Hype and hysteria

Source : Business Standard Kishore Singh.
There’s decreasing demand, few transactions and no money anyway left over for art.
Typically, in the corporate world, when you buy goods such as computers, or furniture, or office cars, the secondary prices plummet while companies, or individuals, enjoy the tax breaks offered on account of depreciation.
Usually, though, when you buy art, the secondary prices tend to shoot way higher than primary prices, which is what had made investment in art so attractive, especially in the last decade when prices were shooting insanely upwards.
But a recent Saffronart auction seems to have shown a mirror to the art fraternity that has had a more sobering effect than a cup of coffee on a hung-over man. Not only were estimates for many of the consigned artworks in the sub-Rs 2 lakh category for established artists like Rekha Rodwittiya, Anjolie Ela Menon, Jogen Chowdhury & Co, several masters (F N Souza, M F Husain, Ram Kumar and others) too found their comeuppance with drawings or small works so attractively priced, even hacks like me considered cashing in our mutual funds for a shout ahead of the crashing gavel.
For the record, Anjolie Ela Menon’s oil on masonite work sold for Rs 2.6 lakh, Rodwittiya for Rs 1.8 lakh, a few Souza drawings barely scraped past the Rs 2 lakh mark, and if I hadn’t been let down by my mutual funds, I’d have outbid the collector who took home Jogen Chowdhury for Rs 1.2 lakh.
Which, logically, seems to be the problem in the art world. When people’s economic empires have crashed around them, when they’ve been slipped pink slips, but kids still have to be schooled and mortgage payments made, it’s logical they’ll sell anything that will convert into liquidity. And so a steady flow of art is making its way into galleries and auctions. But here’s the rub: Auction prices are public, gallery prices are not.
So artists are seething at the public erosion in their value, gallerists are upset over the outing of that information, collectors are heartbroken over the loss in their investments, and there’s an explosive pointing of fingers at each other. Bad times bring out the worst in people, and the art world is proving no different.
What’s laughable is that everyone loves transparency when the prices are going up and up and up — the auctioneers’ estimates then are bellwether references on which everyone benchmarks their prices — but hates it in a down-market. But accusing auction houses of dirty tricks is hardly creditable: After all, an auctioneer is merely an agent between a seller (who must be satisfied with the price at which the work is both estimated and sold) and the buyer (who must be comfortable about the price of his purchase), and would surely be happier with higher prices (and therefore higher commissions).
So, to my very good friend and gallerist, who asked, last week, whether her fraternity was overreacting: Alas, yes. And to my collector friends who want to know if it’s a good time to buy: If you have the liquidity, now’s the best.

Indian art paints a new picture in downturn

Source Reuters India By Rina Chandran
An economic downturn has taken some colour out of India's once booming art market, but it has also brought back collectors who had been priced out by speculators splashing out on high-priced works.
At two recent auctions of modern and contemporary Indian art, works were priced lower and not all of them were sold, but quality works by well-known artists still saw fierce bidding.
"We are very encouraged by the fact that despite the slowdown, people are still looking to buy quality work," said Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder of Saffronart, whose spring online auction recently sold 70 percent of more than 100 works.
Prices are nearly 25 percent lower and the Saffronart auction netted 78 million rupees ($1.5 million), he said, just a fifth of the collection from the summer auction last June.
"But we are seeing old collectors who'd missed out during the boom, buying what they like, what they know," he said.
> read full article

Food for thought from Eastern eyes

Terry Grimley reviews two major exhibitions of Indian art that have opened in the region.
Source Birmingham Post By Terry Grimley
While nowhere is immune from the worldwide recession, it seems that the Indian art market still remains buoyant.
> read full article

