Guess who is pushing contemporary Indian art in a big way internationally? It’s private art promoters quietly pitch-forking dynamic young artists on the world map. They are playing a significant role to bring them into international limelight.
According to rough estimates, there are close to 100 private art foundations – major and minor; big and small - in the country that are actively promoting contemporary art & culture. They are popularizing the new age art in both India and abroad. In the process, they are trying to fill a void left behind by rigid bureaucratic red-tape and endless delays in those typical government-backed art initiatives.
The private bodies demand that they be offered greater incentives by the government, to initialize new projects for perpetuating the country’s rich artistic heritage. One among them is The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA). It takes up several meaningful initiatives like an emerging artists' award, a residency program at California’s Montalvo Arts Centre, workshops in Delhi’s schools, a public art grant, FICA group shows, research fellowships, group exchanges and an arts reading room in a famous Delhi locality.
The FICA spokesperson, Parul Vadehra mentions that their dream was to set up a foundation largely as a philanthropic project. But the idea was to segregate its routine activities from those of the art gallery. An IANS news report had elaborated on the efforts undertaken by the Delhi-based body by mentioning:
“It was set up in 2006 by Arun Vadehra in an endeavor to make contemporary art accessible, promote Indian art abroad, increase greater interaction among art institutions. It has helped several leading Indian photographers showcase a significant body of heterogeneous visual perspective of South Asia at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. The exhibition opened in London to wide critical acclaim - and is now being showed in Zurich. "
In the next few blog posts, we shall take a look at more art organizations in India...
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