After the Covid-induced pandemic, while brands and companies are constantly competing with each other, they are also reaping the benefits of collaborations and partnerships by growing their business or adding value to what they do. One such recent artistic collaboration is between The Quorum Club, an upscale, elite lifestyle members-only social club, and Art Alive, a thriving art gallery that represents some of the best contemporary artists in India. The Quorum Club is run by the husband-wife duo, Vivek Narain and Sonya Jehan Narain. It opened in Gurugram in 2017, went on to open another one in Mumbai and will be opening its third branch in Hyderabad very soon. Art Alive gallery was founded in 2001 by Sunaina Anand, who has been an art connoisseur and gallerist.

Vivek Narain, co-founder and CEO of The Quorum Club, said that the genesis of the club was to build a third space for a niche community of people. “The third space is where you come to dine, socialise, work, and have business meetings. We were very clear that we wanted to build a community, have great F&B and quality experience, high service levels without pretentiousness so it really feels like home,” he adds. Art and culture is used at the club as a means to engage the community. The idea is to engage with culture in a contemporary context. 

The collaboration was inaugurated with the show, ‘Rearranging the Familiar.’ Curated by Premjish Achari, it featured works by emerging and mid-career contemporaries like Anjaneyulu G, Vipul Rathod, Anil Thambai, Vandana Kothari, Roshan Chhabria, Teja Gavankar, Sharmi Chowdhury, and Meera George. In Mumbai, the inaugural show will be a solo exhibition by Maya Burman, ‘Games of Life,’ which begins on September 16. At the The Quorum Club in Mumbai, the gallery-like main section will have a curated section. There will also be exhibitions in the other areas of the club: of works by Paresh Maity, Chandan Bhattacharji and also younger artists like Devraj Goswami. 

Narain said that while art inspires, there are times when people who are outside the art fraternity tend to get intimidated by art and, therefore, The Quorum wanted to engage with art to start a conversation around it. Built in The Quorum’s design and structure is a gallery model where people can engage with art in a more residential setting. “It’s an ad-on adjunct to the traditional gallery model. When they were designing Quorum, we thought about the kind of arrival experience the members would have. During the designing process, we came up with a rectangular room that looked like an art gallery. We realised it was great to have a structure with an entrance that gives the impression that one is entering into an art gallery. We started our relationship with art with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA). And now there’s a new chapter with Sunaina Anand of Art Alive gallery. We’re very excited about this collaboration,” Narain said. 

Talking about the thought behind the collaboration, Narain said that it would help trigger a conversation around art among the well-heeled members of the club, which has got an interesting membership base — there are almost 1400 members in Gurgaon itself — and includes people who are defining the India of tomorrow: “These are people who are going places, doing interesting stuff, and are also inquisitive. We wanted art as a tool for engagement for them. We hope that this collaboration will go beyond exhibitions to have more conversations around art which will lead to new learnings. I think people want to learn.”  The Quorum Club has collaborated with Art Alive gallery for both Gurugram and Mumbai. “We are building our third club in Hyderabad and we are again designing a gallery space. We like this as a model and we would like to replicate it. Our core business is F&B. Art is one creative layer that we wanted to add to the club for our patrons,” said Narain. 

Sunaina Anand, Director, Art Alive Gallery, said that through this partnership she looked to expand her gallery’s presence in both Gurugram and Mumbai. She plans to showcase modern and contemporary art by some of the best-known as well as emerging artists from across India. “We are looking to start some workshops, along with exhibitions etc. We are also planning to begin various other programmes, probably once a month or once in two months. Art industry has been in the throes of an evolution and we are trying to tap into a newer audience. But first we want people to engage with art visually. You have to bring art on the wall in a manner where it makes somebody stop and look at it and it’s then that further dialogues can start. So, this collaboration is an attempt to take art beyond a gallery model. A private club is completely a different setting and members can engage with art at their own pace in that particular ambience. With this, we are exploring a new dimension of showing art,” said Anand. 

The gallery will be curating the place into three spaces, which will change every two to three months, with an ongoing exhibition giving way to another.  In the corridor’s alleys, there will be curated exhibitions in different genres, and artworks made of different material, to keep the space vibrant in a consistent way. In the gallery and the alley, Art Alive has proposed to change the exhibition every alternate month. “Once people fully engage with this, maybe we’ll do the next in October,” said Anand.

Since The Quorum Club’s patrons are regular visitors, Narain said they’d be able to engage at different times of the day, with different mindsets, unlike in regular galleries with stipulated visiting hours, where the experience of engaging with art is different. “There are founders of unicorn startups who are part of our member-base; they perhaps haven’t engaged with art, but they definitely will if we can play a little role in sparking a bit of their curiosity . That’s our main agenda. These members are going to be the patrons of art tomorrow. I see that bridge taking shape organically. This collaboration could be a catalyst for that perhaps,” said Narain.

A lot of older art collectors are no longer collecting. So, while the net is expanding, the collectors’ base has also been changing: a lot of young people are buying art now. Gurgaon, in the last one decade, has become the fulcrum for young, bright minds, who are aspirational. “They have the means, are well-travelled, value art and would like to invest. I’m happy to be here as I was looking for this kind of setup in Gurgaon and this is the best way to start here,” said Anand. 

Such artistic collaborations, Narain hoped, could demystify the world of art. “We’ll do different things to engage people with arts: artist-to-artist conversations, workshops, artist-curator conversations, or curator talks, etc,” said Anand, who is currently designing the programme.