Just before COVID-19 shut down the world, Payal Kapoor visited Felix Art Fair at The Hollywood Roosevelt hotel in Los Angeles. There were paintings displayed in poolside cabanas, installations mounted on pristine white hotel beds, “art on the tables, on the walls, in the bathroom, above the sinks and toilets, and even in the bathtub”. The young art fair (2023 marked its fifth edition) was a laid-back alternative to Frieze Los Angeles, prioritising ‘conversation, collaboration and community’.
Kapoor was convinced that the intimacy, dynamism and anti-trade show experience was needed back home as well. Artix, which kicks off this weekend at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in New Delhi, hopes to do this justice. Conceived and designed by three women, each with their own unique links to art, India’s first-ever hotel art fair is designed to be a mobile, engaging experience. “Art is extremely personal, and therefore one’s connection with it has to be intimate and on one’s own terms,” says Timsy Anand, one of co-founders, stating that a hotel room is both public and personal, making it familiar yet foreign as a destination for art. “The rooms allow for the warmth that collectors and audiences look for but rarely get,” Kapoor adds.
