2018 Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India

Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India is a signature gala celebration honoring the Asia Arts Game Changers during the week of the India Art Fair in New Delhi. The awards pay tribute to artists who have made a significant contribution to the development of modern and contemporary art in Asia and who inspire a deeper empathy and understanding of the world through their work. Major art collectors, artists, gallerists, dignitaries from the art world, and Asia Society trustees and patrons will gather to celebrate these individuals.

For more than twenty years, Asia Society has been a pioneer in identifying and fostering contemporary Asian artists, and engaging new audiences for their work. Instituted in 2017, last year's honorees included: Abir Karmakar, Krishen Khanna & teamLab.

On February 8, 2018, Asia Society India Centre and Asia Society Museum honored: Benitha Perciyal and Sun Xun with the Asia Arts Future Award, and Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu of the Kochi Biennale Foundation and Arpita Singh with the Asia Arts Vanguard Award. The evening, co-chaired by Pheroza Godrej and Sangita Jindal, began with a performance by singer and composer Vidya Shah, who sang songs from India's Progressive's Movement. Over 180 artists, art appreciators, collectors, gallerists, and curators gathered under one roof to enjoy the celebratory occasion. Some of the notable attendees included Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu, artists Reena and Jitish Kallat and Member of Parliament, Uma Gajapati Raju.

Honorees

Arpita Singh - Asia Arts Vanguard Award

Arpita Singh is celebrated for her multidisciplinary practice, spanning over five decades, that astutely documents cultural shifts found across contemporary life in India in response to the country’s socio-economic rise. Her work often incorporates elements of traditional Indian culture including miniature painting, textiles, folk art and mythology filtered through a feminine perspective. In the 1990s Singh explored the politics of female identity through the poignancy of ageing bodies, contesting conventional aesthetics of female sexuality. Singh's work has been exhibited at Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1993); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1986); and the Royal Academy of Arts, London (1982) among others. She has participated in the Havana Biennale (1987) and the 3rd and 4th Triennial–India, New Delhi (1977 and 1980) and was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Republic of India in 2011.

Kochi Biennale Foundation - Asia Arts Vanguard Award

Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu, critically acclaimed artists in their own right, co-founded the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) in 2010 on the conviction that art is essential to contemporary society. KBF is a non-profit organization engaged in promoting art and culture and educational activities in India, most notably the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, with a goal to strengthen contemporary art infrastructures and to broaden public access to art across India. The Biennale seeks to encourage appreciation for artistic expression and its relationship to society and protect the autonomy of artistic pursuits. The Foundation organizes a broad range of ongoing educational and outreach initiatives with a focus on the artistic development of art students and children across India.

Sun Xun - Asia Arts Future Award

Sun Xun’s artistic practice combines meticulous craftsmanship with stylistic experimentation, blurring the lines between drawing, painting, animation, and installation. His signature animated new media works explore themes of global history, culture, memory, and politics with a focus on the subjective nature of history and the disconnect between personal experience and officially recorded events. The artist established π Animation Studio in 2006. Sun’s work has been the subject of solo and group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (2017); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016); 10th Shanghai Biennial (2014); and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2014). He is a recipient of the Award of Art China: Young Artist of the Year (2014).

Benitha Perciyal - Asia Arts Future Award

Benitha Perciyal has developed a distinctive approach to sculpture that incorporates her Christian background to explore organized religion and the role faith plays within contemporary society. Her figurative assemblages are often created using herbs and oils that are used to make incense such as myrrh, cinnamon, frankincense, lemongrass, and bark powder, which she casts into iconographic forms. These often fragmented objects represent the ephemerality of our physical existence and the fragility of religious faith in the 21st century. Perciyal's work has been featured in the second Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014) and the First Yinchuan Biennale (2016), and most recently in the group exhibition Mémories des futurs: Modernités indiennes, organized by the Centre Pompidou Paris (2017–2018).

Honorary Co-Chairs

Pheroza Godrej & Sangita Jindal

All proceeds from Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India support Asia Society Arts & Culture initiatives worldwide. Asia Society’s Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India is co-organized by Asia Society Museum, New York, and Asia Society India Centre.