When you set foot on the mighty grounds of the Mahalaxmi Racecourse—to see it donning the hues of an art fair—your gaze is bound to flutter, trying to soak in the abundance of craft and colour. Over a balmy November weekend, Mumbai’s first art fair, Art Mumbai, debuted in the city that longed for one. Even the Men’s Cricket World Cup finals did not deter enthusiasts from thronging the racecourse. Get the stakes: India was up against Australia following an unbelievable victory march. A rather heady Sunday.

The end of the year summons art festivals and fairs across the country. Late last year, Mumbai had its glimmering share. Featuring 53 galleries in an array of contemporary art pavilions, speaker series, off-site and on-site events, Art Mumbai instantly and rightfully claimed the space for what was missing in the cultural calendar of the city.

The first thing you noticed was a slick horse sculpture by Valay Shende. Built with shiny stainless steel discs, it sat in the ‘Sculpture Garden’, a mascot of sorts of the event as well as the venue. Or it could be the giant green inflatable octopus tentacles—one of Filthy Luker’s famous public interventions in urban spaces. Or perhaps the Art Maze by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, made of graffiti walls, free for people to paint over. “India will win the 2023 World Cup”, it declared in blue. As invigorating as anticlimactic.

Mumbai has historically been home to some of the oldest galleries and art schools. Co-founders Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, Nakul Dev Chawla and Conor Macklin wanted to foster a sense of community among artists, curators, collectors, as well as new buyers. Participating galleries assembled from all across India, along with renowned international establishments such as Grosvenor Gallery (London), Aicon Gallery (New York) and Volte Art Projects (Dubai), to name a few.

Two extensive pavilions housed these galleries, represented through a web of booths. This created an excellent opportunity to witness an abundance of art, right from the masters of the form to the ones on their way to eminence. A collector’s paradise. But what it also created was a pulsating density, one which requires art to exist per square foot. The profuse concentration of art spared no room for respite, your eyes constantly chasing the next booth to register the sheer volume of brilliance that surrounded you. The exhibitions separated from the pavilions, then, naturally stood out for me.

The first of them was the Saffronart Foundation’s exhibit titled The Fantasy Collection. It gave a glimpse of M. F. Husain’s life before he became the artist extraordinaire celebrated around the world. Before he joined the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group, he worked at Fantasy, a family-run furniture enterprise. Delicate pastel hues made up the petals of the stunning Lotus Suite, commissioned by the late Rani Savita Kumari Devi of Katesar. The muted green and intricately detailed Cherry blossom-themed suite kept it company. One of Husain’s earliest offerings, the work told the story of the genesis of his genius. Also a part of the display was a letter he wrote to a friend. “I am going to start replacing Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty with stories from ‘Panchatantra’, so much more colourful and meaningful,” he scribbled. His subsequent designs slowly incorporated a distinct indigenous aesthetic, including iconography from the tales of Aladdin and Ali Baba.

Away from the bustling kiosks, The Fantasy Collection stirred a sense of serenity into the fair. Steps lingered around the furniture, almost as if visitors were looking to put together pieces of a home. A wonderful contrast to this was the roaring tribute to Vivan Sundaram by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art; a patchwork quilt of some of the most evocative and political work by the artist, who passed away last year. In addition to striking installations, an intriguing photo series lined the wall. In Re-Take of Amrita, Sundaram orchestrated archival self-portraits of his aunt Amrita Sher-Gil and her father Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, with a digital wand. We got a peek into the Sher-Gil ménage as time and space ruptured in the artist’s contemporary fiction. “An almost incestuous relationship between the two is proposed,” read the text panel. Seduction was central but so was fantasy. “A seemingly real, entirely constructed drama of self-appointed egos” as Sundaram called it.

Several masterpieces occupied dignified places in the pavilions too, most notably works by Jamini Roy, Akbar Padamsee, F. N. Souza and Sayed Haider Raza, all under the space dedicated to the Delhi Art Gallery. Raja Ravi Varma’s ‘Kadambari’ gleamed in a dark room with a sole spotlight on it. It is not often that one has a rendezvous with these icons under the same roof. So, critique does not come easy when the complaint is that one is spoilt for choice. This indulgence at Art Mumbai, though, also tended to disrupt. It lacked a personal lens, one beyond the social and the mercenary. It pined for a curatorial heart.

But it is perhaps an unfounded expectation from an art fair, where trade is just as important a part of the endeavour if not one that takes precedence. Where art is a commodity as well. I argue not for the utility of art, for I believe that it is complete by itself. That it doesn’t have to be something, it can just be. It is a liberating proposition, l’art pour l’art. Art for art’s sake. But who is allowed access to art often decides its utility. It is unfair to determine the true value of something merely by its utility. But when art crosses over and ties itself to social, political and individual threads, an exhibition can turn into a celebration, a rebellion, a movement.

As I walked into Vadehra Art Gallery’s presentation, a lone bench surrounded by flocks of visitors and shelves of books stared at me—books that yearned to be picked up and the bench, a friendly room for two. No one sat on it and the books remained untouched. 

‘The Bhupen Bench’ is Atul Dodiya’s homage to noted artist Bhupen Khakhar. The concrete bench was part yellow and part grey, complete with a suspended book held by a pair of earphones. A well-crafted exhibition note told me that the idea was to create a space that brings back memories of Bombay’s fabled ‘reading rooms’, like the David Sassoon Library in Fort and Dadar’s Mumbai Marathi Grantha Sangrahalaya. It worked on a singular provocation—to invite people to sit and reflect.

When I sat on the bench, immediate stares and maybe even a gulped-down gasp came my way. Sometimes, it takes a curious, amusing case of sitting on a bench to reject the facade of the art world and to jolt it. Sometimes, it takes a moth in an air-conditioned room that sits on a painting right above the sign that says ‘do not touch’. Sometimes, it takes paintings carved in Braille with the sign ‘please touch’. Sometimes, it takes an interpreter onstage, translating panel discussions into sign language. At other times, it takes a loud and unafraid “Gay Wedding is My Verdict” announced on a painting. Or an enormous “Free Palestine” written over the graffiti wall. Art Mumbai made space for all of these.