Delhi hosts India’s first ever ‘anti-art fair’
Imagine an art fair — established artists, patrons, appreciators, enthusiasts, collectors, and casual champagne drinkers coming together to celebrate art with their poker faces on. Now throw that picture away! Challenging how art fairs usually work and the traditional cultural landscape of the art market, The Irregulars Art Fair (TIRAF), India’s first ever ‘anti-art fair’, plans to bring together independent artists under one roof, to provide an art experience of a different kind.
Spanning three days, which incidentally also happens to be the time when the India Art Fair would be taking place, this event is giving a chance to fringe artists to come together and give the visitors an immersive experience, one that isn’t found in the usual art fairs around the world.
“We are trying to make art a little bigger and give independent artists an opportunity to showcase their work. We aim at young and contemporary artists since they’re mostly restricted to social media as the only platform where they can put up their work,” says Tarini Sethi, founder and curator, TIRAF. “I’d like to stress that the fair has nothing to do with the India Art Fair and the art fairs around the world. There are a bunch of anti-art fairs that happen around the world, during the same time as other art fairs, and their concept is to basically be a more inclusive space for fringe artists, with no booths, openended concepts, and conversation-based installations,” she adds.
Visitors can catch artists, curators, performers, actors, animators, musicians, designers, dancers, architects, and zine makers as they come together as part of this alternative space for the irregular arts, one that doesn’t mind the weird and the bizarre.