Adverse circumstances always bring out the best! The ongoing Delhi Art Week 2021 (DAW), which is on till April 10, exemplifies this rather well.

DAW is a new, independent and collaborative initiative by leading contemporary art galleries of the metropolis. The objective is to bring together private and public art institutions to raise awareness, educate and focus attention on modern and contemporary art.

The schedule for the week includes curated shows, talks and walkthroughs from 37 galleries and four institutions, including two museums. A staggering number of over 50 exhibitions have been lined up in the city divided in four art zones, with clusters of galleries and institutions.

Helming this maiden edition of DAW is the team of Tariq Allana, Associate Director, Art Heritage; Sunaina Anand, Director, Art Alive Gallery and Reena Lath, Director, Akar Prakar.

Sunaina Anand, Reena Lath and Tariq Allana

Elaborating on the event, this DAW team says, “The specific objective is to gather momentum enough to create a healthy ecosystem within the art community, to be presented together as an industry. The general objectives are to create a platform where people from all interests develop a love and an eye for the fine arts in daily living, to boost sales in the art market by developing an interest in the visual arts amongst the larger public, and make art buying and acquisition easy and effortless and accessible.”

With a varied fare offered, DAW is attracting the attention of the general public as well as art aficionados alike. Kiran Nadar Museum of “Art Scripting Time Memory Ecology”,  (A triad of exhibitions) features works by Jayashree Chakravarty, Zarina, Ayesha Sultana, Prabhavathi Meppayil, Lala Rukh, Sumakshi Singh and Mrinalini Mukherjee. While Vandana Kothari is holding a solo show at Ananth Art Gallery, titled “City of Illusions”.

'Santiniketan Sunrise by Vandana Kothari

At Threshold Art Gallery “Nest” has put up works by Jayashree Chakravorty, Anindita Bhattacharya, Manisha Gera Baswani, Nilima Sheikh, Sudhir Patwardhan, Rajendra Tiku, Yashwant Deshmukh, Pooja Iranna and Suneet Ghildial are on display.

Dhoomimal Gallery’s “Delhi Shilpi Chakra” is a group event with works by B.C. Sanyal, Sailoz Mookherjee, K.S Kulkarni, Jagdish Swaminathan, Satish Gujral and Ram Kumar, while Palette Art Gallery’s “Collective 22” stars works by Anju Dodiya, Apurba Nandi, Atul Dodiya, Ganesh Selvaraj, Jagannath Panda and Pooja Sharma among others. Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai at Blueprint12 is having a solo show titled “Isolation Dairies”.

Speaking on the process of bringing so many artists together for the event, the DAW Team says, “The idea was to be as inclusive as possible, this meant that everyone could showcase whatever was their forte and had been engaging in, within their own spaces and organisations. Each organisation was free to come on board with their set of artists and programming, when we collated all the details we realised that that were over 250 artists who were being represented by the participating organisations.”

It is indeed heartening to know that the DAW team did not face any major challenges when it came to bringing in the artists and galleries, together. “To be honest, it has been such an eye-opener, to engage with each of our participants, often we think that people will be in their own worlds and concerned about their own organizations, but our experience was that in the pandemic era, we are looking at each other as a collective and not as islands. It was as one says a sweet process, and everyone supported the shaping of the Delhi Art Week as though it was their own. The real challenge was how will we be able to put it all together given the shortage of time.”

A artwork at Dhoomimal Art Gallery

DAW promises to provide more in terms of learning than just a visual delight for viewers as talks and walkthroughs are a part of the event. The latter is being arranged at NGMA, Art Heritage, Delhi Art Gallery, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Dhoomimal Gallery, among others. “We believe that knowledge and experience is the basis of all education. By doing this initiative of gathering more than 40 art organisations to come under one umbrella to promote art, we are creating the ground for sharing and educating the audiences to engage and to view and participate in arts personally and online. The talks and walkthroughs by curators and artists gives the young and seasoned collectors a chance to get an insiders’ view of the artworks and artists processes and minds,” observes the DAW team.

Thus, here is an opportunity for art students, artists and promising ones, and art lovers, to engage, learn and grow.

(For details check www.delhiartweek.com)