Modern art gets headroom to grow

The Economic Times, 31 Mar, 2008, Ashoke Nag

KOLKATA: Recent auctions, both overseas and in India, could be an early indicator that the art market is slowly moving onto the growth track again. Modern Indian art prices have perked up visibly for the quality works.

The high-end labels, covering the Husains, the Souzas, the Ram Kumars and the Swaminathans have all performed well. In fact, Husain pulled off a coup of sorts and became the highest-valued Indian painter ever. And, equally importantly , the quantum of lots sold in the auctions rose substantially.

“Prices achieved in auctions which have unfolded of late have been very healthy. While it’s true that the major Modern works have touched highs, the general run of prices has been encouraging in varying degrees, of course.

Interestingly, Contemporary art, which has been climbing rapidly for the past two years or so, is also a rage with Chinese and Middle Eastern artists. As things stand, the Indian Contemporary school is probably next only to the Chinese after the Western names,” an art market source told ET.

Generally speaking, the size of the market seems to be expanding again, which is underlined by the percentage of lots sold at the auctions recently. While the Osian’s auction in India racked up about 77% sales in terms of lots, Sotheby’s sported close to 80% while Christie’s swung 89%.

In the same breath, the Emami Chisel Art (ECA) auction in Kolkata hit 90% plus sales. ECA had also found Husain entering the million-dollar club for the first time.

“The high percentage of lots lapped up by collectors clearly emphasises that works in the stock of the auctioneers were appreciated by the market, thus fuelling far higher volumes,” the source said.

Going by sales, while the Osian’s auction of Modern and Contemporary art took home Rs 30 crore-plus , the Sotheby’s sale generated $5.1 million, while Christie’s raked in $10.97 million.

ECA, at the same time, scaled a figure of about Rs 23.45 crore. The Contemporary sale by Saffronart witnessed sales of Rs 27 crore, which went way past its estimate of Rs 19.56 crore.

Art Dubai

Le Monde, 20 mars 2008, Harry Bellet

Passer, en quelques mètres, de New Delhi à Tokyo, via Helsinki, Vienne ou Mambaï, c'est le charme d'Art Dubai, la deuxième édition d'une foire d'art contemporain qui se tient du 19 au 22 mars et regroupe des galeries du monde entier, mais donne une large place à celles venues d'horizons rares sous nos climats.
La galerie Direct, de Sydney, spécialisée dans l'art aborigène, participe ainsi à sa première foire hors d'Australie : l'Europe ou les Etats-Unis sont trop éloignés. Il suffit de regarder un planisphère pour comprendre : Dubaï est au centre d'une région qui met Londres, mais aussi la Chine, l'Inde ou l'Australie à quelques heures d'avion. Les Emiratis le savent, qui veulent faire de leur ville-champignon un centre international, tant pour le tourisme que pour les affaires.
L'aéroport accueille 120 millions de passagers par an, les impôts sur les sociétés sont parmi les plus attractifs du monde, et l'émirat reçoit désormais plus de touristes que l'Egypte. Les images de ses réalisations architecturales les plus spectaculaires ont fait le tour de la planète. Car le pétrole se fait rare : si l'émirat voisin et rival Abu Dhabi en regorge encore, les réserves de Dubaï sont presque à sec. Force est de se reconvertir.
Dans ce contexte, la culture n'est guère prioritaire, contrairement à ce qui se dessine à Abu Dhabi (Le Monde du 28 novembre 2007). Mais l'art le plus contemporain, si. Il véhicule désormais une image "glamour", liée à l'univers du luxe, qui est roi ici. Contrairement à Art Paris, la foire artistique d'Abu Dhabi, qui joue la carte de la prudence en choisissant des exposants "raisonnables", Art Dubai a sélectionné certaines des galeries les plus en pointe du moment.
La première édition, en 2007, en réunissait 41. Pour beaucoup, ce fut un flop et certains grands noms, comme la Londonienne White Cube, ont décidé de ne pas renouveler l'expérience. Pourtant, le nombre d'exposants a doublé cette année. Avec une offre intelligente : partant du principe que la grande majorité de la population est émigrée (entre 80 % et 90 % selon les sources) et que tous les résidents étrangers de l'émirat ne sont pas des travailleurs sous-payés du bâtiment, la plupart des galeries proposent une palette large, avec bien sûr quelques vedettes occidentales, mais surtout une moisson d'artistes du Moyen-Orient et d'Asie. Ce qui tombe à pic, puisque les artistes chinois et indiens sont les nouvelles vedettes du marché de l'art international.
Mais d'autres pays émergent aussi : l'Iran, dont les artistes pratiquent un humour ravageur, à l'image de Ramin Haerizadeh, présenté par la galerie de Dubaï B21, mais aussi le Pakistan, auquel la foire rend hommage cette année en organisant une présentation spéciale.
On y trouve une des oeuvres les plus spectaculaires d'Art Dubai : un chameau empaillé, recroquevillé dans une malle. Réalisée par Huma Mulji, née en 1970 et basée à Lahore, elle a été acquise par le publicitaire britannique Charles Saatchi, toujours à l'affût d'un bon coup, et toujours prescripteur sur le marché de l'art. La pièce est intitulée Arabian Delight et il faut être du pays pour en saisir toute l'ironie : à Dubaï, le chameau rôti - entier - est un plat réservé à la famille royale et à ses invités.
Certes, la foire compose avec les moeurs locales. Pas de nu, par exemple. Quoiqu'on puisse en trouver un, mais si subtile que personne s'en est offusqué, avec une oeuvre du Suisse Markus Raetz appartenant à la banque JP Morgan Chase, qui présente sa collection dans une manifestation parallèle. Il est pourtant une habitude qui passe plus mal, mais auprès des Européens : selon The Art Newspaper, les galeristes ont été surpris lors de la première édition de s'entendre demander des rabais de 40 % ! Le marchandage est un sport local, mais rarement pratiqué dans de telles proportions dans les foires d'art internationales.
Paradoxalement, les habitués pointent une caractéristique exactement inverse des riches Emiratis : l'achat somptuaire, la dépense flamboyante. Mais la discrétion relative d'une foire ne permet guère de s'y livrer. Pour cela, les enchères publiques restent plus performantes. Ce qu'a bien compris Christie's, en organisant des ventes à Dubaï.
En 2006, une oeuvre de l'Indien Rameshwar Broota, estimée 80 000 euros, prix normal pour un artiste dont la renommée n'avait rien d'international, s'est envolée à 912 000 euros. La vacation d'octobre 2007 a totalisé 15 millions de dollars, doublant l'estimation initiale, et une nouvelle venue, la maison britannique Bonhams, a le 3 mars vendu 94 % des lots pour un total de 13 millions de dollars. Avec des artistes qui sont, à quelques rares exceptions, des inconnus du public occidental.
Ici, les photos noir et blanc du cinéaste iranien Abbas Kiarostami se vendent presque dix fois plus cher qu'en Europe. Les prix des photos de l'Iranienne Shirin Neshat ont aussi explosé. En 1997, la galeriste parisienne Farideh Cadot peinait à les vendre 35 000 francs. Quatre ans plus tard, les prix tournaient autour du même chiffre, mais en dollars. Aujourd'hui, son nouveau galeriste, Jérôme de Noirmont, propose des oeuvres récentes pour 55 000 euros. Mais une oeuvre ancienne a atteint à Dubaï une enchère de 241 000 dollars. C'est qu'entre-temps elle avait fait l'objet d'un reportage et de la couverture de la revue Canvas, publiée à Dubaï par une figure locale, Ali Khadra.

