Thaindian News

New Delhi, Oct 28 (IANS) The growing Indian art market has opened its door to the prestigious Affordable Art Fair — a global showcase-cum-sale of affordable art by young contemporary artists.

The first edition of the fair in India will open in the capital in September 2012, a statement said.

The fair, founded in 1999 by art promoter Will Ramsey, launched its first Asian edition in Singapore in 2010. The fair has been held in London, Bristol, Brussels, Amsterdam, Milan, New York, Melbourne and Singapore.

It will debut in Los Angeles in January 2012.

The India edition of the Affordable Art Fair will provide young artists a platform to showcase and sell their works through small and local galleries which usually cannot make it to the bigger fairs because of paucity of resources.

The fair gives buyers an opportunity to snap up potential stars of the future at realistic prices.

“The aim of the fair is to make quality art accessible to everyone by debunking the myth that art is not affordable and is only meant for the wealthy,” the statement said.

The capital was a natural choice for the fair to open its doors, the statement said. As the cultural capital of India, there are many major exhibitions and retrospectives each year.

“It is also home to the India Art Fair, which draws galleries and visitors from all over the world, and has established New Delhi as an important national arts centre supported by a strong art market,” the statement said.

The fair is a beginners’s guide as “approximately 50 percent of the visitors are new buyers who are attracted by extensive marketing and public relations campaigns that the fair runs”, an estimate said.

Ramsey and his crew, who take visitors through the fair with guided tours and activity related to purchasing and awareness, say “buying of art involves four basic processes of preparation, looking, asking and looking again”.

The fair expects that its total gallery sales will exceed 150 million pounds in 2011, an estimate said.