23 May 2011

Art collector Shalini Passi's New Delhi home

As our Reborn in India issue hits the shelves, come alive with us in the most eye-popping, synapse-snapping, pulse-pushing place on the planet. Wallpaper visits art collector Shalini Passi's New Delhi home. 

If you want to see the way the Indian elite might one day live, the collector Shalini Passi's New Delhi home is a good place to start. For more than a decade, Passi has conducted a brilliantly curated, global tour of self-education: commissioning and collecting works of art, objects and furniture from auction houses, artists and fairs on four continents. And she has housed her collection in a remarkable space that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

To hear the extraordinary tale behind Passi's home, you'll have to turn to our May issue (out now), but here, we take you on a tour.

In the main entrance, in front of Jitish Kallat's Rickshawpolis, 2008, sit five porcelain Puppy vases, 1998, by Jeff Koons, which Passi fills with fresh flowers flown in from Holland every Friday.

Passi sits on the 5m ‘Yamuna’ bar, commissioned from Based Upon, which faces the garden. A privately commissioned Subodh Gupta oil painting is lit by a Baccarat crystal chandelie.

On the upper landing is a 1970s 'Cityscape' cabinet by Paul Evans in maple burl veneer and brass, beneath There is No Explosive in This, 2007, digital print on canvas, by Shilpa Gupta. 

In the study is a unique table by Marc Newson and a 'Pennini' magazine rack and 'Mani' waste paper basket, both by Fornasetti, while on the wall hangs a painting by MF Husain.

The article is republished with permission from Wallpaper.com