Art, the safest investment option on long term basis: Experts

The Economic Times, 20 Mar, 2008, 1410 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: With volatile markets being the trend and interest rates low on return, art seems to have come back as the safest investment option for many, says leading art curators and investment analysts.
"Art is the only commodity other than gold which is constant in giving steady returns from the very beginning. Art can make its own money over a period of time," says Neville Tuli of Osian, one of the largest art auction houses in the country.
"This means, art should not be taken as a short investment of just few months. Give it some time and this does not mean lifetime but at least around three years. It will give you good returns," he adds.
While paintings were earlier bought because of interest in such forms of art, experts say that many are now coming forward for just pure investment purposes.
"If you pick out good paintings and study their progress in the last few years, you will find out that they have given very good returns. In some cases, certain pieces of art have given 100 per cent returns and more," says Minal Vazirani of Saffronart, an auction house cum gallery.
Agrees, S Kalra, a leather exporter who regularly invests in art. "I had a Rameshwar Broota's painting with me which I had bought for a very small amount in 2000. I sold the painting in 2004 and it gave me a return of around 75 per cent," he says.
Though Kalra did make a decent profit, he ruefully adds, "I should have waited a little longer. The same painting would have given me more than 100 per cent return now."

In India, the organised art market today is valued at around Rs 800 crore a year, which experts say is growing at a rate of over 30 per cent per annum.
A number of financial institutions have come out with art funds or schemes, trying to cash in on this growing new market.
Art funds typically operate by pooling in money from select investors and use it to buy art objects that have huge appreciation potential in a short period of time.
Market sources say there are no estimates available on the number of art schemes in the market or the quantum of funds collected.
Hence, recently, Stock Market regulator, SEBI, had said that it would initiate action, including criminal case, against companies that operate Art Funds without its approval.

The regulator, in a statement, warned that the launching of Art Funds or schemes without obtaining registration amounts to violation and it could take civil or criminal actions against the erring funds.
"It is a welcome gesture. If you expect the market to grow on like this without the the tax men or regulator moving in, then you are not being smart," says Tuli.
He adds, "Art market is the biggest black market in the world. It is only now that white money is being pumped into this sector with coming up of auction houses and known galleries. With the regulators stepping in, the market would become more organised."

