Method Gallery’s Sahil Arora On COVID-19’s Impact On The Art WorldThe founder of the experimental space in Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda speaks to Verve about how COVID-19’s lockdown measures are affecting private galleries and artists across the country.
Sahil Arora is the founder of Method Gallery, a contemporary art space that opened its doors early last year with an exhibition by visual artist Anirudh Mehta. In the year since, Method has showcased the work of young and talented artists and photographers including Rema Chaudhary, Avani Rai, and Amonwan Mirpuri.
A lot of people are hyper-focused on the pandemic, which can be overwhelming. It’s not even possible for a lot of people to conceive of reading a book right now. But, perhaps they can read an article about something interesting, and walk away feeling slightly better than they did before. But, we didn’t create the Magazine just for the pandemic. The Method Magazine is something that we’ve wanted to do since we opened. The lockdown allowed us a little more time to focus on it.
An increasing number of global museums and galleries going online in the wake of the crisis and are able to provide virtual tours and experiences. How do you think this bodes for the future of having physical art spaces? Do you have plans for a virtual space for Method in the future? Experiencing art in a physical space will never be replaced by virtual experiences. At least not until significant improvements are made in the augmented and virtual reality fields. Digital experiences are important but until the gap between a digital and physical experience is reduced, galleries and museums will continue to have their audience. My background for the last 10 years has been in the digital space, so for us the digital medium has been important since the outset.