Courtesy photo

The Portage Station Museum, 400 Lee St., Portage, is having its annual fundraiser book sale. All genres of used books are priced to sell. CD, DVD and VHS tapes are also on sale. The sale will be open from noon to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday until the end of December. All proceeds benefit the museum.

Frontier Girls plan ‘Small Town Christmas’

Frontier Girls Troop 213 will host its sixth annual “A Small Town Christmas” on Saturday, Dec. 2, in Gallitzin.

Activities begin at 10 a.m. and include activities throughout the day including Cookies with Santa, food and craft vendors, a scavenger hunt, carriage rides, a basket raffle, a parade, tree lighting and more.

Visit the A Small Town Christmas Facebook Group to see a complete list of activities.

The group is seeking participants to help light up the town for the Christmas parade. Line-up begins at the Gallitzin Fire Hall at 5:30 p.m. There will be judging before the parade. The parade begins at 6 p.m.

For more information or to register for the parade, contact Lori Shaw at 814-207-0437.

Penn Association plans Christmas party

The William Penn Association, Branch 800, Altoona Christmas party will take place at 5 p.m. Sunday,

Dec. 3, at the Prime Sirloin Buffet, Duncansville.

Cost is $5 per person. There is no charge for children 12 and younger. Members who plan to attend should call Dan Greiner by Nov. 22 at 814-943-7471. There will be a visit from Santa, and everyone will receive a gift.

The WPA is a fraternal organization with headquarters in Pittsburgh and branches throughout the United States. For information, call Bob Jones at 814-932-8609.

SAMA Biennial calls for artist applications

BEDFORD — The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art is accepting applications for the Biennial 2024 juried art exhibition.

The exhibition will take place from July 26 through Oct. 20, 2024.

It offers an opportunity for artists in the region to be recognized for their work. Every two years, SAMA hosts a unique opportunity for new and emerging artists to exhibit alongside some of the most talented and experienced artists in the area.

Cash awards will include a top prize of $1,000 for Best in Show, together with a $500 first-place award, a $250 second-place award and a $100 third-place award. In addition, there will be a $300 People’s Choice Award, to be chosen by visitors to the exhibition.

To apply and see more details about the requirements for exhibition, visit sama-art.org/biennial or call 814-515-1370 or email submissions@sama-art.org for more information.

Artworks included in the exhibition will be selected by juror, Janice Trusky. Top prizes will be awarded by juror, Vaughn Clay.

Notification of acceptance will be received by artists by Friday, May 3, via mailed and emailed letters of acceptance.

Award winners to be announced at the Awards Reception on Saturday, Aug. 17, from 6 to 8 p.m. Registration opens Friday, May 3. Reception and awards are sponsored by Barry H Newborn, Chantel Ventura, Dr. Magdi and Karen Azer, Dr. Owen K. and Marian Morgan, Barbara O’Brien. The program sponsor is Fred Danziger, and marketing partner is Seven Mountains Media.

The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art is located at Anderson House at 137 E. Pitt St. Bedford.

For more information, visit https://www.sama-art.org or call 814-589-3020 or email bedford@sama-art.org.

ArtsAltoona plans Holiday Market Dec. 2

ArtsAltoona and the Unter Uns Musical Society will hold the Christkindl Holiday Market from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, at the Unter Uns Musical Society, 1401 Van Buren Ave., Altoona. This will be an outdoor event in the Unter Uns back patio and stage area.

Some food, drinks and entertainment will be indoors.

This event features live music and entertainment, art and craft vendors selling holiday gifts and artistic creations, German cuisine and food trucks, adult beverages, kids activities, raffles and more.

Admission is $5 at the door, and kids under 12 will be admitted free.

For more information, email lklevan@artsaltoona.org, check out ArtsAltoona’s Facebook page or call 814-201-7004.

This event is a fundraiser for ArtsAltoona and helps offer free arts programming for youth and others in the community.

