Première participation de l’Inde à la Biennale de Venise

Source Artclair
Pour la première fois en 2011 il y aura un pavillon indien à la Biennale de Venise. Le journal Indian Express révèle que le pays participera à la 54e édition de la prestigieuse exposition internationale d’art. Le commissaire du futur pavillon national a été annoncé ; il s’agit du critique d’art et commissaire indien : Ranjit Hoskote. En revanche, l’artiste représentant le pays n’est pas encore connu.
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Finally, Indian pavilion at 2011 Venice Biennale

Source Express India by Seema Chishti
Biennale, the most prestigious and the oldest International art festival, will finally have an Indian pavilion. The festival will be held next in June 2011. Work for securing the Indian pavilion would start next month at a meeting of all the Art Commissioners intending to participate in the festival. Well-known art critic, curator and commentator Mumbai-based Ranjit Hoskote will curate the work and represent India at the meeting.
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Sotheby's Asia Week Sales in New York Total $27,649,251

Source Art Daily
Zara Porter Hill, International Head of Indian Art at Sotheby’s said: “The vibrancy of the Indian art market returned to Sotheby’s in this sale. Paintings from the 18th century to the latest contemporary art achieved exceptional prices with a number of artist records being set. The result far exceeded the low estimate and was a validation of our strategy. This focuses on carefully curated and strategically estimated high quality sales, and these have produced this year’s consistently strong sell through rates. Competitive international bidding resulted in more than half the sold lots achieving prices in excess of the high estimate. The highlight of the sale was undoubtedly the group of works by MF Husain which was led by Cinq Sens which sold for $782,500 exceeding the $500/700,000 estimate. The four records set today come on top of the three achieved earlier in the year to round off an exceptional year for the department.”
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Patriotic collectors eyeing New York Asian Art Week

Source Times of Malta
Asian collectors rediscovering their roots are expected to be among the big buyers at New York auctions this week highlighting ancient and modern works from Asia.
Christie’s leads Asian Art Week, which takes place in March and this month, with 1,200 lots from India to Japan auctioning at an estimated collective price tag of between $46 and $65 million.
Rival auction house Sotheby’s follows suit with pre-sale estimates of $21.9 to $31.2 million for 738 lots, while more than a dozen city galleries are hosting exhibitions and sales of their own.
Hugo Weihe, head of Christie’s Indian and southeast Asian art, said the modern and contemporary auction on Wednesday was expected to raise more than $10 million, with works by big-name artists including Francis Newton Souza and TV Santhosh.
“We see increased interest in India now for the antiquities, which of course has happened in Chinese art,” said Mr Weihe. Indians – similar to the rich Chinese actively buying their nation’s treasures back from Western collectors – are expected to be a big force.
“Once any economy gets strong, literally you buy into your heritage,” Mr Weihe said. “China is doing that in a very strong way. We were very surprised, ‘why hasn’t India done that more?’ Well now we’re seeing very strong signs.”
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Saffronart Autumn Sale Results

Source Art Market Monitor By Marion Maneker
Saffronart had good sale last week with 76% of the lots clearing and 51% getting above estimates (with commission.) The $6.4m sale total was below the estimate range but several works by strong names in the category sold well, including Subodh Gupta.
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Gond art is becoming a rage abroad

Source Tehelka by Nisha Susan
This month’s Adivasi art exhibit at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, curated by Dr Jyotindra Jain, created a stir with its showcase of Jangarh’s work. You may have seen Bhajju Shyam’s travelogue called the London Jungle Book, or seen snippets about Venkat Shyam’s recent solo US show, or of Sukhnandi Vyam’s sculptures shown in Delhi. Later this year, expect Bhimayana, a stylish graphic novel about Ambedkar’s life drawn by the Gond couple Subhash and Durgabai Vyam — it’ll be published in four languages.
Today Gond art is sold in galleries and auctions, not obscure handicraft shops. Gond painters are not anonymous. They’ve crossed the artificial ravine between craft and art largely because Jangarh Singh Shyam , groomed in Bharat Bhavan amidst modern artists, put a signature to his work and encouraged other Gond artists to do so too.
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Semaine d'enchères d'art asiatique à New York

Source AFP
Les Indiens devraient figurer en force parmi les acheteurs, estiment les experts. "Nous voyons un intérêt croissant en Inde pour les antiquités, un phénomène qui s'est déjà produit en Chine", a estimé Hugo Weihe. "Une fois qu'une économie se renforce, les collectionneurs de ce pays rachètent leur patrimoine historique", a indiqué Hugo Weihe à l'AFP.
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India's Online Auction Pioneers

Source The New York Times by Gayatri Rangachari Shah
Founded in 2000 by the husband-and-wife team of Dinesh and Minal Vazirani, Saffronart specializes in the sale of modern and contemporary Indian art and claims to be the world’s largest fine-art online auction house. Based in Mumbai, with offices in New York and London, the company has rapidly elbowed its way onto the Indian art auction scene, alongside established veterans like Christie’s and Sotheby’s. While the company is not the only online art auctioneer in India, it pioneered the concept there.
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Jitish Kallat to Present Provocative Work of Art on Art Institute's Grand Staircase

