India as the guest country at Korea International Art Fair

The special India Guest Country program was one of the major highlights of the just concluded Korea International Art Fair (KIAF) that brought together leading galleries, collectors and art connoisseurs from across the world. There were artists from the home country as well as those from Spain, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, China and India, among others.

The idea of inviting India as the guest country at KIAF was to demonstrate to the country’s growing stature in the international art market apart from its excellence, abundant talent as well as its bright prospects. KIAF director Cheong Jong-Hyo stated that India was most likely to emerge as a new centre of art and culture in Asia since the country has huge potential coupled with rich history. According to him, interest in contemporary Indian art is steadily increasing, which is why the organizers chose to invite India as the guest country.

An exhibition, entitled ‘Failed Plot’, was inspired by the idea of the ‘incomplete picture’. It was curated by noted art critic Gayatri Sinha. A curatorial note explained: “Recent terror events, enacted in different parts of the world and believed to have a locus in West or South Asia, come to be known as the ‘failed plot’ in media and academic parlance. As investigations get underway, the truth continues to remain elusive. These narratives are completed, abandoned, denied in a million unrecorded ways, until they uneasily subside in the residue of public memory.”

Riyas Komu, T. V. Santhosh, Vivan Sundaram, Chitra Ganesh, Pushpamala N, Abir Karmarkar, Anita Dube, Archana Hande, Ranbir Kaleka and Manjunath Kamath were among the 15 Indian artists whose works were showcased. The participating artists urged a prompt enquiry into a rather more personal sphere, of how we tend to receive and make images and imaginary narratives than the actual mechanism of terror. It also included life stories, manuscripts, poems, ideas that were confined to remain incomplete.