New Questions in a New Time

Premjish Achari talks to gallerists, organisers and viewers about the recently concluded India Art Fair, and ruminates on the role of the art critic at an art fair and of the art fair in turbulent times.

- Premjish Achari

As I entered the venue of the India Art Fair (IAF), mounted at the NSIC Exhibition Grounds, New Delhi, from the 30th of January to the 2nd of February, I was baffled by the same question that bothered the art critic and writer Orit Gat, who summed up her consternation in the essay, “What Is an Art Critic Doing at an Art Fair?” The critic would be at home in a gallery or at all the proliferating biennials or at alternative platforms. What difference does it make when all these spaces showcase art?

The answer is very obvious. The objective of an art fair relies on the commercial aspect of the artwork. The critic shies away from market-oriented approaches, especially at spectacular events like art fairs that celebrate the triad – the gallery, the market and the artist. But is not a gallery exhibition commercial? Are not most of the sought-after art fairs of the world well-programmed and curated? Don’t they expand their programs and invite the general public, which includes various constituencies such as young artists, art historians, critics, journalists and local viewers to partake in their annual spectacle?

I was also wondering about what Walter Benjamin would have thought about the Great Exhibition of 1851, one of the earliest international art fairs held in Europe. How would the critic in him have responded to the spectacle of industrialization and mass production as displayed in a city like London? His response would be different to what Charles Dickens and R. H. Horne wrote about in the journal Household Words. They spoke effusively of “the machinery of our manufactures, with all their complex powers, their wonderful strength, velocity, and minutely precise manipulations.”