CLIENT: Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai
9th & 10th August, 2019
The Piramal Museum of Art organised a two-day conference on ‘Art Laws of India: Deconstructing the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972’, in Mumbai on 9th and 10th August 2019. Curated by Pramod Kumar KG, co-founder of Eka Archiving Services Pvt. Ltd., this Conference examined the Act that is meant to safeguard material culture and heritage of India.
This Conference had an array of thought-provoking topics—the origin and evolution of this Act, implications of these laws, the legal challenges, stakeholders affected by this Act, importance of provenance, need for implementation and reform. The Breakout Sessions too were interesting and dealt with issues such as seizure of art objects from public and private collectors, decoding registration documents, understanding copyright and intellectual property rights.
The agenda of this two-day Conference was to lay a road map accentuating the need for drafting ‘a white paper’ with the necessary amendments to the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act. This event saw an eclectic mix of academicians, art historians, scholars, government officials, and art and heritage professionals—Naman Ahuja, Pradeep Chakravarthy, Deepthi Sasidharan (Director, Eka), Dr. Annapurna Garimella, Dr. Alka Pande, Mallika Sagar, Siddharth Mehta, Dr. Tejas Garge, Girish Shahane, Tasneem Mehta, Sarover Zaidi and R. Prakash to name a few.