianmasterpainters.com had started an annual award ceremony where the best artist of the year was awarded a with a golden brush. Birla Academy of Art and Culture organises similar shows every year. Nonetheless, all these had always remained mostly local evcents. So there was a lot of expexctation from this fair and people had thronged in huge numbers. Huge murals adorned the outside wall of the building and it was a true treat to the eyes.
However the selction of artists and art-genres was very poor. It had the regular Kolkata artists like Jogen Chowdhury, Suvaprasanna (who are also fest committee members), Ganesh Haloi, Paritosh Sen, Wasim Kapoor, Dhiraj Chowdhury, Rabin Mondal, Prakash Karmakar, Isha Mohammad, B R Panesar and Suhas Roy. These artists showcased their regular works, mostly painting and sculpture. There was a conspicuous absence of installations, and other types of modern day arts.
Neither was there any presence of some of Kolkata’s best modern day artists like Sanjay Bhattacharya, Devajyoti Ray, Paresh Maity, Chittrobhanu Majumdar, Subba Ghosh or Kaushik Mukherjee. Is it because these artists are not staying in Kolkata any more?
These avant garde artists are less known in Kolkata and more elsewhere. They are attracting international attention and recent auctions show their immense popularity in the international art market. However they have never showed together. This fair could have been an opportunity to showcase their works on a single platform.
May be future fairs would be organised on a larger scale.
