On the weekend before Christmas, {LBBD} conducted its very first Art Walk through the streets of the ‘art village’ of Delhi, Lado Sarai. We wanted Decoding Art to be an interactive, engaging and most of all, a fun way to bring forward to our readers what the city has to offer in terms of contemporary art. The appreciation and understanding of art in our city has grown significantly over the past few years, and Delhi’s seen myriad galleries open their doors, and display works that are eclectic and esoteric; in an attempt to decode an open ended question of what each one’s interpretation of art is, and this ambiguity is central to contemporary art. We restricted the walk to a group of 15 readers, none of whom were art experts, but simply interested in art. The walk was led by our art afficianado, and fellow {LBBD} writer, Kriti Sood. It was intriguing to know that for almost all of those attending, this was their very first trip to Lado Sarai! And this is a crucial element in what {LBBD} strives to, and loves, to do – sharing unique experiences, places, stories, and people from the pages of our Little Black Book with our fantastic readers. Everyone had a chance to talk to one another and, of course, bombard our ‘art guide’ for the day, Kriti Sood, with questions about the exhibits. The walk commenced with each of our attending readers sharing their first ‘memory of art’, followed by their introductions. First on our agenda was Latitude 28 Gallery, a creative venture by Bhavana Kakar, a Delhi based expert in Modern and Contemporary Art. Subliminal Metropolis, curated by Anne Maniglier, explored different ways of representing architectural spaces – whether urban, ancient, or psychological. One of the three artists, Julien Segard, a now-renowned French artist obsessed with the ruins of today, showed places through found objects to talk about a simpler life and the end of a fancy way of living, thus, generating a vibrant perspective which may be dismantled, detached from reality, abstracted and reconstructed anew. It was interesting for us to hear everyone’s individual perception of one of his works {below}, and how distinct each one’s approximation of understanding was. While most thought it looked like Delhi’s flyovers {it actually isn’t}, to some it seemed a dark portrayal of depression, and to others, a representation of movement and his journey. We then moved on to Threshold Art, a purist gallery in its own right. Tunty Chauhan established Gallery Threshold in 1997, with a well defined purpose of initiating art related activities, and acting as a catalyst in the dialogue between the artist and the viewer. For want of a nail, the title for the show was derived from an ancient proverb which illustrates the fact that the God is, indeed, in the smallest of details. Iddo Markus, an Israeli artist and curator, dedicated himself to small-scale formats which have a liberating effect. Most of his works deal with coloured fields and the inner state of his being, rather than monotonous naturalism. He likes to paint and express his mood before it changes, hence, the small size. The materials for the artworks—found wood-blocks—were collected from different places and were of varying shapes and sizes, some of them quite old and weary. He calls his work mood painting, which could be associated to the Raagmala painting to a certain extent. It would be safe to assume that everyone loved the color play in Iddo’s work and the curator had beautifully put it together in clusters of similar toned wood blocks. Our last gallery on the walk was the beautiful and extremely interactive photography exhibition at Gallery Exhibit 320, in collaboration with Nicholas Foo. And it is here that we had a surprise in store for those attending, but more on that in a bit. Postcards from the Interior, curated by Tanvi Mishra, assimilated six photographers’ personal bodies of work and these images laid bare open their lives for the viewer to peer into. In these works, the photographer’s lives became inexplicably interlinked with those of their subjects, allowing themselves to become a part of the narrative. As a viewer, one became witness to the intimate and often intensely personal scenarios that played out in these photographs, those that would otherwise remain unseen or not have existed in the first place had it not been for the camera. A documentary photographer based in the City, who uses a fictional narrative to form a dialogue between photographs and poetry as part of the current show, Akshay Mahajan, joined us at this point to give {LBBD} readers an exclusive tour of the show. His work here is a photo essay on LGBT personal histories of a group of friends in Bangalore, their lives and what it means to be gay in a country like ours. His closeness with the show and incredible insights added a whole new dimension to the walk, closing it perfectly. As we walked long enough, there surfaced the need to sit down, absorb, reflect, and connect over the enlightening experience with one’s fellow ‘art walkers’. We ended the afternoon over pizza, cheese platters, and coffee at one of our favorite hide-outs in Lado Sarai, Cheese Chaplin. Free discussions are never restricted to one topic, and that’s where the essence of getting together to experience something different lies. More than anything, for us it was amazing to see people come together to share a simple love or interest in a common culture – Art. We hope all our readers enjoyed their afternoon, for we certainly did! For more informations on our upcoming culture/art walks | Connect with us on Facebook { http://www.facebook.com/LittleBlackBookDelhi} and follow us on Twitter {https://twitter.com/DilliDaily}