Ahmedabad's Most Anticipated Art Show ‘Abir’ is Accepting Entries For Its Third Edition

Starting June 10, Abir art competition is accepting entries from around India and abroad. Luminary jurors will include Muzaffar Ali, Ravindra Reddy, Seema Kohli, Amit Ambalal and Vijay Bagodi and winners will receive cash prizes worth Rs 1 Lakh.

After two successful art competitions, Abir is coming out with its third edition show, a life-sized visual art exhibition called Abir First Take 2018, from October 27 to November 2. Entries for the competition will be accepted from artists around India and the world, starting June 10, with the submission window being open over the next 40 days. The exhibition’s selection is not limited to any particular genre, theme or medium. Aspirants are free to submit entries of paintings, sculptures, ceramics, sketches and digital art, in any medium. 100 entries will eventually be selected to become part of the exhibition in Ahmedabad.

In the past few years, Abir has assigned the jury responsibilities to inspiring luminaries. Last year, the competition’s invited jurors were Padma Shri Manu Parekh, his wife Madhvi Parekh, art critic Johnny ML and Indian classical danseuse Mallika Sarabhai  who selected the best 100 artworks out of over 1400 entries that came in from nearly 117 cities. This year, the jury comprises pundits from the visual arts fraternity, including creative polymath Muzaffar Ali, celebrated sculptor G Ravindra Reddy, globally renowned contemporary artist Seema Kohli, Ahmedabad based veteran painter Amit Ambalal and print maestro Vijay Bagodi.

Abir is the brainchild of Ruby Jagrut, an Ahmedabad based natural dye artist who is the founder of Abir Charitable Trust. Jagrut expressed her joy at the press conference while announcing the competition,”Abir has touched the lives of more than 2700 artists till now. In fact, last year the exhibition was experienced by more than 4000 art enthusiasts and witnessed a sale of more than 47 oeuvres of emerging, practising and senior artists. But I think this one-of-a-kind extravaganza is meant to create more intangible wavelets in the lives of these participants who hail from various remote geographies. Abir is creating a snowball effect by giving them recognition, and a sense of pride in their artworks.”

The exhibition will take place at Kanoria Centre for Arts and Hutheesing Visual Art Centre and is expected to be even more grand this year. Jagrut also hinted that there might be an informal discussion in which veteran jury members will exclusively interact with the artists and audience members before the show. The show will delegate 6 participants across three different categories with cash prizes of Rs 1,00,000 for the winners, and Rs 50,000 for the runners-up. If you are an artist and look forward to participating in the show, submit photographs of your work on www.abirindia.org.

Photograph Courtesy: Organisers