A Golden Decade

Source Indian Express by Prabhjot Sohal
A Decade ago, when the world wide web surfaced as a just-a-click-away-mart, the general perception was that anything posted online would be sold immediately. But, few believed that this would include art, especially Indian contemporary art. But, Saffronart, a global company with Indian roots, proved the sceptics wrong, as it solely spearheaded the online auctions of Indian contemporary art. And, now when Indian art is breaking sales records worldwide, Saffronart, India’s largest online fine-art auction house, ranks top in the list of rightful credits.
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"L'Inde m'a poussé au monumental"

Source Aujourd'hui l'Inde per Lily Montagnier
Ici, l'aspect brut de la brique prend des airs précieux, semblable à des lingots d'or. Et encore plus quand ils sont ornés de colliers de pierres taillées une par une à la main. Comme des pierres précieuses. Le fastueux et le brut mélangés. Une combinaison évidente pour celui qui a déjà traversé New Delhi d'un bout à l'autre. Deux vies se côtoient ici. "En venant de France on a une vision très romantique, très fastueuse de l'Inde. Mélanger les deux-le réel et le clinquant-m'intéressait." Dans un espace malheureusement trop petit, les visiteurs tournent autour de ce précieux mur de pierre. Après l'Inde, il ira à Paris pour une exposition intitulée "Paris-Delhi-Bombay" au centre Pompidou en mai 2011 avant de rejoindre le Japon, la Corée et les Etats-Unis. Un rêve qui pourrait durer sept ans, qui sait.
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Wanted: A Charles Saatchi for India

Source Business Standard by Kishore Singh
It is not that such collectors do not exist in India. Anupam Poddar has done the most among Indian collectors for the contemporaries, but can you recall the reticent collector and founder of Devi Art feeding the media information about his buys. Sugar baroness Rajshree Pathy might be more flamboyant (and more eclectic in her selection of art), yet despite her intent of setting up an art university and museum in Coimbatore, and owning a fabulous collection in her home in New Delhi, her buys don’t make news yet. This is hardly new: other known collectors, such as Ashok Alexander and Rajesh Sawara, too have refused to be in the collecting spotlight. Yet, what we need today are collectors who will divert attention away from the Progressives (who will continue to thrive on the decades of adulation they have enjoyed) — to those artists who have segued into the peripheries of popular perception. Who will take up the mantle to speak for them?
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Christie's Presents Highest Value South Asian Art Sale Ever Offered

Source Art Daily
On September 15th, Christie’s South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction will include over 100 carefully selected works from leading 20th and 21st century South Asian artists and is expected to realize in excess of $10 million. This auction presents a whole spectrum of modern and contemporary and will feature celebrated Modern Masters Syed Haider Raza, Francis Newton Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain and Jagdish Swaminathan alongside the biggest names in contemporary art including Subodh Gupta, Rashid Rana, Atul Dodiya and TV Santhosh.
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Gond artist’s work in Sotheby’s New York sale

Source News Views
This is the third in the series of Shyam’s compositions sold by Sotheby’s in 2010.
In March 2010, Sotheby’s London sold one of his works at 13,750 pounds. Two of his large paper drawings were sold for 15,000 pounds and 18,000 pounds respectively in July 2010.
The work to be auctioned Sep 26 was produced in the catalogue of ‘Magiciens de la terre’, an important exhibition curated by the Jean Hubert Martin at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1989.
Eminent art writer Herve Perdriolle, an authority on tribal art, says Jangarh Singh Shyam’s work ‘contains the stuff of mythical tales’.
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The next big thing

Source Business Standard by Kishore Singh
In 1996, Frenchman Herve Perdriolle began a collection of Indian tribal art, leveraging it later as a curator, to pitch the contemporary alongside the traditional, folksy or tribal — take your pick — not without some degree of success. In the bargain, he did what governments in India have failed to do despite their many awards and recognitions for tribal arts and crafts: focus attention on art forms that are dynamic as well as contemporary despite having a tradition in their folk roots.

Jangarh Singh Shyam was a Gond tribesman from Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, who became a protégé of artist and Bharat Bhavan founder J Swaminathan. He was feted in Kolkata and New Delhi, shown in Tokyo, celebrated at the Magicians de la terre exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Paris, though material benefits stayed out of his — and other, similar artists’ — reach. All that might change with the forthcoming Sotheby’s auction on South Asian Art in New York next month. For the first time a canvas (86.6” x 61”) by an Indian folk artist has been estimated at a value between Rs 14 lakh and Rs 23 lakh and, if previous indications for Shyam’s works at auction are any pointer, the price might well exceed, even double, that.

