Hyderabad Art Fair makes a humble beginning

The first of its kind, Hyderabad Art Fair is all set to begin today at Nehru Art Gallery

Nearly 100 city-based artists, including Laxma Goud, DLN Reddy, Thota Vaikuntam, Surya Prakash, Rajeshwar Rao, B Srinivas Reddy, Kavitha Deuskar, Anjali Reddy, B Padma Reddy, Aelay Laxman, Ramesh Gorjala, Sachin Jaltare participate and a series of talks and presentations on history of Hyderabad art, women artists of Andhra Pradesh, Andhra art and history mark the first of its kind Hyderabad Art Fair 2014 scheduled between February 22 and 24

The beginning is the most important part of the work. –Plato

It was two-and-a-half years back when the seeds for the first exclusive art fair of Hyderabad were sown. A group of 18 artists from Hyderabad were having a conversation, lamenting on the absence of a festival of art that will involve the entire art fraternity and the common people. In Delhi Art Fair, for example, one can see people waiting in long queues that are not necessarily artists or art buyers. There are all kinds of people just interested in seeing the art on display. “We need that kind of involvement from people in the city. Here when you have an art show, it is just the buyers, artists or at times art students who visit the show. The common public should also visit the show just for enjoying art. Unfortunately we do not have the culture,” says Murali Thrigulla who along with a group of artists conceptualised the Hyderabad Art Fair. This group felt that instead of waiting for someone else to take the initiative, they should make a beginning. The artists included Murali Thrigulla. Shivaramachary, Bharat, Mathuram Ravikanth, Manguirish, Visweswar Rao, Vasu Mondel, Akshay Anand, Jayaprakash, Preeti Samyukta, Sunil Lohar, Gurram Mallesham and Kanta Reddy.

Artist Rajeswara Rao suggested the idea of ‘Art on Boxes’ where each artist would be given boxes of equal dimension 12’X14’X6’ to paint and the same would be put up for display. The group pooled in the resources and got the boxes made and around 100 artists from Hyderabad were contacted to paint the boxes. And much to their delight every one of them responded positively and now they have with them beautifully painted boxes, each of them reflecting the style of the artist.

The venue for the extravagant display followed by interesting talks is Nehru Art Gallery, JNAFAU, Masabtank – The choice is obviously in the hope that the event is supported by the entire Hyderabadi art society and the objective is clear – To bring people who were otherwise not involved with the art world to the fair and bring awareness in them on what art is and help them identify the different artists of the city; viewer can compare, know the style and the uniqueness of each artist.

The group of artists (under the name Transparent Initiatives) who are passionately involved and have put in every possible effort to realise the dream of having an art fair exclusively for the city also hope to give exposure to the entirety of Hyderabad art to prospective buyers through this fair. And if they are able to sell some of the beautiful pieces of art (boxes) created by the artists, a part of it will go to the artist and the rest will be put in back to help organise the next art fair. While the first edition to solely about the display of the 100 artists and talks, going forward there will be installations, sculptures and more depending on space and the available resources.

In addition to the short term plans, the group hopes to make this an annual feature that grows bigger and which will help them achieve certain long standing plans including pension for senior artists and medical insurance to the artists, platform to showcase promising artists and provide financial help to artists in need.