Eagle project involves Gold Star memorial

Michael Waibel Maharaj, a member of Boy Scout Troop 3032 from First United Methodist Church, Hollidaysburg, has launched his Eagle Scout Project.

The project involves creating a Gold Star Mothers Memorial at Legion Park, Hollidaysburg.

Work on the monument has started and plans are for it to be completed by the end of January.

The project will cost more than $11,000. Donations are welcome and can be monetary, in-kind or material.

Checks can be made payable to Boy Scout Troop 3032 with “Michael Waibel Maharaj” in the subject line. Please mail to First United Methodist Church, … Troop 3032, 801 Allegheny St., Hollidaysburg, PA 16648. For more information, email michaelwaibel811@gmail.com.

Area clubs and nonprofits can email articles and photos to community@altoonamirror.com. For more information, call Brenda Carberry, community news coordinator, at 814-946-7459.

Mumbai has had a lot to celebrate in recent days. The city had just woken up after a Diwali hangover triggered by an extended weekend of religious celebrations, mithai-fueled foodgasms, and lively parties, when the Indian national cricket team scored a pulsating win in the semifinals of the ICC World Cup on Wednesday. And just a few kilometers away, the inaugural edition of the contemporary art fair Art Mumbai hit a ball out of its own park with a successful opening day on Thursday, November 16 (the event runs through November 19). 

The fair’s success is another sign of the recent resurgence in the Indian art market. So, what is behind this buoyancy? First off, India’s economy has scaled up significantly in recent decades, with more than six percent growth expected in the coming year, according to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. This is largely driven by private industry, particularly manufacturing, as global supply chains attempt to lessen their dependence on China.

The government also has ambitious plans to invest in digital infrastructure and support innovation and research in emergent technologies. Consequently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s World Economic Outlook projects India to become the third largest economy in the world in less than five years, leapfrogging the U.K., Germany, and Japan to come just behind the U.S. and China. 

New Delhi and Kolkata gallery Akar Prakar’s stand at Art Mumbai.

Mumbai itself is the undisputed financial capital of India and is currently in hyper-wealth-creation mode. As the primary hub of private enterprise, the city has benefited from the growth in new business sectors and enterprises, which has spawned a whole new set of wealthy individuals. According to a Henley & Partners Report (2023), Mumbai already has more centi-millionaires (those with more than $100 million in investable assets) than Dubai, Sydney, Seoul or Miami. Outside the U.S. and China, only London and Singapore have more billionaires than Mumbai. The report also estimates that the number of centi-millionaires in Mumbai will grow by 80 percent over the next 10 years, a much faster rate than in other global cities. 

The city has also been a beehive of gallery activity lately, further underscoring the need for a dedicated art fair. In addition to the opening of Akara Contemporary, an advisory-turned-gallery focusing on both Indian and international contemporary artists, TARQ moved into a larger space in Fort while Kolkata’s Experimenter gallery opened its first outpost in the city in Colaba. Chemould Gallery, which is currently celebrating its 60th anniversary, also opened Chemould CoLab nearby to support emerging artists last year. Building on the presence of legacy museums and heritage architecture, Fort, Colaba, and adjoining neighborhoods have morphed into a robust contemporary arts district in the city. And Mumbai Gallery Weekend, which was started by nine local galleries in 2012, saw 32 galleries participate in 2023. 

Mumbai gallery TARQ’s stand at Art Mumbai.

Now, Art Mumbai opened its first edition with 50 galleries—and interestingly, around half of them are from New Delhi, which already has its own India Art Fair, held in February. The international galleries taking part in the fair are either diaspora-owned or specialize in art from India. The programming additionally leans on Bollywood, fashion, and the performing arts, which are deeply embedded in the city’s cultural scene. 

What makes the city especially attractive for the art industry is its existing cultural collector base and the greater appetite for contemporary art. “We have always sold more works to collectors based in Mumbai than Delhi due to the nature of the type of art we work with,” said dealer Peter Nagy of Gallery Nature Morte. “While there are exceptions, collectors in Mumbai normally are more open to experimental and progressive art forms, while collectors in Delhi tend to be more conservative in their tastes.” 