Artists point out that to sustain the phenomenal growth in the art market, proper steps should be taken to educate people.

"There are lot of things being said about art these days. People are confused and hence, at times, end up burning their fingers. Established auction houses and galleries should come forward to educate everyone from students to bankers about art is all about," says Goldy Malhotra, Pricipal, Modern School, New Delhi.
Malhotra, who herself is an artist adds, "A lot of hype is there. It needs to be cleared."
Saffronart which recently held its Spring Online Auction of Contemporary Indian art closed at a total sale value of over Rs 27 crore (US$ 7.15 million), which was well above its total higher estimate of Rs 19.56 cores (USD 5.1 million).

The online auction which featured the work of painters, sculptors and installation artists, attracted art lovers and investment oriented people from 22 countries across the globe.
"There is a genuine interest among people about art these days. People wanted to know what art is and are very inquisitive about it, which is a good trend. From financial consultants to pure art lovers, everyone is getting on to the art bandwagon," says Vazirani.
But, he cautions, "Art is indeed a very good investment but then it is important to make correct investments. If one doe snot know about art, then take sound advice before putting your money into it." Agrees, Tuli,"See, at times a, particular piece of art can cost equal to a house on Malabar Hills. So, such investment should be made with sound judgment or advice."

With Indian artists now fetching millions of dollars at international auctions, art curators in the country say, India art scene is said to change.

"It is nice that money is coming into art. Some may say, it is leading to marketing of products which might promote certain artists but I think it is wrong. If people are buying art for investment, then it is good. It is good for everyone and for the market," says Tuli.

A package from India, the art world's newest Eastern star

The Times, March 19, 2008

The subcontinent is the rising star of contemporary art as collectors embrace a new generation of Indian artists
Gareth Harris
For the past few years the art world has gone China crazy, with record prices at auction, but now another Eastern star is in the ascendant. Indian art's time is coming.
From Charles Saatchi to the Serpentine Gallery, major collectors and galleries across Britain are embracing a new generation of Indian artists - Bharti Kher and her husband Subodh Gupta, Jitish Kallat, Sudarshan Shetty and Chitra Ganesh - and their daring take on topics such as Hindu myths, consumer society and immigration. Britain's first Asian Art Triennial is launched at the Cornerhouse in Manchester next month with provocative work by five emerging female artists based on the subcontinent. And the collector Frank Cohen has just opened the Passage to India show at his Wolverhampton gallery, Initial Access.
But what's the appeal? Prajit Dutta, from the Aicon Gallery in London, thinks that “what is distinctive about Gupta and T. V. Santosh is that the imagery is of terrorism, immigration, cultural alienation - global issues that we all brush past every day in the media.”
It's an in-your-face view of today's world that the Serpentine Gallery is keen to tap into. In December the gallery will present India Calling. “The architect Balkrishna Doshi is constructing a series of levels within the gallery space, some of which visitors will have to squeeze themselves into. This will reflect the superdensity of living conditions in India,” says Julia Peyton-Jones, the gallery's director. Developments in contemporary art, fashion, design and film will be explored in the show.
A rival Indian art extravaganza, The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, is also planned for next year at Saatchi's new 70,000sqft gallery in Chelsea, which is scheduled to open shortly. It's likely to feature the work of the 33-year-old Bombay-based Kallat (Saatchi owns his 2007 installation Public Notice-2, 4,500 individual sculptures that spell out a speech by Mahatma Gandhi, and Eruda (2006), a 14ft sculpture of a boy selling books at a Bombay traffic light).
Kallat's work has also been bought by the Scottish property investor David Roberts and the Bombay-born London-based millionaire Adu Advaney, the managing director of a European private-equity fund. He is looking for a space in Mayfair to house part of his 250-work contemporary collection, which includes 24 Indian pieces.
Prices are rocketing. The private-equity investor Deepak Shahdadpuri was quietly amassing Indian art well before the market heated up - but even he is now struggling to afford it. “Price is now a constraint. I have four works by Thukral and Tagra, the first of which I bought for around $4,500 [£2,250]. Last summer, one of their pieces went for over $450,000 at Christie's in Hong Kong,” he says.
Leading auction houses are also feeding the frenzy. Christie's, for instance, has gone global, with auctions of Indian art in Hong Kong, Dubai and New York. Speculators who made a quick buck on the Chinese art market are now eyeing up the Indian scene. This is one art- market bubble that's set to get bigger and bigger.
Passage to India is at Initial Access, Wolverhampton (01902 798999; www.initialaccess.co.uk), until August 2