Osian's collects sale of Rs 8 crore at IMCAC auction

Leading auctioneer Osian’s has notched up a total sale of over Rs 8 crore at its recent auction of Indian Modern & Contemporary Art and Craft.
Source : Economic Times by Ashok Nag.
This figure was a little below the lower presale estimate of Rs 8.9 crore. Of the 108 works on offer, 71 found buyers, registering a total sale of 66%.
While the average lot price clocked for the entire auction was at the level of Rs 11.42 lakh, the average lot price for Modern art was pegged at Rs 21.5 lakh.
The average lot price for Modern art has grown from Rs 15.25 lakh in the January 2009 and Rs 13.5 lakh in the February 2009 Osian’s auctions.
Bids came in from a large section of the audience of 400-odd people gathered at the Osian’s auction. The crowd comprised collectors, dealers, art lovers, bankers, lawyers, management consultants, mediapersons, artisans and craftsmen.
The auction witnessed "keen" bidding on the floor and over the phones. An Untitled mid-1930s work by Nicholas Roerich fetched the highest price at Rs 1.68 crore. At the same time, Akbar Padamsee’s oil on canvas Nude from 1987 sold for Rs 1.44 crore and Rameshwar Broota’s Sewadar swung Rs 1.14 crore.

"Interest for India’s first professional public auction of contemporary craft was evident as the prices attracted three times more than its lower estimate. Bids climbed as bidders upped the price of each lot that went under the hammer," Niranjan Desai, Osian’s spokesperson told ET.
Kalyan Joshi’s Story of Pabuji, a Phad painting from Rajasthan that was awarded the National Merit Award in 2006, sold for Rs 9 lakh, 900% more than its lower estimate.
Sanjay Manubhai Chitara’s work from Gujarat titled Visat Mata sold for Rs 4.5 lakh, 1286% more than its lower estimate.
Hectic floor bidding for a bronze statue by Bangalore-based M.V. Laxmanan, titled Shiva as Vindhara upped its price by 300% as it was finally grabbed for Rs 3.6 lakh.
"The consequences of this auction will be enormous for all the artisans and crafts people of India. It is a huge challenge to absorb this financial high," said Desai.

Art mart imitates economy’s life

Source : Hindustan Times by Gargi Gupta
After the global economic meltdown, the Indian art mart is in a bad way. Everyone knew, of course, but there’s confirmation now in the form of three big auctions that concluded this past week: Saffronart, Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
And more than the moderns — a term used for earlier generation painters such as MF Husain, Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee — it is the contemporaries, led by Subodh Gupta, who have been hit the hardest.
A large untitled canvas by Gupta at Saffronart sold for Rs 79,35,000, about 15 per cent less than its lower estimate of Rs 90,00,000 the auction house had fixed. That’s still high, but it’s 86 per cent less than the Rs 6 crore ($1.2 million) that the similarly sized ‘Saat Samundar Par’ fetched at a Christie’s auction in May 2008. At Christie’s most recent South Asian Art sale on Thursday, his untitled canvas went for about Rs 89 lakh.
It’s not just Gupta. An untitled charcoal on paper by Tushar Joag went for Rs 232,875 at Saffronart, far below its Rs 3-4 lakh estimated price range. So did NS Harsha’s ‘Nations’, which went for a little over a crore, as against its asking price of Rs 1.25-1.5 crore.
Auction houses, however, give a positive spin, concentrating on the high valuations a few works by the modern masters have fetched, notably a 1965 VS Gaitonde abstract which fetched $482,500 (nearly Rs 2.5 crore) at Christie’s. As Maithili Parekh, Sotheby’s deputy director for India, says, “Buyers are willing to pay for significant works, provided the provenance of the work is above board and the valuation is right.”

