The first edition of HELLO! India Art Awards will be held at Hyatt Regency, Delhi, on April 25. “India and its people have inherited a very prolific art legacy which is kept alive both by talented artists and the eco system that supports them. As an art sensitive magazine we felt the need to recognize this realm of creative expression,” says Avarna Jain, Chairperson Editorial Board,HELLO!India, published by the RP Sanjiv Goenka Group. The award is part of the magazine’s initiative to strengthen its focus on contemporary Indian art. Presented as a flagship event by the HELLO! magazine, the India Art Awards will be an annual feature from 2022, and will precede the India Art Fair in Delhi. 

The awards' jury comprises Bangalore-based art collector Abhishek Poddar; Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, a renowned art historian and director of the Dr Bhau Daji; Lad Museum in Mumbai; Lekha Poddar, art collector and founder of the Devi Art Foundation; and Art expert Rahaab Allana, a curator and publisher at the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi. The elicited advice of experts like Shefali Somani and Anahita Taneja of Shrine Empire Gallery are consultants to the award.

 

HELLO! India Art Awards eligibility category will be from February 2020 to December 2022 as an exception due to the pandemic. 

The award series comprises of categories such as the following:

 

1. Young Artist of the year: The award honours an emerging artist whose work shows immense promise, it is an acknowledgement of their potential and the immense possibilities of their career and growth in the future. 

2. Breakthrough artist of the year: This award category celebrates an artist whose practice is exciting, engaging, and whose career has accelerated in the recent past and is on the path to achieving great heights.  It honours an artist whose practice has constantly evolved and who presents a vital and new perspective.

3. Exhibition of the year: This is awarded to a landmark exhibition of the year, one that espouses all the qualities of a great exhibition- its theme being important, its platforms important for artistic practices, its exhibition design is engaging and it has a robust public programme and is able to draw in a varied and wide audience. 

4. Best art-based initiative during the pandemic: The pandemic was hard on most people but especially on artists, many of whom had no support, this award honours an initiative that was started during the pandemic and has led to artist support during this time.

5. Critical Voice of the Year: Artists hold a mirror to our society through their work, engaging audiences in difficult and crucial conversations, and spotlighting issues of social importance. The award honours an Artist who has through their work, highlighted a critical issue in a powerful and effective manner.

6. Curator of the year: Curators attempt to reflect the state of the world, they herald the new directions in art and support and platform new ideas, and artistic practices; all while connecting the dots, and creating a larger narrative across themes, materiality, or regions. They play a crucial role in making art accessible and opening artistic practices for a larger audience. 

7. Public art initiative: Honouring an initiative that is visually and physically accessible to the public and seeks to create public discourse through its theme, design, format, and public programme. It takes art and its ideas out of the white cube onto the streets and opens it to a varied public. 

8. Artist Book of the year: Artist books are often underrated but are very democratic forms of engaging with art. They make art accessible to people outside of the formal contexts of galleries or museums and are often overlooked in the ecosystem as vital carriers and documentation of the ideas of our times. We would like to honour the democracy of this art form by awarding the best Artist book of the year.

9. Collaboration of the year: Art can seem to be a solitary journey, one that an artist undertakes, but more often than not, it takes a team effort to deliver artistic projects that are powerful and memorable. This award honours a collaboration that has been critical, and successful and has led to the co-creation of art projects that have had a high impact and helped change the art landscape for the better.

HONORING THE LEGENDS: HELLO! handpicks ‘legends of art’, honoring them for their inimitable body of work that is perennial and ours to treasure for posterity — for their contribution to, for their patronage towards and for their promotion of the arts, artists and the art world. 

10. Art patron of the year

11. Lifetime achievement of the year

12. Sustained promotion of arts and culture

The management’s vision in nurturing the arts is long term and while the foundation is laid this year, going forward the HELLO! India Art Awards wants to make a positive impact in enriching the art, the artist and the industry through initiatives, grants, residencies and art camps.