Saffronart auction breaks records

India Infoline News Service / Mumbai Mar 14, 2008 14:01

Saffronart logs sales of over Rs270mn. Five lots sell for over Rs10mn

Saffronart’s first contemporary sale in 2008 has set the pace for all the Indian art auctions that will follow this year. This spring online auction of contemporary Indian art closed last night at a total sale value of over Rs. 27 crores (US$ 7.15 million), which was well above its total higher estimate of Rs. 19.56 crores (US$ 5.1 million). The sale featured the work of globally sought painters, sculptors and installation artists, including Surendran Nair, Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, Anju Dodiya, Bharti Kher, T.V. Santhosh, Shibu Natesan, Baiju Parthan and Jagannath Panda. World auction records were set for 21 artists, including Surendran Nair, Bharti Kher, Shibu Natesan and Jagannath Panda.
Within the first hour of the auction several of the lots crossed their higher estimates – the first being Surendran Nair’s canvas featured on the cover of the catalogue. Following that lot 80, a Subodh Gupta canvas, sailed past the Rs. 1 crore mark (approximately US$ 263,000), beginning the exciting bidding activity that continued till the end of the sale.
The top five lots of this sale were Surendran Nair’s ‘Doctrine of the Forest: An Actor at Play (Cuckoonebulopolis)’, going for Rs. 2.12 crores (US$ 558,969); Subodh Gupta’s ‘Untitled’, going for Rs. 1.81 crores (US$ 477,250); Subodh Gupta’s ‘Let Me Make My Damn Art’, going for Rs. 1.66 crores (US$ 437,000); Jagannath Panda’s ‘Untitled’, going for Rs. 1.34 crores (US$ 353,625); and Shibu Natesan’s ‘Each One Teach One’, going for Rs. 1.06 crores (US$ 281,448).
Works by artists Shilpa Gupta and Dhananjay Singh, both featuring for the first time at auction, saw an intense round of bidding. The works recorded an average of 25 bids and closed well above their higher estimates. Pakistani artists Rashid Rana and Nusra Latif Qureshi were also popular with Lot No 107 by Rana selling at Rs. 20,97,600 (US$ 55,200), more than three times its higher estimate.
Just over 550 registered bidders from all over the world competed against each other for the works of some of India’s most prominent contemporary artists. Though there is a strong Indian base of collectors for this genre, at this sale 25% of the bidders were non-Indian, highlighting the high level of international interest in Contemporary Indian art.
Dinesh Vazirani, Co-founder and Director of Saffronart, says, “I think the results of this auction are extremely encouraging. We were pleasantly surprised at the overwhelming response we saw. The results have reinforced our belief that the blending of global and local contexts that characterises Contemporary Indian helps it transcend geographical barriers and appeal to an international audience of collectors.”
Online auctions, pioneered by Saffronart, have transformed the landscape of Modern and Contemporary Indian Art, making it accessible to participants who are constrained by geographical and physical limitations and opening it to a wide spectrum of international art lovers. Established by Dinesh and Minal Vazirani, Saffronart has set global benchmarks for online art auctions. The company’s innovative business model has prompted the Harvard Business School to write and teach a case study on it.
Saffronart has been instrumental in fundamentally changing the market for Modern and Contemporary Indian art. With its professionalism and transparency, it has contributed to the burgeoning international and domestic interest in Indian art, and in the process established itself as the leader in Modern and Contemporary Indian art auctions.

A passage from India

Daily News and Analysis Friday, March 14, 2008, Madhu Jain

Suddenly, there’s been a flurry of international arterati descending on our shores. Rarely a destination spot, India has been more of a layover-on the way to or from a more exciting elsewhere, for those looking for the NBT (Next Best Thing) in contemporary art.
Until quite recently. Take Delhi. Last week at an elegant dinner hosted by
Peter Nagy of Nature Morte gallery, there was a clutch of youngish women from London and New York in India to loiter with intent through the contemporary art scene.
One of them is a consultant for the Charles Saatchi gallery in London; Saatchi, now enthusiastically adding Indian art to his collection, will show it in an exhibition with the saucy title of The Empire Strikes Back.
Another works for the Phillips de Pury & Company, an auction house in New York. A third is scouting for London gallerists.
The Americans have also arrived. A group of about 20 from the Guggenheim Museum in New York is currently in Delhi, creating a bit of a flutter in the art world of the capital.
Apparently, the Guggenheim has plans for an exhibition of contemporary Indian art in 2009. This winter also saw a few visitors from MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art in New York).
Are Indian artists the new flavour of the times? Although younger Indian artists are doing well in auctions, it may be too soon to bring out the bubbly. We lag far behind the Chinese. However, we do seem to be getting there: Indian contemporary art now attracts buyers who are not NRIs or rich Indians.
The United Kingdom has three major exhibitions — including Saatchi’s — showcasing contemporary Indian art in 2008. A show titled Passage to India opens next week in the new gallery (two huge prefab sheds on an industrial estate near Wolverhampton) of Manchester-based millionaire and art collector Frank Cohen. And, in September this year London’s Serpentine Gallery will show contemporary Indian art.
Across the Atlantic almost all the galleries dealing in Indian contemporary art are owned by Indians or NRIs. However, the prestigious Marlborough Gallery in New York has taken on board its first Indian artist — Viswanadhan.
An exhibition of his paintings (he divides his time between Paris and Cholamandal) opened this Wednesday. This indeed is a major passage to America: the painter has been inducted into the stable of the gallery’s artists that includes Mark Rothko and Botero.
Perhaps, the European and American gallerists are targeting Indians, or those of Indian origin. Undoubtedly, they scrutinise the lists of the world’s richest men, the latest Forbes issue has four Indians amongst its top ten billionaires.
However, it is believed that the circle of buyers for Indian art will gradually enlarge to include other communities.
Certainly, the younger lot of artists is increasingly catching the fancy of international art connoisseurs. Subodh Gupta, christened the Damien Hirst of India, leads the pack: he is the true crossover artist.
The much-celebrated Anish Kapoor is probably the most well-known artist of Indian origin, but then he is considered British.
The names that keep cropping up in shows and auctions overseas are, amongst others, Subodh Gupta, Atul and Anju Dodiya, Thukral and Tagra, TV Santhosh, Justin Pommany, Jaganath Panda, Jitesh Kallat, Bharati Kher, Gia Scaria and Sudarshan Shetty.
Interestingly, most of the successful Young Turks of Indian art have a sensibility that is rooted in desi soil (often small town) and yet tuned into what is happening globally — glocal if you like.
Perhaps, it is the fairly new-found confidence to grab images from everywhere. From kitsch, popular imagery, the ordinary objects of daily life and Indian mythology, to borrowings from the high table of western art — everything is grist to the artist’s mill. Just come to think of it as Indian fiction.