Sotheby's NY Spring Asian Art Sales Bring $7,231,440 Well Within Expectations

Indian & Southeast Asian Art – March 18, 2009 Source : Artdaily.org
Sotheby’s auction of Indian & Southeast Asian Art, which included paintings and works of art, totaled $3,212,501, well within estimates (est. $2.8/4.1 million). Modern paintings accounted for the top eight lots, led by M. F. Husain’s Untitled (Two Women), which sold for $374,500 (est. $150/200,000), followed by F. N. Souza’s Untitled, bringing $302,500 (est. $100/200,000) and Akbar Padamsee’s Untitled (Nude) which achieved $242,500 (est. $200/300,000).
Zara Porter Hill, Director, Head of Sotheby’s Indian & Southeast Asian department, said: “Our strategy for this sale was to put together a tightly edited group of the finest works available, sagely estimated, and we were delighted to see the market respond so positively. It was especially encouraging that 100% of the top ten lots were bought by, or for, established collectors, highlighting the strength at the top end of the market. There was solid interest in 18th-19th century Tibetan paintings, a trend which was initiated by the Jucker sale held at Sotheby’s in March 2006. There is also strong demand for early works of art, rare, good-quality miniature paintings, and for established post-war Modern artists. Clearly auctions containing such works continue to attract top-level interest.”
Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art – March 17, 2009 Sotheby’s sale of Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art brought $4,018,939, above the low estimate (est. $3.9/5.6 million), and highlighted superb ceramics from the collection of Gordon Getty: A rare pair of ‘Famille-Rose’ ‘Eight Daoist Immortals’ jars and covers, Qianlong iron-red seal marks and period, which sold for $632,500 (est. $300/400,000) and a rare ‘Famille-Rose’ ‘Boys at Play’ lantern-shaped vase, also Qianlong iron-red seal mark and period, which achieved $602,500 (est. $300/500,000). Other highlights included the large painting of Eight Beauties by Hua Xuan, circa 1736, which brought $374,500 (est. $200/300,000), and The Conquests of the Emperor Qianlong, a set of sixteen engravings and eighteen panels of calligraphy, that reached $164,500, more than four times its high estimate (est. $30/40,000).
Commenting on the sale, Dr. Caroline Schulten, Head of Sotheby’s Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art Sales, North America said: “We are very pleased with the results of today’s sale, which demonstrate that in times like these there is demand for rare and high quality works of art with good provenance. We were thrilled to see such strong competition for 18th century Imperial mark and period porcelain, as evidenced by the high prices achieved for the Getty vases and other of today’s top lots, along with the competitive bidding for the set of engravings, sending it to six times its high estimate. Overall, we were encouraged by the number of new buyers competing for many of our top lots.”

Good Buy

Source : Express India by Georgina Maddox
Auction houses woo buyers with affordable, quality works.
The season of art auctions is here again, with ways to beat the recession blues. Art patrons are once again buying art, since the prices are plummeting. Paper works by master artists are now within reach, while younger and more affordable artists are selling like hot cakes. Indian crafts too are having a good time with newer avenues emerging to find buyers for artifacts.
After its auction on March 13, Saffronart has reported the “grand total” of its sales at Rs 7.8 crore. Even though it falls short of auction earnings like Rs 34 crore only a year back, it brings good news. It indicates that the business is still on and that many top-bracket artists are becoming affordable. The highest bid at Saffronart was Rs 1 crore for N S Harsha’s large painting Nations.
Earlier, Saffronart had set the benchmark of Rs 4-5 crore for Subodh Gupta. Now, Gupta’s canvas has slipped down on the price chart and is sold at Rs 79.35 lakh. His untitled painting of stainless-steel utensils, however, drew the second highest bid at the auction. Not just Gupta, FN Souza too has become more affordable with his paper work going under the hammer at Rs 53.18 lakh.
Saffronart founder Dinesh Vazirani is far from being glum. “The auction mirrors our assessment of the art market. We noticed an interest in new names, and we have sold almost 70 per cent of the works put up for bids. People are still responding to quality works,” he says.

