India Art Festival (IAF), a contemporary art fair founded in 2011, is the largest Indian Art Fair Network, hosting art fairs in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai. IAF is India’s flagship Art Fair brand, providing a platform for dialogue and collaborations between art galleries, art dealers, art buyers, artists, interior designers, architects, and art connoisseurs who come together every year. The art fair offers opportunities to emerging, independent artists as well as mid-level and major art galleries. It serves as a talent hunt in Indian art, where emerging artists with potential get discovered and gain recognition alongside established artists, thereby integrating them into the gallery system.
IAF also features Fusion shows with Live Music and painting demos, curated ‘Conversations – Art Talks,’ a two-day educative seminar consisting of panel discussions. The speakers invited to IAF Conversations include artists, gallerists, museum directors, critics, historians, institution-builders, cultural organizers, editors, and publishers.
India Art Festival is the only contemporary art fair in India that hosts four annual editions in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad apart from and Mumbai Art Fair, specifically designed to cater to the needs of independent artists who seek to exhibit their artworks throughout the year in major metro cities. IAF established itself as a successfully tested model of an art fair that focuses on both art galleries and independent artists.
The India Art Festival group’s ‘in-house’ art publication, ‘Indian Contemporary Art Journal,’ has been published since 2007. It serves to include unrepresented and marginalized radical visual voices from every corner of the country in the mainstream Indian art marketplace. IAF Artists’ Pavilion acts as a talent hunt contest, discovering hidden gems in visual arts from rural and urban parts of India. This initiative offers numerous art choices to Indian art buyers. Acknowledged for its simple and unbiased presentation of visual art, IAF has been instrumental in changing the way audiences view, buy, and sell art.
Every year, IAF hosts over 100 artists and 75 art galleries from across India and the Asian sub-continent, showcasing stimulating original artworks, prints, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photography, ceramics, lithographs, installations, and more, all under one roof at Constitution Club of India, New Delhi, Nehru Centre in Mumbai, and Palace Grounds in Bengaluru.
Since its inception in 2011, IAF has successfully democratized the Indian art market on two levels. Firstly, by bringing together rural artists with highly articulate urban artists, and secondly, by creating a simple and refreshing ambience for the art viewing, buying, and selling process outside the confines of unapproachable art spaces.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, our commitment as a cultural organizer led us to find alternative ways to showcase art and reach art audiences in the safe environment of their homes and offices. The virtual edition of India Art Festival offered an incredible experience of viewing art in 3D booths with an immersive experience. It features the ability to chat with participating art galleries and artists and facilitates online buying. After covid Pandemic, we are back to offline shows at our regular venues.
India Art Festival, a mega Indian Art Fair hosted in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad, is an initiative of Ruturaj IndoArtFest Pvt Ltd, which is also the host of the Mumbai Art Fair! The open participation call invites artists and art galleries in India to be a part of this unique art show. The series of mega art exhibitions across India addresses the challenges of participating in art exhibitions such as the Mumbai Art Fair or the Indian Art Exhibition in Bengaluru. It provides opportunities to reach a wider audience, sell paintings, and promote art exhibitions in general. The dearth of art events, Art Expos, or Art Exhibitions in India, particularly for artists’ exhibits or exhibitions of paintings, led to the creation of the India Art Festival as a democratic platform for viewing and buying art. The upcoming art exhibitions, including the Mumbai Art Fair for independent artists and the India Art Festival for art galleries in Mumbai and Art Galleries in India, are expected to exhibit over 10,000 artworks across the three metro cities. Booths for solo painting exhibitions or group art exhibitions are available in the Mumbai Art Fair and India Art Festival. Book your stall today for the upcoming art exhibitions!
India Art Festival, a registered trademark flagship art fair brand, is an initiative of Ruturaj IndoArtFest Pvt Ltd, a company registered under sub-section (2) of section 7 and sub-section (1) of section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), rule 18 of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014, MCA, Govt of India.
Rajendra N Patil
Founder and Managing Director, India Art Festival Editor, Indian Contemporary Art Journal | President, The Bombay Art Society
Rajendra N Patil is known for his multifaceted roles as the President of the Bombay Art Society, Editor & Publisher of the Indian Contemporary Art Journal, and Founder Director of the India Art Festival, a domestic Indian Art Fair. With unwavering commitment and a deep passion for promoting the arts, Rajendra Patil has made a significant impact on the Indian contemporary art scene.
Pioneering the Indian Contemporary Art Journal, a quarterly art magazine in 2008, Rajendra embarked on a mission to provide a platform for artists, critics, and enthusiasts to engage with contemporary art. Prior to this, he served as the editor of the renowned Bombay Art Society’s Art Journal from 2003 to 2008, honing his skills in curating compelling content and nurturing artistic discourse.
The India Art Festival, founded by Rajendra Patil in 2011 along with legendary artist Prafulla Dahanukar and Dr. Saryu Doshi, stands as a testament to his visionary leadership. Starting in Mumbai, this modern and contemporary art fair has swiftly risen to prominence, captivating art enthusiasts, collectors, and galleries from across India. Rajendra’s innovative approach transformed the art festival into a nationwide movement; apart from Mumbai, now editions of the art festival are being held in other major cities such as New Delhi and Bengaluru.
Rajendra Patil is an accomplished writer, known for his thought-provoking columns in various publications.