So far, precious little has been done to position these artists alongside their “urban” contemporaries, or create dialogues to bridge the condescension that keeps one school of artist apart from the other. But with international collectors discreetly buying into this segment of the market, that might change soon. Internationally, tribal art from Oceania is part of the big ticket circuit, and analysts say the next big shove could come from similar art expressions in Africa and India. It would be a pity if Indian collectors lost the opportunity of bagging these canvases to those outside the country because of a flawed belief that a traditional artist does not compare to the likes of, say, M F Husain, or Subodh Gupta. They might be proved wrong sooner rather than later.
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The Rise of the Emerging Art Economy

Source Bloomberg BusinessWeek by By Rachel Wolff
The art market always follows the money. These days that means courting new collectors from emerging economic superpowers. Auction houses aren't just wooing them with Warhols. They're also whipping up buzz about art from their native countries. And it's working. New York's Chinese and Indian art and antiquities galleries will be holding exhibitions of their own during Asia Week with hopes of attracting visiting connoisseurs. Museums are also reinforcing the trend with more BRIC-dedicated shows than ever. "Whenever there is an economic boom in a place, it usually goes hand in hand with a creative burst of energy," de Pury says. "And I think this all is going to continue." At the very least, an economic boom has given new value to these bursts.
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Sotheby's Claims a Robust First Half, Tallying $2.2 Billion

Source Art Info
The company says it has enjoyed the second-highest income in its history.
Sotheby's has previously stated that increased activity from Asian buyers has been a critical factor in the auction house's robust earnings this year.
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Christie's Claims a Stellar $2.57 Billion First Half, Beating Out Sotheby's

Source Art Info
The auction house's CEO calls the last six months "one of the most successful half years in our history."
That auction house also cited Asian buyers and the booming market for Asian art as key drivers of recovery in the auction arena.
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Priceless Art? Turn Right at Noida

Source Tehelka by Sahar Zaman
If you have followed the art auctions in the past five years, and wondered who went home with the show-stoppers on the cover of the auction catalogues, look no further than Noida. Here, in the Kiran Nadar Museum of Arts (KNMA), you can gently let your jaw descend at a Raja Ravi Varma from 1894, FN Souza’s Nude with Fruit (1958), MF Husain’s Ganga of the early 1970s, a Raqib Shaw, the first ever seen in India — The Absence of God (2008) — and Anish Kapoor’s untitled electric blue disc from 2009. And all this that is on display, forms only a fraction of Kiran Nadar’s personal collection of 300 works. Luckily, for the rest of us, Kiran likes to share./.../
The Indian art market is only 0.04 percent of the international market. Characteristically, Kiran doesn’t respond to this with platitudes about our steady growth. “A Picasso can go for more than $100 million so where are we at just $3.5 million for a Raza?” she asks. In a country without a museum culture, sustaining the 80,000 sq ft-planned KNMA is bound to be a challenge. But she remains pragmatic about the scene, saying, “Donations and funding for a museum come at a later stage. We are at an initial stage where we are doing it all on our own. You can’t expect people to come and fund you unless you are well-established.”
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International Calls

Source Indian Express by Georgina Maddox
So far 34 international and 84 national galleries have already registered for the fair. The list of international participants is quite impressive already. From London, UK the Lisson Gallery will participate for the third time, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, USA, comes back a second time, the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Hong Kong, China, makes an entry as does the Galerie Kashya Hildebrand, Zurich, Switzerland, Aicon Gallery, New York, USA, Grosvenor Gallery, London, UK. Other first time entrants include Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris, France, Die Galerie Frankfurt, Germany, The Drawing Room Gallery, Makati City, The Philippines and Greenaway Gallery Adelaide, Australia to name a few. Michelle D’Souza, director, Thomas Erben Gallery, says, “We are privileged to play a role in the ‘internationalisation’ of the Indian art world. So we are thrilled to be back at this exciting event.” “This event will provide clients an opportunity to see vetted original and authentic works of art. They will be able to meet the specialist dealers and ask them questions and see what each gallery has to offer. So we are looking at the Summit as a good arena for leading Indian and international galleries,” says Conor Macklin, director, Grosvenor Gallery.
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