A focus on crafts is emerging, and it will be evident at the upcoming Osian’s auction of pre- and post-independence art. Tying up with the Paramparik Karigar, an organisation of craftspeople, Osian’s will be promoting Patachitra paintings from Orissa, Gond paintings from Madhya Pradesh and Phad from Rajasthan, among others.
“Osian’s is not in panic mode. We are known to introduce new collectibles, like poster art, into the market. Introducing craft is just another step in that direction,” says Neville Tuli.
Noticeably, the craft works are half the price of the modern and contemporary works that are up for sale at the auction. Osian’s will not be charging the usual 20 per cent buyer’s premium on art this time.
Not to be left behind, Christie’s auction of South Asian modern and contemporary art in New York on March 19 has prices that are wallet-friendly. It has paper works by MF Husain costing Rs 6-35 lakh. The auction also has Ram Kumar’s works up for bids at Rs 1 crore — a far cry from the days when the artist’s painting sold for Rs 4 crore and above. It seems like a good time to buy art, but a bad time to sell it.

The rise and fall of the Indian art scene

Source : Khaleej Times Online
The past fifteen or so years have seen India’s booming economy dramatically propel the country into the 21st century, bringing with it hitherto-undreamt of possibilities, prosperity and success. And, riding in the slipstream of excitement...
unexpected beneficiaries of the sudden affluence, have been the country’s emerging artists, simultaneously enjoying a wave of creativity unequalled since the Modernist movement of the 1950s.
Whereas pre-1990s, the elder statesmen of Modernism — KH Ara, SK Bakre, HA Gade and MF Hussein — dominated the subcontinent’s contemporary art world, recent times have seen a new generation of Indian artists, children of a new inter-connected, multi-cultural world, past the trauma of Independence, embracing a rosy future and commemorating a rich cultural tradition. Artists such as Subodh Gupta, his wife Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat and Atul Dodiyat came to embody the dynamic, progressive outlook that characterised the best in the burgeoning art scene.
But amidst the current global sturm und drang, the Indian art market has suffered a remarkable battering. The days of profligate spending by speculators and investors, buoyed by mirage-like visions of quick profits and huge returns, have brought the market skidding to a halt in line with the powering-down of the economy.
> read full article

Lucile, Warli land, Thane district. Hervé, view of Mumbai’s bay from Raza birthday party. February 2009

Sale of the century: The YSL auction

John Lichfield reports. Source : The Independant

Forget the credit crunch when the world's most expensive chair sells for €21.9m. The Yves Saint Laurent auction in Paris this week broke record after record for art sales and raised €400m for charity.

Crisis? What crisis? The record-trampling sale of the century at the Grand Palais in Paris this week has proved one thing at least. The rich, just like the poor, are always with us, even if they prefer not to reveal their names. The three-day auction of 730 antiquities, paintings, sculptures, objets d'art and pieces of furniture which belonged to the late fashion designer, Yves Saint Laurent, smashed a dozen art-market records in its first two days.
The world's most expensive armchair is now a sinister-looking "dragon chair", created by the Irish designer Eileen Gray. At €21.9m (£19.6m), the highest figure ever paid for a piece of 20th-century furniture, it is unlikely that anyone will ever dare sit on it again. The overall total of €59m raised for Saint Laurent's furniture and furnishings on Tuesday night was the highest figure achieved in a furniture sale.
The auction, which has attracted collectors, celebrities, dealers and wheeler-dealers from all over the world, has also set new records for works of art by Henri Matisse, Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp, James Ensor, Piet Mondrian, Giorgio de Chirico, Théodore Gèricault, Dominique Ingres and Jacques-Louis David. On the first evening alone, the sale raised €206m, smashing the previous record for the auction of a private collection. By last night, the end of the third day of bidding, the collection – sold by Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent's heir and former boyfriend and business manager – was expected to raise up to €400m for Aids research and other charities.
> read more

