By Kinjal Shah
– The ‘Virtual India Art Festival’ brings together 20 art galleries, 200 artists, 1000 artworks
– Artists from Mumbai to Tripura to Varanasi to Singapore, the show promises a stimulating fusion of contemporary art with virtual reality
Mumbai, 17 Dec 2020: Since its inception in 2010, the India Art Festival (IAF), a contemporary art fair, has been the platform to exhibit art and ideas, showcasing nearly 3000 artists from India and many other countries. IAF, the only contemporary art fair in India hosting annual editions at Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bengaluru, positions itself Today as a successful art fair focusing on both – art galleries and independent artists. In the last ten years, the uninterrupted journey of 17 editions entered into a short sojourn this year during a coronavirus outbreak. The covid-19 pandemic made us alter ways to continue with our contemporary life and compelled us to shift from the ‘conventional’ presentation of ‘visual art’ to digital platforms. Every year IAF hosts over 700+ artists and 50 art galleries from across India and other countries, showcasing 6000 works of art at New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. All this is simulated together in the digital platform ‘Virtual India Art Festival,’ making it Asia’s most enormous, unified & seamless art festival ever. This new way of viewing and buying conceived during the pandemic promises to engage with the visual art audiences globally. In this virtual avatar of the India Art Festival, patrons will get to see 45 stalls, 20 art galleries, and 200 artists exhibiting a total of 1000 artworks. The Virtual India Art Festival can be visited from 18 to 27 Dec 2020 at www.indiaartfest.in.
Rajendra, Founder of the India Art Festival and President, The Bombay Art Society shares to Prittle Prattle News in a press release, “Today, most of us in the self-quarantined state of mind, willingly or unwillingly use electronic devices, looking for ways to connect, to support each other, and share. The virtual India Art Festival, a specially designed online art fair, is an effort to engage ‘visual art audiences’ with the artists trying to recover from past anxieties and future worries! Virtual India art festival is our commitment as the cultural organizer to answer urgencies surrounding the lives of thousands of artists in India”.
The visitors – art enthusiasts, art buyers, and art connoisseurs – to the virtual India Art Festival will enjoy this stimulating fusion of contemporary art with virtual reality, creating an incredible experience of immersive booths in the art fair! The hundreds of artworks exhibited through 45 stalls include inspiring original artworks, paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, and more. The visitors can choose the artwork they like and buy it online at the virtual India Art Festival.
“There have been many virtual art fairs taking across the world but with a complex navigation system that required hundreds of mouse clicks or mobile screen swipes to go through entire virtual art fair online. Further, the time-consuming registration process, which involves visitor privacy issues, has been widely debated. Considering that the art buyer, architects, interior designers, and art collectors who buy art or even artists, art writers, and art enthusiasts are a part of the active community, we at India Art Festival have designed a straightforward but elegant and engaging virtual art festival system of 2D rooms, 3D virtual galleries with a 360-degree view of stalls for every exhibiting artists and art galleries. The visitor is provided simple options to view artworks with a zoom-in facility without a single click of the mouse. The visitors can visit 45 stalls, 20 art galleries, and 1000 artworks of 250 artists with a zoom-in facility in just 45 clicks to enjoy 2D & 3D virtual stalls viewing. There is a facility in every booth where visitors can call or send a text message to participating artists and art galleries and even can pick up a digital copy of their catalogs from every stall”, he further adds.
The participating art galleries in the Virtual Art fair includes – Aakriti Art Gallery & Gallery Nataraj, from Kolkata, Art Nouveau, Galerie Splash & Uchaan from Gurgaon, ArtDesh Foundation, Greyscale, Rhythm Art, Studio3 Art Gallery, and The Bombay Art Society – all from Mumbai, Easel Stories, Noida, Eminent Art Gallery, Gallery Endless Thoughts, Sudha Art Gallery, Thakalis Art Gallery and The Lexicon art Gallery – all from New Delhi along with Galerie Sara Arakkal, Gnani Arts, Singapore, Kala Bhawan from Tripura and Studio Vriksha Chhaya from Varanasi.
