THE FICA READING ROOM
The FICA Reading Room was born out of the need to make art publications available to a larger public that includes art students, independent researchers, and art enthusiasts, who have little or no access to university or private libraries in India. Since then the Reading Room has been an integral part of FICA as an art organisation, opening up to the arts community at large, as a space for dialogue, learning, collaboration, and curation.
Originally based in Defence Colony, In 2017 the Reading Room to Khirki Extension in South Delhi, where we shared the space with Gati Dance Forum, creating opportunities for collaborative work and interdisciplinary discussions.
Since August 2018, we have been situated in Lado Sarai in the midst of a thriving art neighbourhood, where the Reading Room functions as an intimate, interactive space for workshops, discussions, film screenings and other programmes. Events include talks by visiting artists, scholars, curators and critics about their work and the progress of their practice; Art History workshops for children, and discussion forums for a variety of topics.
Address: F-213/E-2, 2nd Floor, Old MB Road, Lado Sarai, New Delhi: 110030 | Timings: Monday - Saturday, 10:30 am - 5:30 pm
The Collection
The FICA Reading Room houses more than 3500 Indian and international books, journals and magazines on Art History, Contemporary Artists, Art Theory, Photography, and Architecture. The collection also includes catalogues of exhibitions, art fairs and auctions from the last twenty years. While the Reading Room houses books on important artists of the Western canon, the focus of the collection remains on Indian art. The collection includes exhibition catalogues, catalogue raisonné, academic and art journals, anthologies with art historical and critical essays, limited edition books (Eg: MF Husain's artist's books), privately published catalogues, out of print artist catalogues, magazines and auction catalogues, as well as a section dedicated to children's literature in the arts.