New & affordable

Source : Express India by Georgina Maddox. The fraternity is looking for less traditional ways to beat the slump.
In a time where everyone is counting their pennies and rupees, it is difficult to sell anything. Art is not an exception. However, auction houses and galleries are exploring new ways to deal with the economic slump. Consequently, new and exciting avenues are opening up in the face of what would usually be a glum scenario, from fresh faces to new destinations to take art.
It was interesting to note that Saffronart, the online auction portal, held an actual opening at the Jehangir Art Gallery for their ongoing summer auction. Many of the names under the works on display were new. Stunningly, some of the starting bids for art works were as low as Rs 30,000.
The online art portal that was known in the last five years for putting Indian art on the NRI market, hosted the opening at the Jehangir to attract more people and get a newer market excited about ‘affordable’ art. A quick flip through the catalogue reveals that all the newer artists who have made it into the auction are younger, some names that have not even been heard much in the art circuit.
Dinesh Vazirani, director of Saffronart, indicates that this has a lot to do with the new market that is emerging after all the hoopla around the boom has died down. “The market is now healthy and the prices being quoted are more realistic. What happened with the boom is that several transitory buyers, who were in it just for profit and not for the art, constituted the market,” says Vazirani of the trends of 2004 to 2007. “Now, the buyers who are putting money into art really want to have it on their walls. Also with the pricing of art becoming more affordable a new market of young corporate buyers interested in new names has come up,” he reasons.
> read more

Recession triggers improvement in Indian art quality

Source : Irish Sun The global economic downturn has had a surprisingly positive impact on Indian contemporary art with the focus shifting from price to quality. It has also led to the emergence of European collectors as the main buyers due to the erosion of the US market, say experts.
Contemporary artist Bose Krishnamachari, who has curated a special Indian Panorama section for the ongoing international art fair ARCO-Madrid, told IANS: 'The economic downturn has led to artists concentrating on the quality of art work rather than on prices.'
India is the guest country at the 28th edition of the prestigious art fair, with 14 galleries exhibiting over 100 works by 54 young artists.
'The quality of this fair is very evolved because it draws the crème of collectors and buyers from across Europe - that include both private and institutional,' said Krishnamachari.
'One of the effects of the recession is that we have started prioritising the European market to carry Indian art to the next level. The American buyers´ base appears stretched because several of them, who have been affected by the economic slide, have disappeared,' said Peter Nagy of Nature Morte Gallery, who has two kiosks at ARCO-Madrid.
'In the US, buyers of Indian art are mostly NRIs. The European market is made of institutional and private collectors - most of whom are westerners. Several Indian artists have ready markets across countries like Italy and France,' said Nagy.
'I am very happy with the representation of artists and the quality of artworks on display from India. The country has a talented pool of young artists and some of the works, especially those by Jitish Kallat and Shilpa Gupta, are fantastic. The market is also steady and I am sure the country will do well globally,' said ARCO-Madrid director Lourdes Fernandez.