La Chine numéro 3 du marché de l’art

Libération, mercredi 12 mars 2008
Bilan lors de la foire de Maastricht où la France perd sa troisième place.
Envoyé spécial à Maastricht Vincent Noce

Cela devait arriver un jour. La France, qui a été jusque dans les années 50 le centre du marché de l’art mondial, a perdu la troisième place qu’elle parvenait quand même à maintenir depuis : elle est désormais surpassée par la Chine. Comme ce marché, dépassant les 4 milliards d’euros, a doublé en un an, ce n’est qu’un début. Nous sommes largués.
Prémonitoire. Ce constat a été révélé à Libération, en marge de la foire des antiquaires de Maastricht, par une économiste spécialisée, Clare McAndrew. Il y avait eu un signe prémonitoire, sans que personne ne s’en émeuve : l’année dernière, Sotheby’s et Christie’s ont vendu deux fois plus à Hongkong qu’à Paris (1). Néanmoins, en ajoutant ses antiquaires, Drouot et les commissaires-priseurs, la France restait un pôle de référence. «En intégrant les galeries et les nouvelles sociétés de ventes de Pékin ou Shanghaï, selon les toutes dernières statistiques, la Chine dépasse la France», dit cette économiste, auteur d’un rapport de référence sur la question, financé par Axa. Dans ce partage du globe, notre pays doit être tombé à 5 % et la Chine passée à 6 %. Elle est devenue le deuxième marché de l’art contemporain.
Dopé par des ventes phénoménales, New York a conforté son leadership : 46 % du marché mondial. De 2002 à 2006, l’Amérique s’est ainsi encore renforcée de 2,4 points. L’Europe a reculé de 6,3 points, se faisant donc aussi grignoter par les marchés émergents. Pour Clare McAndrew, marchands et collectionneurs «redoutent le Vieux Continent pour ses taxes et droits dérivés, mais également ses tracasseries ; c’est tout un état d’esprit qui est en cause».
Ce qui est particulièrement vrai de la France. Elle ne manque pourtant pas d’atouts, avec la richesse de son patrimoine artistique, l’attractivité de Paris, la diversité de ses galeries et sociétés d’enchères. Si Christine Albanel a lancé une réflexion sur la question, sa marge de manœuvre sera réduite par les autorités auxquelles elle aura à se confronter, du Budget à la Commission européenne.
Tous auraient pourtant intérêt à une refonte d’ensemble du système - mêmes les Britanniques perdent des points dans cette guerre planétaire. Le marché de l’art représente 300 000 emplois en Europe, dont 220 000 directs. «C’est l’exemple même de la production qu’on souhaite développer, souligne-t-elle, une économie du savoir, cosmopolite, employant des jeunes, d’un haut niveau d’éducation, très ouvert aux femmes.» Une activité à fort revenu culturel, d’image, de tourisme. Sans compter les rentrées fiscales et financières, d’un marché qui continue de battre tous les records : l’année dernière autour de 38 millions d’œuvres d’art ont changé de main dans le monde, frôlant les 50 milliards d’euros, du jamais vu.
Porteur. Régulièrement, depuis des années maintenant, des journaux comme l’International Herald Tribune, le Point, ou récemment une société appelée ArtIndex, annoncent un krach. Et, non moins régulièrement, ils sont démentis par les faits.
En réalité, même dans les turbulences des marchés financiers, celui de l’art reste fondamentalement porteur, tout simplement grâce aux afflux de cash : nouveaux riches russes, chinois ou indiens, mais aussi Américains ayant réalisé leurs placements boursiers ou Européens tirant profit de la baisse du dollar…
A Maastricht, les Américains étaient moins présents, les affaires ont été un peu plus longues à discuter. Mais elles se sont faites grâce aux Européens, aux Russes, et même aux Latino-Américains. C’est la grande révolution : le marché s’est démultiplié. Hier centralisé autour de trois capitales, il est en complète redistribution.
(1) Ces multinationales exportent, pour les vendre à New York ou Londres, près du double d’œuvres en valeur qu’elles n’en vendent à Paris. Cette hémorragie du patrimoine est la face cachée de ce bouleversement sismique engloutissant la France.

