Two's Company

They abandoned their corporate ascent over a midnight phone call. Today, gallerists PRIYANKA and PRATEEK RAJA are changing the Indian art world with their vision, finds ROSALYN D’MELLO

- Rosalyn D’Mello

It is December 2018. Priyanka Raja is at Experimenter Gallery. She adds me in on a conference call, and the bustle of Kolkata’s streets takes over. Her husband and co-gallerist Prateek apologises. He is on his way to catch a flight to London, where his presence is requested at the Turner Prize ceremony. It’s a moment of unexpected synchronicity. Ten years ago, the duo opened Experimenter Gallery. “Our first signed-up artist was Naeem Mohaiemen,” says Priyanka. On view at the Tate Modern until January were two acclaimed films by the UK-born Bangladeshi artist, Tripoli Cancelled and Two Meetings And A Funeral (both 2017). The films were part of the 2018 Turner Prize exhibition for which Mohaiemen was shortlisted. It was a watershed moment in art history considering few South Asian artists had had such a close brush with winning the prestigious prize. Mohaiemen’s shortlist predecessors include Anish Kapoor (he won the prize in 1991), Runa Islam, also of Bangladeshi descent, and Tino Sehgal, of Indo-German origin. Though the 2018 Prize was given to Charlotte Prodger, Prateek’s presence at the event as Mohaiemen’s co-gallerist of 10 years signalled how their careers had been so intricately linked.

A CALL TO ART