His exceptional insights and interviewing prowess have led to engaging conversations with luminaries in the art world, including Laxman Shreshta, Bose Krishnamachari, Samir Mondal, Riyas Komu, T. V. Santhosh, Prabhakar Kolte, Chittrovanu Majumdar, G.R. Iranna, Atul Dodiya, Sunil Gawade, Prafulla Dahanukar, Sunil Padwal, Suhas Bahulkar, Vasudeo Kamat, Ravi Mandlik, and many others.
His writings on art have been featured in publications such as Maharashtra Times, Mumbai Sakal, Tarun Bharat, LokPrabha, Nandan, Metropolis, Every Tuesday, Art India, Creative Mind, and Art & Deal, among others. Rajendra’s literary contributions extend beyond newspaper columns, as he has penned compelling catalogue essays for numerous artists.
Recognized for his expertise, Rajendra has been invited to speak at prestigious seminars, sharing his insights on Indian Art. His captivating presentations have been delivered at the “ArtNext” seminar organized at Lalit Kala Academy in New Delhi (2012), the Gulbarga Visual Art College (2011), the State Art Exhibition at Jehangir Art Gallery (2005), Kokrajhar Music & Fine Art College in Assam (2004), and other esteemed venues. Additionally, Rajendra has served as an Examiner at Kalabhavan, Santiniketan, and has delivered enlightening lectures on the “Art Market” at Lokayata Art Gallery in New Delhi, Aakriti Art Gallery in Kolkata, and Gallery Sumukha in Bangalore.
Rajendra holds a diverse range of qualifications, including a master’s degree in Ancient Indian Culture from Mumbai University, a B.Sc. from Pune University, and a B. Tech from Mumbai University.
Through his multifaceted roles as an Art Writer, Editor & Publisher, Director, and Speaker, Rajendra continues to shape and elevate the Indian art scene. With relentless dedication, he bridges the gap between artists, critics, and enthusiasts, fostering an environment that celebrates and promotes Indian contemporary art.
Minakshi Patil
Hon. Director
Minakshi Patil, a gold-medalist at M.A-Marathi Literature & Aesthetics from Mumbai University has been instrumental in exploring the creative expression and inquiry at the crossroads of visual art, poetry and music. In order to explore how poetry responds to the visual arts, and the visual arts reacts to poetry and influence each other, Minakshi has mounted many fusion shows since 2004 bringing poets, artists, musicians together. The symphonic co-existence of visual art and poetry has seen wonderfully creative results at the fusion shows Minakshi has organised at India Art Festival as an extended part of collateral events beyond two days IAF Conversations.
Minakshi, herself an artist, poet-writer and documentary
filmmaker juggles with multiple disciplines. Her documentary film on ‘Social impact of climate change’ has won accolades and was selected in World Bank competition’ as top 15 documentaries in hundreds of entries from the world over. Her poetry collection book ‘Is it in your DNA’ is published by Abhidhanantar Publication. Minakshi’s creative and analytical writings, poems, essays have been published in various newspapers and literary magazines since 1995 and her poems are included in the senior college art faculty curriculum of SNDT University, Mumbai. This broad spectrum of her personal and creative life generated in her a kind of aesthetic commitment that is reflected in her poetry, paintings and social projects like India Art Festival.
Advisory Board
Unlike business entities, the IAF management is different format since the beginning and is based on the patterns of art institutional hierarchy. When IAF was launched in 2011, it was decided to form an advisory board /management committee which was headed by Dr Saryu Doshi as a president, Late Prafulla Dahanukar as a Chairman, Anupa Mehta was advising on marketing and VIP relations and Rajendra, currently managing director, being a director then was entrusted to
implement all the plans and strategies discussed collectively by advisory board. Ranjit Hoskote has also been part of the advisory board who programmed IAF Conversations for many years and made “IAF Conversations” eagerly awaited enlightening discourse for artists, art gallerists, art collectors, academicians, art historians etc. The IAF advisory board composed of senior artists, institution builders, art critics, historians, gallerists and businesspersons gets reshuffled year-on-year basis. Arpana Caur, Nisha Jamvwal, Subhash Awachat, Siddharth Tagore, Sara Arakkal, Avni Rao, Dr Deepak Kannal and many others have been part of IAF advisory board from time to time. The real IAF plans/strategies come from experts in the art world, which are implemented and executed with the help of flexible office team, and regional experts.
The institutional hierarchy is not only reflected in IAF management, but India Art Festival itself is a project of social commitment initiated by socially committed individuals working with different art institutions for decades. India Art Festival pays attention to improvement in the quality of art being displayed at the art festival; though our directive principles germinated from our institutional backgrounds appeals our conscience to be balanced and accommodative towards unrepresented sections like independent artists while judging their work on a set benchmark.
Dr Saryu Doshi
President
Dr Saryu Doshi, art historian, research scholar, editor and curator started her career as a visiting professor at University of Michigan, USA (Jan to April 1976).
Ranjit Hoskote
Convenor, IAF Conversations
Ranjit Hoskote is a cultural theorist, curator and poet. He is the author of 30 books, including Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985-2005 (Penguin, 2006)
Late Prafulla Dahanukar
Chairperson, India Art Festival
(2011 – 2014 till she passed away in March 2014)
Prafulla Dahanukar (1934-2014) was born in 1934; she studied fine art at Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai