LISTICLE: Work Of Art! These 10 Art Festivals Will Blow Your Mind!

Who doesn’t love art? How about an event that sorely celebrates the beauty and wonders of art in all its forms?

These 10 festivals do just that…

1.Kala Ghoda Arts Festival

As the name suggests, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival is held every year at Kala Ghoda in Fort, Mumbai. Featuring as a premiere event focusing on the Architecture & Designing industry, the festival aims to preserve and maintain the heritage and art district of South Mumbai. With the Kala Ghoda art district engulfed with institutions like the Jehangir Art Gallery, Max Mueller Bhavan, Bombay University, Prince of Wales Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art, Institute of Science, Bombay Natural History Society, Elphinstone College, and David Sassoon Library; the area is a major hub of cultural activity!

2. Delhi International Arts Festival

Making it’s debut in 2007, the Delhi International Arts Festival takes place at multiple venues across the city! Featured in over 35 different locations, the festival attracts performers and artists from over 30 countries and takes place over the course of two weeks! It’s even recogniszed as a ‘Brand India’ projection that highlights cultural diplomacy and cultural tourism. Known as India’s ‘signature festival’, the festival features art in all its forms, including exhibitions, literature events, western classical music performances, sufi and youth festivals as well as visual art, folk and Indian classical dance shows.

3. India Art Festival

Only festival in India to feature two annual editions in two cities, namely, Delhi and Mumbai, is the India Art Festival (IAF). It gives art galleries, collectors, artists and dealers a place to create a network. The general exhibition pavilion, in the India Art Festival, showcases both mid and major art galleries as well as pieces from associate artists, while the Artists’ Pavilion gives new and emerging artists a platform to get discovered along with professional artists. Speakers even discuss their rich experiences in the art industry, giving insight to all present there!

4. India Art Fair

Formed in 2008, the festival first emerged as a tourism aspect in India. Now, the festival doesn’t just feature regional artists but curators, art collectors, gallery owners, museum directors and media from all over the world. With a focus on both contemporary and modern art forms, the festival has gained reputation as being the leading art fair in South Asia and hosts around 300,000 art enthusiasts!

5. Goa Carnival

Featuring musical parades, vibrant carriage processions, street plays, dances and regional songs as major highlights; the Goa Carnival is a cultural-cum-art fair, showcasing the rich and vast culture of the state. This three-day event is celebrated two days after Easter and features intricate masks and colourful costumes too!

6. Latido Americano

Peru’s Latido Americano Festival displays a mix of street art styles, currently a major part of Latin American culture. Be it graffiti writers or muralists, the styles on display at this cool festival range from abstract to representational. Featuring visually-appealing series of walls made of saturated colours, the festival is a must-visit for art lovers.

7. Pow! Wow! Hawaii

Hosted in a different part of Hawaii every year, the festival brings the likes of International talent to an isolated place such as Hawaii, which they may have not visited otherwise. Showcasing street art in all it’s glory, the festival has featured top artists like Wayne White, Rone, Kofie, INTI, and Reka.

8. The Beijing Contemporary Art festival, China

China isn’t lacking when it comes to art. After all, it’s China! Showcasing world-class design, art, photography and fine art across a huge exhibition centre, the festival features art pieces that have a strangely appealing yet intriguing nature about them. These art pieces even go across cultural boundaries! China, being both a major business and tourism centre, you definitely would want to check out this festival!

9. La Biennale di Venezia

One of the oldest, largest and most contemporary fairs, the La Biennale di Venezia that started way back in 1895, is held bi-annually and attracts 300,000 visitors each time! The event is THE PLACE to send young, promising artists from around the world and is often referred to as the “Olympics of the contemporary art world”. The festival is so dynamic, that in 2011 it featured Iranian artist Farhad Moshiri’s “Life is Beautiful” piece created with hundreds of knives stabbing a wall!

10. Vivid Sydney

Art festivals that happen at night more your thing? Head on over to Vivid Sydney, the largest celebration of light, music and ideas in Southern Hampshire. In the past, the festival has featured 60 light installations as well as a stunning projection on the Sydney Opera House. Back in 2011, the festival attracted 400,000 attendees! Ranked in the top 10 global ideas festivals by the influential Guardian newspaper in the UK, Vivid Sydney takes light display to gigantic new heights!

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