Indian art attracts optimistic European response at Spanish fair

Source: Headlines India Madrid: Indian art is the flavour of the season in Europe, with over 100 works of 54 contemporary artists of the country being under the spotlight at the ongoing 28th edition of the ARCO-Madrid – one of the most prestigious art fairs of the continent. ARCO-Madrid opened Wednesday at the sprawling trade fair complex of the Institucion Ferial de Madrid (IFEMA) – the country's official agency that hosts international trade conclaves – in the business district of the Spanish capital.
The mood was one of hard business as the top officials of ARCO-Madrid set the tone of the Feb 11-16 event, introducing India as the guest country and fair highlight to the European press, investors and collectors.
Artists in their 20s and 30s are the toast of the Indian selection. They are exhibiting an amazing variety of art that includes sculptures, video installations, electronic art, performance art, photographs and new media art practices that combines diverse genres like sound, theatrics and visual art – far removed from the shadow of the early modern masters.
"I am very happy with the representation of artists and the quality of artworks on display from India. We are upbeat about the response over the next five days," ARCO-Madrid director Lourdes Fernandez said.
The Indian Panorama centres around an exhibition featuring art works by young artists curated by Bose Krishnamachari, a leading contemporary artist.
"The primary aim was to showcase the country�s diversity. I shortlisted the artists and requisitioned the galleries they are associated with to select the artworks and filtered them. We deliberately stayed away from traditional art while portraying Indian realities because the boundaries between local and global are blurring. Young art is mirror to the society," said Krishnamachari.
A look at the Indian Panorama section and interactions with galleries from New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore suggested new trends.
The focus is shifting from conventional canvas art to installations and new media art that intend to drive home social messages. Moreover, photographs of the Indian way of life were being considered legitimate works of art in the quality-conscious Spanish market controlled by museums, institutions, high-end galleries and moneyed individual collectors.
Even as new faces like Jitish Kallat, Shilpa Gupta, Dayanita Singh, Nilima Sheikh, Chintan Upadhyay, Manjunath Kamath and Pors & Rao are finding berths in European collections, Subodh Gupta continues to be a popular name in terms of interest and prices. However, he is not on the Indian Panorama list at ARCO-Madrid.
Gallery owners said the initial response to their art was more than satisfactory.
Peter Nagy of Nature Morte Gallery has two kiosks at ARCO-Madrid. The gallery is also hosting photographer Dayanita Singh in a solo show.
According to Nagy, the response on day one to Singh�s black-and-white snapshots of the Sundarban delta and coloured trees was "very positive".
"Photography has become an oeuvre because of the lot of machinery and processes involved. It does hold a space on the wall," Nagy said.
Mumbai-based Bodhi Art is exhibiting new age art by Shilpa Gupta. The collection comprises a body of light art, photographs and microphone installations that talk of the changing world and "India�s tryst with destiny" culled from Jawaharlal Nehru�s historic speech.
The centrepiece of the show titled "Tryst with Destiny", a microphone installation with photographs and an excerpt of Nehru�s speech set to music, is already closed for sale. It was priced at 10,000 Euros ($13,000).
"The buyer is a Madrid-based European collector," said Sharmishtha Ray of Bodhi Art.
According to her, Shilpa Gupta, who works with light and sound, has a "strong market" outside India.
"She is very popular in France. But I noticed that Spanish, Swiss and Belgian collectors are also taking time out to enquire about her works," Ray said.
Mumbai-based gallery Chemould Prescott is exhibiting photographs, mixed media and installations by Jitish Killat.
"The reason why he is liked across Europe is the fact that his works are rooted in his country and city, Mumbai, where he lives. His dialogue has always been between himself and his city and the chaos that surrounds him," said Shireen Gandhy of Chemould Prescott.
Two of his works -- "Aquasaurus", a sculpture depicting an old skeleton-like water carrier and a series of water paintings on paper titled "Traumanama" -- drew huge crowds.
Gallery Espace is pitching Chintan Upadhyay and young installation artist Manjunath Kamath, who has generated curiosity with his sculpture "Vishnu Vilas".
"The market has witnessed a lot of corrections lately and it has given buyers access to good art at affordable prices," said Sunil Gautam, managing director of Hanmer MS&L, which is trying to rope in European galleries for its Aug 19-22 India Art Summit in New Delhi.(IANS)

The Art Market Becomes Truly Global Reveals New Tefaf Report

Source: Artdaily The art market has become a global marketplace with new collectors in emerging economies who may contribute towards protecting it from the current international economic situation. This fundamental shift in the geography of art buying is revealed in a new report commissioned by The European Fine Art Foundation which organises The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) to be held in the Dutch city of Maastricht in the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre) from 13-22 March 2009... The report takes a detailed look at the growing importance of China, Russia, India and the Middle East in the art market in recent years. It also examines the past and possible future effects of the current world economic climate on international art buying... Total sales of Indian art in 2007 were €243 million of which 30% occurred within India and 70% were in other centres such as London, New York and Dubai.

