India: It all Happens in Delhi

21 February 2018

India: It all Happens in Delhi
We headed straight from Delhi airport to Subodh Gupta’s studio which was a treat for us all. Achim Borchardt-Hume looking cool amongst the pots and pans
India: It all Happens in Delhi
Trying to immortalise myself in his artwork
India: It all Happens in Delhi
Curious looking shoe shine box turning human
India: It all Happens in Delhi
Subodh proudly standing in front of his vibrant paintings
India: It all Happens in Delhi
Showing Achim his new top secret project
India: It all Happens in Delhi
We were non-stop wined and dined whilst in Mumbai and Delhi. Each home was as beautiful as the last and each food different and as delicious. The art was consistently good. Our first stop was the home of Lekha and Ranjan Poddar then a wonderful buffet dinner hosted by collector Nitin Bhayana
India: It all Happens in Delhi
The group were very happy with Tate Director Maria Balshaw and Research Curator Nada Raza (in the middle) who led us all the way!
India: It all Happens in Delhi
We headed once again to the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art an old shopping mall converted into a museum where artist Vivan Sundaram was exhibiting. He was discussing his old Slade works, from the 60’s which have just been rediscovered, with Achim and Ann Gallagher
India: It all Happens in Delhi
For me a highlight of the trip was visiting Khoj where Pooja Sood showed us her emerging nonprofit art exhibition - we were all impressed. To help them out we added to The Collection a lovely work ‘Portraits of Home/Exit Wounds’, 2018 by the young artist Sahil Naik
India: It all Happens in Delhi
We also acquired Manish Nai’s monolithic sculpture
India: It all Happens in Delhi
Here is Pooja with Nada
India: It all Happens in Delhi
We then headed to Bikaner House where we had the pleasure of lunch in their beautiful garden. Before this Anju Dodiya gave us a tour of her paintings and drawings, much like Tracey Emin’s work, referring to the self. The work is very theatrical and dramatic almost hinting at a modernist past
India: It all Happens in Delhi
Nada in front of one of these magnificent works
India: It all Happens in Delhi
Then at last we arrived at the Indian Art Fair! Poju, Michael Xufu Huang and Achim taking a coffee break in the sunshine
India: It all Happens in Delhi
We finally caught up with Manish Nai at Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke and were delighted to see more examples of his amazing cloth works
India: It all Happens in Delhi
At Gallery Ske we loved this work by Sudarshan Shetty. Then it was a final goodbye as I headed to a retreat somewhere in India for a few days