India Art Fair interrupted after police come to check complaint of anti-CAA paintings

A performative art piece on “strength of Indian women” at India Art Fair was interrupted on Sunday after police arrived at venue following a complaint that some paintings against Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) were being exhibited. "We received a PCR call that some paintings depicting CAA were being exhibited at fair. A police team was sent to check it, but such painting was exhibited,” a senior police official said.

Curated by artist Myna Mukherjee, art at Italian Embassy Cultural Centre booth featured paintings as well as songs including Faiz Ahm Faiz’s “Hum Dekhenge”, and poetry recitations talking about love, beauty, tenderness and strength of women across country, Gargi Chandola, a participating artist told PTI.

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“ artwork was t about any one particular protest or issue. It is about women of India. We h toger created a to celebrate women. It was purely in solidarity and celebration of resilience and strength of women in India.“This was in way political. We don’t kw what problem was. audience was very receptive. But, someone complained,” Chandola said.

Ar participating artist Indranil Roy said incident was “very unfortunate”, and alleged that fair's organisers behaved “unprofessionally”. “ India Art Fair manment behaved very unprofessionally and me matter out of proportion. Police did apologise for misunderstanding and fair's manment came charging on us without even trusting artists works or curator. That’s very unfortunate “Without even kwing anything or Urdu langu which one could re, everything was stopped,” he said.

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fair's organisers said that while y “embrace freedom of expression”, ensuring safety and security of ir visitors was “paramount”. y said exhibitors were expected to share "details of all activities” to take place at ir booths during course of four day art event, which was t done for performance in question.

“We were informed about an incident that occurred at booth of Italian Embassy Cultural Centre where a performance was ongoing. Our contract with Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, consistent with ors, required m to share with us details of all activities which were to take place at ir booth over course of four days of India Art Fair. "We were t informed about activities at booth. In fact, post incident, fair director spoke with Italian Ambassor in New Delhi who confirmed that y too h t informed of activities taking place in ir booth,” fair organisers said in a statement.

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y said y found out about commotion only after police arrived and n followed it up with Italian Embassy Culture Centre. " organisers of India Art Fair only became aware of activities when police arrived. y informed us that y h received a complaint.

In fact, post incident, fair's director spoke with Italian Ambassor in New Delhi who confirmed that y too h t been informed of activities taking place in ir booth. "India Art Fair embraces freedom of expression and believes individuals have right to express ir opinions in ir own way. Artists are conscience keepers of a society and we place ir voice at centre of our programme. "This was demonstrated through strong line-up of artists, art and programming throughout Fair. As event organisers, ensuring safety and security of all our visitors is paramount. Each year, fair hosts a large number of visitors, including young children and elderly, many of whom were onsite when incident took place,” y said.

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