Photos: Courtesy of Delhi Art Gallery
Late this summer I was in New Delhi visiting a bit of its art world, and
was struck by the work some of its elite modern and contemporary art
galleries in the realm of documentation and research. I had gone to the
Delhi Art Gallery to look at its collection of Indian mid-20th-century
modernists, particularly Francis Newton Souza who my friend Ulli Beier
once held as a model for young Nigerian artists. Of course I saw the art
I was after, but it was the range of publications commissioned and
produced by the DAG that I found astounding. For years this gallery and
others like it, such as the Vadehra Art Gallery, have been at the
forefront of producing scholarly publications on especially modern
Indian artists. And they have, I think, helped in increasing
international scholarly (and yes, commercial) attention these artists
are attracting now.
When I think of how these commercial art galleries participate in
serious knowledge production only very few galleries, even blue chips of
New York's Chelsea district, come to mind. Here you have substantial
monographic studies of individual artists-- from Souza, and Raza to
Sunil Das, Rabin Mondal, etc--and their wonderful survey volumes, Manifestations.
I just involuntarily pined for the day galleries in Lagos would grow up
to doing this kind of crucial groundwork. To really invest in artists
whose work they claim to promote. So, there I was so thrilled at the
work being done by commercial galleries in New Delhi; like a child
confronted by a candy-bearer, I packed so much books published by just
the DAG and Vadehra, that I had to pay excess luggage on my way back to
base. Contrast this with my visit to the "high-end" Mydrim Gallery in
Lagos earlier in the summer: I came out empty-handed. Oh, the wish, the
wish.