Puneet Shah, the founder of Akara Contemporary in Mumbai, told me that in India, “younger buyers today are extremely well-travelled and their exposure and relationships are global.” He started Akara as an art advisory in 2009 and pivoted to a gallery model in 2015. This year, he opened Akara Contemporary to follow the evolution of his clients’ personal tastes. “They prefer a more eclectic collection.” 

Kolkata and Mumbai gallery Experimenter’s stand at Art Mumbai.

Priyanka Raja, a co-founder of Experimenter Gallery, is encouraged by the number of clients in India who are invested in building a collection. What she finds remarkable is that a lot of the new interest is coming from smaller towns beyond the metros. “We are now selling works to clients in places like Jamshedpur, Surat, Raipur, Indore, Chandigarh and Pune. The base is now far more diverse and has expanded beyond the South Mumbai or South Delhi demographic,” she said, pointing to the rise in presenting art on digital platforms as a significant factor in this development. “Social media has broken the accessibility barrier further, both locally and globally.”  

For Minal Vazirani, a co-founder of Saffronart and of Art Mumbai, the first year is about “building a platform which enables our galleries to showcase the best of South Asian art and artists to collectors, curators and institutions,” she said. In the long run, she hopes that they will be able to present Mumbai and its relationship with the arts to the wider world. 

On the fair’s opening day, the ambience was almost festive. The event’s founders, Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, brought together key stakeholders, starting with their own existing auction house clients and local galleries, to leaders from private museums and biennales. The prevailing consensus seemed to be that collaboration is the way to take the Indian art market to the next level, and that everyone stands to benefit if the market expands in the right way. Many galleries also appeared to be making their presentations more accessible for first-time buyers, by including smaller or paper-based works in their booths. 

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art’s Tribute to artist Vivan Sundaram (1943-2023) at Art Mumbai.

New York-based AICON Contemporary, whose works ranged from $3,000 to $60,000, had sold 10 out of the 15 works on show in its stand by the fair’s first public day on Thursday. Buyers included both private collectors and institutions, including the private Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi. Projjal Dutta, a partner at the gallery, was excited by the fact that his first two sales were to new buyers. “It is such a natural proposition that you must really ask—why wasn’t an art fair already happening in Mumbai?” he told me. “Commercial considerations apart, I also have long-standing relationships with collectors, friends and artists based here—and I grew up in India; it did not need any convincing for me to participate in this fair.” 

Experimenter Gallery, with galleries in Kolkata and Mumbai, which also regularly participates in Frieze and Art Basel among other international art fairs, sold one or more works by each of the 17 artists they were showing on the opening day. The works on display ranged from $5,000 to $50,000. Raja, the gallery’s co-founder, said there was “tremendous energy” on the first day. “We are also very happy to note that we sold to new collectors whom we had not met before, which is unusual in a domestic fair for us,” she added.   

Mumbai advisory-turned gallery Akara Modern’s stand at Art Mumbai.

Sanya Malik of Black Cube, a young gallerist who was making her first appearance in an art fair, was charged up by the experience. “For a new alternate gallery model like ours without a physical space, art fairs are an imperative to connect directly with new clients,” she said. Black Cube was showcasing previously unseen works by Modern masters like Krishen Khanna, Thota Vaikuntam, and Jogen Chowdhury, alongside emerging contemporary artists, with prices ranging from $1,200 to $85,000. “Rest assured; we are already planning our return for the next edition.” 

And the Delhi-born and New York-based artist Tara Sabharwal, whose works were on show at the Art Alive Gallery booth and who was visiting the city for the fair, ahead of a big solo exhibition in New Delhi next month, said: “What impressed me most was the exuberance, reflective of a sense of optimism against all odds. Optimism which is rooted in collectiveness.” 

Art Mumbai is held at the Mahalaxmi Race Course, Member’s Enclosure in Mumbai, from November 16–19, 2023.

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