China way ahead of India in contemporary art

The Economic Times, 11 Mar, 2008, Reshmi Dasgupta

NEW DELHI: This Saturday, a show of Indian art opens in Wolverhampton, UK of all places that may just prove to be a watershed event. Manchester businessman Frank Cohen (along with advertising maven Charles Saatchi, the most high profile foreign collectors of Indian art) is striking his colours with Passage to India, an exhibition of contemporary Indian art from his own collection. A few months later, Saatchi will do the same at his new London gallery, impishly titled The Empire Strikes Back. As both men collect Chinese art as well, this will add a new dimension to the rivalry - even in art - between the two Asian giants, India and China.

At Sotheby's sale of South Asian (mostly Indian) contemporary art in New York last September, works fetched a total of $3.2 million. Flash forward to April 8 to April 11, the dates for Sotheby's Hongkong sales. Their Contemporary Chinese Art sale is expected to rake in at least $32 million or 10 times the Indian tally. So India can't quibble at Time magazine's observation last week that "China has passed France as the world's third largest art market", for in numberspeak at least, China is way ahead of India as the Asian art mart comes into its own.

Arriving at an accurate number, however, is complicated. As Osian's chairman Neville Tuli says, it's a matter of not only computing the average sales of auctions (five major houses deal in Indian art worldwide - Sotheby's, Christies, Bonham's, Osian's and Saffronart - besides several newbies) and the average prices they fetched, but also doing the same for sales and prices of galleries as well as private dealers in India and abroad.


That would give a ballpark figure, but that's assuming all primary and secondary sales are accounted for. The same applies for Chinese figures.

Tuli will not hazard an off-the-cuff guesstimate, but Crayon Capital's Gaurav Karan, who manages an art fund, says the current volume of traded Indian art is around $350-400 million. The figure for Chinese art traded in 2007 is an estimated $3.3 billion, according to the Chinese art website Artron which tracks 100 auction houses.

Karan adds that given that both Sotheby's and Christies's had record total sales of over $6 billion each in 2007 and that figures of other auction houses and galleries like Larry Gagosian's which clock $1 billion a year swell this kitty further, it's evident that Indian art (which fetched just $36 million for Christie's last year) is but a drop in the art ocean.

Head to head examples merely accentuate the gap. Last October 34-year-old India-born Raqib Shaw notched up a record of $5.49 million for his colourful Garden of Earthly Delights III at a Sotheby's sale in London. But Execution by Yue Minjun, whose frighteningly grinning faces are fast becoming a cult, also fetched a shade less than $6 million there. And at Christie's in Hongkong a month after Shaw's sale, a set of abstract gunpowder-on-paper drawings by 1957-born Cai Guo-Qiang, went for $9.5 million.

Shaw's record has put him far ahead of his desi contemporaries led NS Harsha, who topscored on the youngsters' art chart for 2007 with Mass Marriage selling for $833,400 in Hongkong in November. But a slew of young Chinese artists, like Liu Xiaodong, Zeng Fanzhi and Zhang Xiaogang, have crossed the million dollar mark. In India's case, however, it's the veterans who dominate the million dollar club: Tyeb Mehta, SH Raza, MF Husain, Raja Ravi Varma, FN Souza, Amrita Sher-Gil, J Swaminathan and VS Gaitonde.

Only the first three are still alive (the youngest of them 85), Husain joined the club just last month at $1.1 million and Mehta's Mahishasura that sold in 2005 for $1.58 million still retains top spot. Unsurprisingly, Chinese artists of the same vintage are also ahead price-wise. The late Xu Beihong's Slave & Lion, for example, went for $7 million at a Christie's sale in November 2006.

So why's China painting India into a corner? "The whole world is buying Chinese art, while its still largely Indians buying Indian art," observes Chennai-based Sharan Apparao of Apparao Galleries, whose online auctions are doing well. "And Chinese underground art in particular has an increasing appeal." Even Tuli implies that at one level India's guaranteed freedoms seem to act against the creation of powerful art! Indian art also has other hiccups, with every successful sale by an established auctioneers being countered by patchy success rates of newer entrants. "That doesn't mean Indian art is bad or patchy, it just causes confusion in the buyers' minds," insists Sunaina Anand of Delhi's Art Alive gallery.

