United Art Fair 2013

NAGUESH  RAO  SARDESSAI

The second edition of United Art Fair (UAF) that happened in the second fortnight of September 2013 at Pragati Maidan, Delhi was a grand success.

‘It’s getting bigger and better,’ claimed the brain behind the fair, effervescent Annurag Sharma.

Casa Goa, Goa’s most respected style shop, housed in the primary lanes leading to famed Baga Beach pledged his support to a combination of ten leading as well as promising artists from the State. Apeksha Nadkarni, Liesl De Souza, Nirupa Naik, Rajendra Usapkar, Raymond Pereira, Swapnesh Vaigankar, Salvador Fernandes, Tanaaz De Souza and Yolanda De Sousa displayed their creations.

Casa Goa has been in the forefront of promoting Goan art since long. It has remained reclusive and choosy with the deliberate intention of attracting serious as well as promising players. Cezar Pinto of Casa Goa has remained open to innovative ideas and lends his support to radical artistic endeavors from time to time. His style shop, attracting quality visitors, remains the most sought after space amongst the artists.

UAF being the an anti thesis to the so called high art, Casa Goa felt it apt to step in and support the Goan talent draw advantage from these internationally projected fair. Here, the art world tears itself to move beyond the plush galleries, convention centres and museums to invite each and everyone with enough talent.

 ‘The number of participating artists have gone down from 500 to around 300 artists but, in terms of disciplines and mediums, it’s vast,’ stated Annurag on the sidelines of the show.

Positioning itself as an artist-driven fair, UAF does away with galleries and allows a direct participation of the artists that includes young, upcoming and the established.

This year, UAF had set up an expert panel of curators — Alka Pande, Ram Rahman, Meera Menezes, Heidi Fichtner and Mayank Kaul — lead by artistic director Peter Nagy. They collectively went through portfolios of 4,500 artists from across the country, which included artists from Andaman and Nicobar Islands, tribal artists and craftsperson.

United Art Fair, a four-day affair, had about 283 artists displaying their creations. The works included paintings, sculptures and photography, design (including graphic art, fashion, textiles, furniture, and ceramics) as well as forms of folk and tribal art, crafts and ritual arts.