The India Art Fair in Delhi is at the centre of a censorship controversy after police shut down a booth. On Sunday an interactive project by artists Gargi Chandola and Jefrey Yaman, hosted by the Italian Embassy Culture Centre, was terminated after authorities claimed it referenced the ongoing citywide protests against the Citizen Amendment Act. Passed in December, the law grants Indian citizenship to migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – but not if they are Muslim.
Social media posts show police inspecting the work, which featured paintings by a diverse array of female artists, as a crowd gathers.
Chandola told Artnet News that the work was not specifically about the protests but sought to encourage a sense of solidarity amongst women of all faiths and sexual orientations. Writing on Instagram the artists, who go under the collective name the Post-Art Project, said that while Myna Mukherjee, the curator of the booth, initially successfully reasoned with the police, officials from the art fair itself closed down the project shortly after. ‘What happened yesterday was intimidation’ Chandola and Yaman claim. ‘We now apparently can’t use words that offend people, can’t wear clothes that make people feel uncomfortable, and certainly can’t peacefully person and create’.
4 February 2020