"A lot depends not only on the credibility of the seller, but also the quality and selection of artists' works." Karan concurs, saying, "Once Indians used to buy signatures, not quality; that's changed now." And a more mature market means better prices.

Chinese artists have also been more farsighted in showcasing their art. The effort has to be at both ends: if artists have to touch a chord, galleries have to mount first class shows too, catalogues, publicity et al. And India seems to have largely ignored a new platform that Apparao points out - art fairs. As Don Thompson writes in the recently released The $12 Million Stuffed Shark, "The start of the 21st century was also the beginning of the decade of the art fair. Today, there are four international fairs whose branding is such that they add provenance and value to contemporary art. They are to art what Cannes is to movie festivals."

According to Tuli (who bought a Raja Ravi Varma for $1.24 million at Bonham's in October), "The Indian art market is deeper and more abundant with collectors; China's is faster and more rampant with speculators. Both have a great interest for the rest of the world right now albeit in radically different ways. But the world will have more empathy and affinity with Indian art's spiritual and cultural sensibilities..."

Yes, China's had a headstart, but as Saffronart's figures show, sales of Indian art in public auctions have grown from $4.5 million in 2003 to $150 million in 2006, Tuli may well be prophetic.

Source : The Economic Times, 11 Mar, 2008

The new Modern

Mumbai Newsline March 10, 2008, Georgina Maddox

When we saw Atul Dodiya fetch Rs 1 crore shortly after a stalwart like Tyeb Mehta had just bagged his first crore at the Christie’s action in 2004, a few eyebrows were raised. A Contemporary drawing parallel with a Modern guru was contrary to the mantra that runs the auctions. However within four years, this became not just an exception but a rule where several zeroes have been added on to the price tag of artists who sell at Rs 1 or Rs 2 lakhs only three to four years ago. The current asking price for a Dodiya or Jitish Kallat is anything from Rs 28 lakh to Rs 1 crore, while even a newly introduced artist like Farhad Hussain commands Rs 10 lakh.
Picking up on the international trend that favours the Contemporaries, 140 works of Indian Contemporary artists have just returned from rave reviews in New York, and Dinesh and Minal Vazirani of Saffronart.com are proud. “Contemporary art is doing exceedingly well internationally. This is because it’s about the here and now, the genre cuts across geographical boundaries in a way that perhaps Modern art does not,” explains Dinesh, adding, “After China, India was the next Asian country to come into the spotlight.”
In fact, this auction, kicking off on March 13, could not have been timed better. Three other auctions are slotted for March—Sotheby’s, Christies and Osian’s—and their bastion is Modern art. Saffron seems to be the best place to look for the Contemporaries.
The upward curve is reflected not just at the auction houses but three mega shows dedicated to Contemporaries that are slotted to premier in Manchester, New York and China. Art aficionado Frank Cohen is showcasing Passage to India, a group exhibition from his private collection featuring biggies like Dodiya, Subodh Gupta, Bharati Kher and Sudarshan Shetty to name a few. Charles Saatchi is hosting an exhibition titled, The Empire Strikes Back that features the above mentioned artists as well as others like Chitra Ganesh and Shez Dawood. Swiss collector Uli Sigg, one of the biggest in the business, is taking his collection to China.
While works by artists like Shilpa Gupta, Riyas Komu, Kallat, Rashid Rana and T V Santosh reflect the explosion of mass media and the opening up of the Indian economy, Dodiya, Navjot and Surendran Nair mark the transition period between Modern and Contemporary concerns. Their works address the anxiety that arises from a loss of the local and indigenous to the global.
Shireen Gandhy, whose Chemould Art Gallery was one of the first spaces to host shows by the likes of Kher and Dodiya when they were just starting out, says the reason is innovation. “Contemporary artists have caught the interest of collectors nationally and globally because they are willing to reinvent themselves the way the Moderns cannot,” says Gandhy.
In the end though, as collector and emerging artist Cyrus Oshidar puts it, it is about being in the right place at the right time and “branding” oneself as avant-garde.

The biggest online art auctions of Indian contemporary art

Daily News & Analys, Monday, March 10, 2008, Riddhi Doshi

The largest web auction of Indian contemporary art also boasts of a photographic montage of the superstar, reports Riddhi Doshi

In one of the biggest online art auctions of Indian contemporary art, 140 works by 55 artists will go under the hammer on March 12 and 13 on the Saffron Art website (www.saffronart.com). According to Minal Vazirani, co-founder and director of Saffron Art, the auction is worth between $ 5-7 million.

The auction house last held a similar sale in September 2007, where 115 works of 43 artists worth $ 3.6 million were showcased. Minal says, “Contemporary Indian art has moved up the global ladder simultaneously as India began to be recognised as an emerging economic power. We have so far tapped only a small portion of the worldwide appetite for such kind of art.”