Bodhi shuts shop

By Riddhi Doshi Mumbai. Source : DNA India.
Recession has claimed yet another victim, only this time on a much bigger scale. Bodhi art gallery, the sole Indian art gallery that had its branches in three international cities, has shut shop in New York and will soon close down in Berlin too. Remaining quite tight-lipped, Sharmistha Ray from Bodhi art gallery confirms, "We have closed down the New York gallery and we will be closing the one in Berlin by mid-February."
When DNA had contacted Bodhi earlier on the same, they had rubbished the matter. And though Sharmistha doesn't share the status of the other three galleries in Delhi, Singapore and Mumbai, our sources allege that they will soon close their galleries in Delhi and Singapore as well. "Their flagship gallery in Mumbai will be the centre point of their business now. They have been getting all the art works down to Mumbai and have also been selling a lot of their art works from their counterparts," reveals a source.
Bodhi had rented spaces in Berlin, Singapore as well as in New York. "Bodhi opened five galleries in the span of about two years. They expanded very rapidly. And now due to the economic meltdown, maintaining these spaces would've proved to be a tough task" adds the source.

ARCO HIT BY CRISIS

Source : Artforum
The APA, via Der Standard, reports on the ARCO fair, which is slated to run February 11–16. In contrast to last year’s record edition—which saw attendance increase to two hundred thousand visitors and sales rise by 15 percent—the upcoming twenty-eighth edition is showing signs of slowing down amid the world financial crisis. According to Der Standard, 20 galleries from the 270 announced have canceled, including Lisson, the Mexican gallery OMR, the Argentinean gallery Ruth Benzacar, and longtime Spanish participant Oliva Arauna. The number of cancellations could have been even greater; a last-minute subsidy from the Portuguese minister of culture saved another twelve Portuguese galleries from canceling their stands at the popular Spanish fair. “This year we are working twice as much, most likely in order to achieve half of what we achieved last year,” said ARCO director Lourdes Fernandez, who believes that the impact of the financial crisis will really hit home in 2010, if the situation does not improve. Yet citing a report in Bloomberg, Der Standard notes that international art prices are remaining stable while sales continue to fall. Despite the crisis, Fernandez is hoping that this year’s guest, India, will attract both visitors and sales. Over the past decade, Indian art has been one of the fastest-growing international sectors.

Indian Art Market lands in Madrid with all its Muscle

Source : India Infoline
A total of 13 galleries and over 50 artists selected by the curator Bose Krishnamachari will give European investors a unique insight into the fascinating Indian art scene.
ARCOmadrid, the 28th International Contemporary Art Fair, has the honour of hosting India as this year's guest country. All the diversity and wealth of Indian visual arts will be landing in the Spanish capital in an unprecedented show that is already arousing a great deal of interest. A total of 13 galleries and over 50 artists selected by the curator Bose Krishnamachari will give European investors a unique insight into the fascinating Indian art scene.
Panorama: India at ARCOmadrid_2009 will offer a faithful cross-section of the booming Indian market. "India's participation at ARCOmadrid_2009 is a historical watershed," claims Krishnamachari "with the fair recognising the role played by Indian contemporary art within the international art scene." Coming from Mumbai are influential and internationally renowned galleries including BODHI ART, CHATTERJEE&LAL, THE GUILD, SAKSHI GALLERY, CHEMOULD PRESCOTT, PROJECT 88 and MIRCHANDANI and STEINRUECKE.
Travelling from New Delhi are VADHERA GALLERY, PHOTOINK, NATURE MORTE, NEW DELHI and ESPACE. The Indian contingent is then rounded off with two galleries from peripheral areas: GALLERY SKE from Bangalore and KASHI ART GALLERY from Cochin, Kerala, who are adding further diversity to the Indian participation at the fair.

