The Jester, 1905, a bronze sculpture by Picasso, at the National Gallery of Modern Art in 2002. (AFP)

New Delhi, Aug. 8: Party time is finally here for the country’s two premier institutions of contemporary art that completed 50 years in March.

The National Gallery of Modern Art and the Lalit Kala Akademi were waiting for the Lok Sabha poll dust to settle to send out gold-bordered invitations to mark the occasion.

The new UPA government is in place for almost three months now and the Akademi will kick off its celebrations tomorrow with an event presided over by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

About 14 senior artists of the country will be honoured during an evening of cultural extravaganza.

The next day, a mega exhibition of art at the Akademi’s Rabindra Bhavan will showcase recent works of National Award winners.

The national gallery expects to follow suit later this month. Like Akademi secretary Sudhakar Sharma, gallery director Rajeev Lochan is busy making birthday wishlists for his institution.

Other than the mandatory exhibitions, film shows, lectures and seminars are institution-building measures, which are being worked out to create a new profile for both institutions bogged down by an image of undistinguished performance.

For instance, the gallery is negotiating with C-DAC in Bangalore to install modern security measures that can electronically track the movement of an art object.

The Akademi is getting its collection evaluated by a specially-created expert committee and will document its collection by multiple means —digital photographs, transparencies and negatives.

The custodians of assets worth crores — paintings and sculptures acquired at a tiny fraction of their current value — their urgency is prompted by the recent robbery of Rabindranath Tagore’s memorabilia from Santiniketan.

The gallery has kept its golden jubilee plans under wraps for the moment but Lochan’s goal is to put it on a par with museums of repute.

One step towards this goal involves major expansion, with 28,000 sq m of space to be completed by end-2005. This would present a formidable site for showcasing contemporary Indian and world art, and perhaps a smart cafeteria and museum shop.

The Akademi, which is trying to recover from internal feuds that began in the mid-1970s, will commission three public sculptures for Delhi.

Its ground floor will house a 100-seat seminar room, a coffee and a museum shop, and sales outlets for publications and art.