The Indian Art Market: Change with Continuity

As one of the BRICS countries, India’s art market is emerging rapidly. With no artistic significance fifteen years ago, India now is the home residence of a big amount of galleries, the country hosted its first contemporary art biennale and yearly welcomes one of the biggest art fairs in the world: The India Art Fair. Starting from scratch, Neha Kirpal founded this fair in 2008, wanting to show what the Indian culture had to offer by bringing artists, collectors, museums and the general public together (ArtBahrian, 2013). With the rise of the Indian art market, the academic interests followed providing us with a fair amount of researches. But since these researches are on the production side of the sector, they have left a gap so far: Who are the art consumers of India? Through a survey held among the visitors of the India Art Fair 2014, a visitor profile was created, so this research can shed light on the consumer side of the Indian art market.