The works on display, for this particular auction, are by well-known artists including Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, Baiju Parthan and Sudarshan Shetty among others. One of the most interesting aspects of the auction is a photographic montage portraying actor Shah Rukh Khan created by Rashid Rana from Pakistan. SRK’s image is formed out of a collage of faces of common people with visible cracks between each. Rana attempts ‘a shift in perspective from the macro to the micro, the global to the local’.

Some time ago, Rana had said, “Shah Rukh Khan is very popular in Pakistan. His hoardings are put up at many places. In fact, people aspire to visit his house in Lahore.” Minal believes this work, estimated to go under the hammer for Rs 6 lakh, will do well in the auction.

The works that are vying for the top three spots in the auction are Atul Dodiya’s Vansha Vriksha—a watercolor, acrylic and marble dust on paper, estimated to go for Rs 68, 40,000; the second place has a tie between Surendra Nair’s Doctrine of the Forest: An Actor at Play (Cuckoonebulopolis) and Shibu Natesan’s Each One Teach One, both estimated to go for Rs 65,00,000. Subodh Gupta’s untitled work is expected to bag the third position.

Source : Daily News & Analys, Monday, March 10, 2008

West hankers for new Indian art

Times of India, 9 Mar 2008, Neelam Raaj

Indian art for Indians? No longer. Not if you were at last week’s International Contemporary Art Sale at Sotheby’s to see the fierce bidding between agents for collectors Frank Cohen and Christie’s owner Francois Pinault for a painting by rising star T V Santhosh. It finally went to a phone bidder for £114,500, nearly five times its estimate. However, it’s not the price that is remarkable but the increasing fascination of western collectors for India’s young talent.

The Manchester-based Cohen, dubbed the “Saatchi of the North”, has no time to regret the loss of Santhosh’s Advent of a Savior. In just a week, 13 works from Cohen’s by-now significant collection of contemporary Indian art go on show in the UK. Cohen’s own ‘Passage to India’ (as the exhibition which begins on March 15 is titled) began two years ago and in his own words, the acquisition of works from India has been quite “a voyage of discovery”.

“What I find particularly interesting about the new art being produced outside the western mainstream is the combination of influences that stem from the recent history of western art. This is expressed in a visual language that’s accessible to western audiences while still maintaining its cultural origins,” says Cohen, having bought the likes of Ravinder Reddy and L N Tallur.

Indian contemporary art isn’t making a temporary stopover in the UK. Charles Saatchi, who is renowned as an arbiter of contemporary taste, has another show lined up for later this year in his new gallery in London. The exhibition, titled ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, will feature artists like Bharti Kher and Jitesh Kallat.

Both Saatchi and Cohen signal a new interest in Indian art but the boom wasn’t kickstarted by their ilk. Unlike China, the other booming Asian market where committed European collectors like Uli Sigg and Guy Ullens were the driving force, the bull run on Indian art has been fuelled by buyers who are either Indian or of Indian descent.

There has been the odd Chester Herwitz and Masanori Fukuoka (the Japanese mogul who paid a record price for Tyeb Mehta’s triptych Celebration) but they have been notable exceptions rather than the rule. Setting the bar high at art sales have been NRIs, who believe investing in art can be as prestigious as a good address and as profitable as the stock market.

Rajiv Chaudhri, a New York-based Indian hedge-fund manager, set off ripples in late 2005 by paying $1.6m for Tyeb Mehta’s Mahisasura. That was the first time a contemporary Indian painting had crossed the million-dollar mark. Other significant NRI collectors include New Jersey-based Umesh and Sunanda Gaur, Kent Charugundla who bought M F Husain’s Lightning Horses for a record Rs 20 million and New Age guru Deepak Chopra.

But the new brushstrokes on the Indian art landscape came courtesy artists like Subodh Gupta, often described as the Damien Hirst of Delhi. Behind Gupta’s meteoric rise was Geneva-based dealer Pierre Huber who showcased the Delhi-based artist’s trademark stainless steel kitchenware at the Frieze Art Fair in 2005. Christie’s owner Pinault is also a Gupta fan.

Already the proud owner of Very Hungry God, a one-ton sculpture of a skull made of metal pots, Pinault bid on another Gupta work Fire at the recent Sotheby’s sale. He lost out to Art Plus, an investment group, which bought it for £102,500, nearly four times the estimate.

Sotheby’s Maithili Parekh says she wasn’t the least bit surprised at the keen competition. “India is now being showcased to a wider audience and it is about time.” This was the first time the auction house had included Indian works in its international contemporary art sales.

Exposure at international auctions as well as large curated exhibitions have done a world of good, says art expert Mortimer Chatterjee. “The last eight months have seen a marked increase in the number of international collectors though the interest is almost exclusively in contemporary art rather than the moderns.”

And it looks as if this trend will continue. Later this year, the Serpentine Gallery in London will stage an Indian art show, and next February, ARCO, the Spanish art fair, has India as its guest country. The canvas keeps getting bigger.

Source : Times of India, dimanche 9 mars 2008