This post was originally published on artnews.com
New Delhi’s India Art Fair will launch a new expo in Mumbai next year, according to a press release Thursday.
The new event in India’s second largest city will be called India Art Fair Contemporary (IAFC) and will see up to 70, mostly Indian, galleries set up shop in Joi World Garden from November 13 to November 16, 2025.
IAF was founded in 2008 and will host its 16th edition in February next year. Since 2019, the fair has been entirely owned by the trade fair organizer Angus Montgomery Arts (AMA). The event presents art from the last 19th century to the present day, while the new IAFC, as its name suggests, will exclusively show contemporary art made after 1970 and “collectible design.”
The Mumbai offshoot was conceived after the IAF introduced a successful collectible design section earlier this year.
“We are thrilled to bring a fresh contemporary art and design fair to the thriving cultural scene of Mumbai, home to many of our long-term exhibitors, partners, patrons and visitors,” Jaya Asokan, the director of IAF and IAFC, said in a statement. “The appetite for art in India has grown significantly over recent years, and this is the perfect time to launch a bold new fair focussing on the contemporary moment. We have been proud to support many of the city’s arts initiatives for several years now, and we could not be more excited to host our first fair right in the heart of Mumbai.”
Sandy Angus, AMA’s chairman, said Mumbai “is home to a vibrant and distinct local scene, with a strong appeal for international collectors and visitors; we look forward to staging this timely first edition in 2025.”
Mumbai got a foothold on the international art fair scene last year following the birth of Art Mumbai, the city’s first major art fair. It saw 45 exhibitors and the second edition is slated for November at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse.
IAFC will take place at the same time as Art Mumbai, but instead of viewing the fairs as competition, Asokan believes they will be collaborative. She told The Art Newspaper that the week’s “two dynamic fairs” will mark a “major market moment for Mumbai.”
However, Art Mumbai’s co-founders, Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, are not so pleased about the overlapping dates. They said they “do not understand the logic” and “doubt the business sense of the decision.” Dinesh Vazirani told TAN that adds that the fairs will be over five miles apart from each other, meaning the galleries participating in both will be “overstretched.”