Unlike the more densely packed Mumbai, Delhi has long lacked a gallery hub. This is changing, thanks to a spate of galleries that are launching new locations in the central Defence Colony, joining existing dealerships in the neighbourhood to form the capital’s answer to a commercial art district.
Over the next two months, three galleries are set to open spaces in Defence Colony. Galleryske and Photoink, two galleries that in 2016 joined forces to share a location in southwest Delhi, will relocate to a new space, a single storey of a former private residence. They will continue to share premises while operating separate programmes and businesses, “a model not found anywhere else in the world”, says Galleryske’s founder, Sunitha Kumar Emmart. Structural issues in the previous Vasant Kunj space, plus a desire to provide its artists with a new venue to create works for, were key reasons for the move, Kumar Emmart says. Despite the new space being smaller than their previous one, “the trade-off is worth it for the central location,” she adds.
Construction delays
Although Galleryske and Photoink’s Defence Colony location was planned to open this month, a Supreme Court ban on construction work in the National Capital Region, due to the area’s notoriously poor air quality that worsens in the winter months, has delayed the move, explains Photoink’s director Devika Daulet-Singh. She says the new space is now scheduled to open in mid-March, “provided no further delays occur”.
A short walk away, Method, a Mumbai gallery established in 2019, has just opened its first Delhi outpost. The gallery, which once featured in India Art Fair’s Young Collectors’ Programme, deals in street and new media art that is typically not included in the programmes of most fine art galleries. Its first show, featuring around 50 young artists drawn from an open call, will be curated by the art historian and archaeologist Anica Mann.
“Delhi has a thriving art market with a lot of young collectors who are already showing support for Method,” says the gallery’s founder Sahil Arora of his reason for opening in Delhi. He “stumbled across” the 1,800 sq. ft basement space “that was perfect for our vision—and happened to be on the same street as some of the most respected galleries in the country”. Beyond an exhibition space, Method Delhi will also house a studio “dedicated to reimagining the art gallery experience with an emphasis on sustainability and mindful design”, in partnership with the design lab Reformary. The gallery’s interior is built using materials like dung and limecrete plaster.
The pool of buyers in Delhi is larger, and typically more engaged in art Ranjana Steinruecke, Mirchandani + Steinruecke gallery
Meanwhile Mirchandani + Steinruecke, founded in Mumbai in 2006, opened a Defence Colony space last November. “The pool of buyers in Delhi is larger, and typically more engaged in art. There are more forums for art there, and two major Delhi museums for contemporary art, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) and the Brij, are opening in the coming years,” its co-founder Ranjana Steinruecke told The Art Newspaper. The gallery is at present showing the Keralan painter and sculptor Arun K.S (until 2 March).
This quartet of newcomers to Defence Colony join some of Delhi’s leading spaces: Vadehra Art Gallery, one of the city’s oldest art dealerships, and its offshoot, Vadehra Contemporary; Shrine Empire, whose roster includes the critically acclaimed artists Tayeba Begum Lipi and Sajan Mani; and Akar Prakar, which sells both Modern and contemporary art.
“Delhi hasn’t had a gallery district in all these years—it is wonderful to finally have so many major galleries concentrated in one area,” says Roshini Vadehra, director of Vadehra Art Gallery, which this month is holding solo shows of the Prix Pictet winner Gauri Gill and the Social Realist painter Sudhir Patwardhan across its two spaces (both until 14 March). Vadehra adds: “With coordinated efforts of exhibition previews and programming, the Delhi community can now enjoy a version of the gallery-hopping event ‘Art Night Thursdays’ that have become the norm in Mumbai.”