Source Art Daily
This fall, acclaimed contemporary artist Jitish Kallat turns the landmark Art Institute Grand Staircase into a meditation on religious tolerance, drawing on the museumʼs own history in concert with the most devastating terrorist attack on American soil. Public Notice 3, a site-specific installation, brings together two key historical moments: the first Parliament of the World’s Religions, opening on September 11, 1893, in what is now the museum’s Fullerton Hall, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 108 years later, on that very date. Public Notice 3—the first major presentation of Kallat’s work in an American museum—will be on view September 11, 2010 through January 2, 2011.
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Saffronart Offers an Exceptional Collection of Modern and Contemporary Indian Art

Source Art Daily
Speaking about the auction, Dinesh Vazirani, CEO and Co-founder of Saffronart said, “Our auctions in March and June saw a strong demand for rare and exceptional works which are unique to the market. This autumn, Saffronart once again presents a carefully selected and focused collection of high-quality works by modern and contemporary Indian artists.”
“The global art market has seen a surge in both growth and confidence and we expect our Autumn Online Auction results to set the tone for the season. An exceptional collection with strong provenance, our Autumn Online Auction offers yet another opportunity for collectors all over the world to acquire the finest and rarest artworks”, he added.
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India could bid abroad to bring desi art home

Source Financial Express by Garima Pant
As the market for Indian art, historical relics and other curios from India catches the fancy of the global cognoscenti, the government is planning to put in bids for some of these treasures when they surface in auction houses abroad.
The plan ties in neatly with the emphasis on developing and adding to Indian museums which the government has taken up in a big way, in the last couple of years.
The plans are an indication of how the government is pushing the often moribund ministry to make the best use of what India has to offer. The ministry has already completed a huge expansion of the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi to showcase for the guests at the Commonwealth Games.
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A forthcoming auction in New York promises to change the way contemporary Indian tribal art is viewed in the global market

Source Livemint The Wall Street Journal by Anindita Ghose
The first major and most significant exposition of Shyam’s work was in Paris as well: Magiciens de la Terre, a historical exhibition curated by Jean-Hubert Martin at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1989.
The Sotheby’s sale will be the first time that a canvas by an Indian folk artist has been estimated at $30,000-50,000 (around Rs14-23.4 lakh), and the sale price may exceed that range. The work, Paysage avec Araignée (Landscape with Spider), was part of the Pompidou show. This is the third time that Sotheby’s has included Shyam’s work, the first being in its March auction, when a 2001 work estimated for $5,000-7,000 was sold for $13,750. Two large paper works executed in 1988 and 1989 were sold in July for $15,000 and $18,000.
A lot of the credit for the global curatorial relook goes to Paris-based Hervé Perdriolle who started his pursuit as a collector in 1996. Now, as a gallerist, he is an active agent in promoting artists such as Shyam, as well as Mashe and the Mithila painter Chano Devi. Over an email exchange, he says he is interested in these artists in the same vein that he is interested in Warhol, Basquiat and Ravinder Reddy.
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Un duopole en péril

Source Art Price
Le marché de l’art a repris son élan au premier semestre: + 71% de chiffres d’affaires sur les ventes fine art uniquement ! Les maisons de ventes n’ont pas raté l’occasion et annoncent des croissances allant jusqu'à trois chiffres pour rassurer une offre et une demande encore incertaines.
Le duopole historique Christie's et Sotheby's annonce dans le même sens un premier semestre respectivement fort de +67% et +140% comparé aux chiffres fine art du premier semestre 2009. Rien de plus normal dans un marché en pleine croissance. Mais le constat est un peu plus noir si on le compare aux belles années passées.
C’est 25% de moins pour les deux maisons qu’au premier semestre 2007 et 20% de moins qu’en 2008. C’est à peine une hausse de 9% pour Christie's et 0,5% pour Sotheby's comparée au premier semestre 2006, avant que le marché ne connaisse l’envolée des prix de 2008/2009. Si les deux maisons de ventes anglo-saxonnes reprennent des parts de marché, c'est uniquement dû à quelques ventes d'éclat : plus de 340 coups de marteau millionnaires représentant 62% de leurs produits des ventes combinés.
Entre 2002 et 2008, le duo Christie's Sotheby's n'a jamais concédé plus de 30% de part de marché à l'ensemble de ses concurrents. Depuis juillet 2008, les concurrents n’ont cessé de voir les deux maisons anglo-saxonnes leur laisser du terrain pour atteindre au second semestre 2009 plus de 46% du produit des ventes mondiales.
Si les maisons de ventes chinoises ont su tirer profit de ces largesses, les maisons de ventes occidentales n’ont pas su réagir et peinent à se réadapter à cette nouvelle offre mondialisée.
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