Catching up with Niru Ratnam, director of London’s Start Art Fair

A handout photo of Niru Ratnam (Photo by James Cannon)

The third edition of the Start Art Fair, which is an event for young galleries and new artists around the world will kick off next week in London. Here we catch up with the director Niru Ratnam to find out what it takes to head up such an event.

Q: As a former art dealer, you must know what an audience is looking for at an art fair. What are the priorities for you with Start in terms of delivering what the audience want?

Being a former art dealer has helped greatly - particularly as I’ve done lots of art fairs as a gallerist. What was clear to me was that if you’re going to found a new art fair it needs a clear remit. Ours is emerging artists and new art scenes. If viewers know that there is a particular theme to an art fair they tend to respond more positively and so there’s a definite trend of new art fairs choosing to do this.

Q: It’s a big remit to encompass the whole world with one art fair - how do you choose which galleries to include?

It certainly is a big remit and of course one can’t adequately cover the whole world in a small art fair but we give it our best shot! It seems to reflect the way the art world is developing rather than, say, restricting the fair to galleries from western Europe. In terms of choosing galleries it is down to researching, travelling, visiting galleries and listening to tip-offs! So for example I came across the artist Evren Sungur in the book ‘100 Painters of Tomorrow’ and then one of the gallerists I was talking to, Art On Istanbul, show him, so together we decided it would be a great idea to do a presentation of his work.

Q: Do you try to spread “West” and “East” equally throughout the fair?

Yes as much as possible the idea is to balance emerging art from the west with emerging art from beyond the west - we have galleries from South America, Africa as well as Asia who provide this important balance. Also it is vital for artists from outside the west to show side by side with their peers from London and Paris for example.

Q: Does your Sri Lankan heritage play into the equation - is there a bias towards South Asian art for example?

My Sri Lankan heritage definitely played a large role in my choice to specialise in a globalised idea of the art world from when I was an academic back in the late 1990s through to a number of the shows I organised through to having a very international outlook at START. There’s no particular bias towards South Asian art but my heritage certainly made me think globally through my career in the art world.

Q: From the Middle East, there are two Iraqi artists showing in the curated section (Mahmoud Obaidi and Dia Azzawi) - how representative do you feel these artists are of this region?

In the end we are having an exhibition by Mahmoud Obaidi and then a presentation of younger artists who have done the Firestation Residency (in Doha) that has been curated by him. We wanted to do Dia Azzawi as well to show how different generations of artists have influenced and mentored each other in the Middle East but in the end we didn’t quite have the capacity to do Dia. But it is still super-exciting to have Mahmoud’s work as well as show the way artists mentor younger generations in the absence of a more robust non-commercial sector in the region.

Q: Aimed at younger collectors, is there a price cap on the works at the fair?

The fair isn’t so much aimed at younger collectors but collectors of any age interested in emerging artists or new art scenes. So you might be 90 and interested in the development of new art scenes! Most of the work in the fair is priced under £25,000.

Q: Do you believe you will always remain aimed at this target audience or will the fair continue to evolve?

I believe art fairs must always evolve. We want to respond to the changing nature of the art world so we must be particularly adept at being able ourselves to change.