In 1956, John D. Rockefeller the 3rd launched Asia Society—a nonprofit haven for art lovers across the globe that would mark the beginning of a decades-long engagement with contemporary art. Its Indian arm was founded in 2006, thus becoming the organisation's only South Asian centre. Under the aegis of Asia Society, the Asia Arts Game Changer Awards were brought to India in 2017 by Asia Society India to be a purposeful exploration of what makes good art endure.
After seven successful editions of recognising South Asia's unbridled creative voice, the eighth edition of the Awards will take place on 2 February, 2024 in New Delhi, as an invite-only gala during the India Art Fair that will bring together over hundreds of notable artists, diplomats, collectors, patrons and heads of cultural institutions from around the world. “The Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India are a way to catalyse connections across borders through scholarship and collaboration; they bring together a community that cares deeply about art and the evolving South Asian identity,” elaborates Inakshi Sobti, CEO, Asia Society India Centre.
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4 Remarkable Patrons
The Awards also boast of 4 co-chairs who have been patrons of the arts for decades: Sangita Jindal, who founded Art India magazine in 1996 and has supported many other initiatives to bring art into public life; Dr. Pheroza Godrej, an art historian and the founder of Cymroza Art Gallery; Kiran Nadar, an art collector who founded Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, India’s first private museum of art; and Radhika Chopra, a curator, art collector and patron of the arts. As said by Dr. Godrej, “The Awards are meticulously curated annually by the Asia Society team, serving as a genuine endeavor to acknowledge artists from various parts of South Asia and create an environment for supporters to unite and commemorate the arts in a purposeful manner.” This year, guest advisors Nada Raza and NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati also come onboard.
Indeed, the mission of the awards is not just to shine a spotlight on South Asian art, but on the awardees—the best of Asia and the Asian diaspora. "Art allows us to imagine a world connected across borders and biases, persuasions and privileges. As a Global Trustee of Asia Society and a founding co-chair for the Asia Art Game Changer Awards India, it is important to me that we encourage innovation in contemporary South Asian art," remarks Sangita Jindal.
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4 Curated Categories
During the previous editions, awards were presented across three categories—the Asia Arts Vanguard Award for artists with an impactful, interrogative career, the Asia Arts Future Award for artists forging new artistic paths in India and the Asia Arts Future Award (International) for an artist from South Asia pushing the boundaries of art and innovation. After a deep dive into the art world of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in previous years, the focus is on Nepal in 2024; along with the introduction of a new category—the Asia Arts Pathbreaker Award, for an established artist whose practice stands out as influential and transformative. "These awards are a way to bring visibility to modern and contemporary art from India and the subcontinent by nurturing creative practices, slowly closing the gap between art and the public," says Kiran Nadar.
The Asia Arts Vanguard Award: Jogen Chowdhury
His work marries contemporary art with his Bengali roots, interpreting a human form through an X-ray vision of creativity: attenuated, exaggerated, fragmented, reconfigured, and rephrased. His bodies morph into silent forms that communicate, but in feelings and emotions, not words. Often placed against vacant backgrounds, the placeless figures carry with them depths of anguish that draw the gaze in.
The first Asia Arts Pathbreaker Award: Asim Waqif
An established contemporary artist in the making, this Indian creative challenges standard conventions of medium and geography. Architecture melds with art and design to craft visual poetry that references nuances from the politics of occupying space and urban planning to the very use of public space in today's world as Waqif combines traditional mediums with new media technologies and large-scale, site-specific installations.
The Asia Arts Future Award (India): Aban Raza
An emerging contemporary voice in the country, Raza brings to light stories of the socially disadvantaged, the ones without a voice. The realities they inhabit permeate through the spaces they occupy—a potent feature of her works. This space between bodies, between objects and between moments of time serve as an uncomfortable reminder that even as we seclude and withdraw from shared social spaces, many continue to inhabit what she calls a ‘tight reality’.
The Asia Arts Future Award (South Asia): Prasiit Sthapit
Nepalese artist Prasiit Sthapit is a visual storyteller based in Kathmandu, whose work deals with societies at the borderline, both literally and figuratively. The multifaceted individual is associated with photo.circle, a platform for photography in Nepal and is the director of Fuzzscape, a multimedia music documentary project. Through photography, he chooses to show the experiences he has shared with the people in his pictures, and what they mean to him.
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Going beyond mere recognition, Asia Society India’s mission is to create further scholarship for art in the country—a noble mission to preserve the sanctity of the space. "As a collector and patron, I feel a great sense of pride at what the institution has managed to achieve and to see it expand its horizons. The awards help create sustainable institutional frameworks for us to support, acknowledge and create our thriving arts ecosystem," elaborates Radhika Chopra.
In a bid to enable the respect, effort and community that art needs to survive, Asia Society India's objective is a breath of fresh air in today's oft-commercialised concept on art—where art is explored not just for the sake of art, but as a unique practice that helps sustain itself, a community and ultimately, the world at large.
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