Art Sales: TV Santhosh's Living With a Wound

Living With a Wound, paintings of November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai by Indian artist TV Santhosh, may help the Indian art market avoid the chill of recession. By Colin Gleadell. Source : Telegraph
Paintings by one of India's most successful young artists that were made in response to last November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai are to be exhibited for the first time in London this week. Drawing on details from the newspaper and television images that shocked the world, the artist TV Santhosh, whose work has attracted the attention of British collectors Frank Cohen and Charles Saatchi, has painted the images so they look like photographic negatives imbued with garish neon green, yellow and red colours. In one, security guards pour out of a truck as the bombs are going off; in another, a sniffer dog is at work outside the Taj Mahal Hotel where a car has just exploded; and in a third, a woman searches through the rubble carrying a piece of paper with a child's photograph on it.
The exhibition, entitled Living with a Wound, comes at a time when the Indian art market is feeling the chill of recession. Having experienced an unparalleled five-year boom, at first for modern art from the Fifties and Sixties, and then for more recent work by younger artists, cracks began to appear last autumn. In September, a sale at Sotheby's saw half the works by Indian contemporary artists go unsold. In October, ArtTactic, a research group which analyses the performance of emerging markets, reported that confidence in the Indian contemporary art market had fallen drastically, and blamed the withdrawal of speculators who had moved in in force over the previous two years.
> read full article

Picture Imperfect

Source : The Times of India Reputed gallery in New Delhi was forced on Sunday to cancel a show of S H Raza, one of India's best-known painters, after he discovered that the
works attributed to him were fakes. If Satyam dented the image of the Indian IT industry globally, the Raza forgery may have damaged the credibility of the Indian art industry, which has seen a boom in recent times.
Fakes have been reported in the Indian art market before as well. However, the Raza episode is unprecedented for the scale of the forgery. Its perpetrator, who claims to be a nephew of the artist, convinced the gallery that has been in the art trade for years to mount the fakes and dared to have Paris-based Raza at the opening of the exhibition. Clearly, the gallery had not followed basic authentication procedures before organising the show. It has since apologised for the embarrassment caused to the art world but much more needs to be done to rebuild investor confidence in Indian art. The economic meltdown has already slowed down the trade in Indian art and this scam could further dampen the sentiment.
The Raza forgery should serve as a wake-up call for the art industry. Indian art is now estimated to be a Rs 2,000-crore industry and is expected to grow in tandem with the country's economic prowess. With big money chasing art works, fakes are bound to pop up, as has been the case in art markets elsewhere. A slew of measures has been suggested to keep forgeries in check. A national inventory of art works should help to ensure some measure of authentication and keep out fakes. The inventory could be maintained by a body like the Lalit Kala Akademi in collaboration with galleries and artists. Dealers should institute internal audit mechanisms to detect any possible mischief. Authentication and provenance certificates admissible in courts may also help.
Auction houses and galleries must invest in art education so that prospective buyers are not cheated. This would also help to ward off speculators who are keen to fix prices. The Indian art business is young and verifiable information about artists and art works is not always easily available. A well-informed market is necessary if the value of Indian art has to be fully realised. Auction houses, galleries, artists and art lovers should work together to ensure that.

Looking back to look ahead

by K S Shekhawat Business Standard
Gallerists say 2009 will mark a transition in the way collectors hedge their choices. The aborted Osian’s auction — it was scheduled to be held at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai on November 27 — would have been a pointer to a major trend in 2009 : The emergence for collectors of traditional and folk art forms.
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Fine Art Fund Group will cash in on falling art prices

By Dominic O’Connell. Source The Sunday Times
ONE of London’s top professional art investors is to set up a special fund to cash in on the bargains thrown up by the credit crunch. Philip Hoffman, chief executive of the Fine Art Fund Group, said he would raise between $50m (£33m) and $100m for an “opportunistic” investment fund.
Hoffman said he expected prices for some art categories – modern and Impressionist works in particular – to fall by as much as 30% this year. “I am now regularly being approached by wealthy individuals or family estates that are looking to sell art without the publicity of going to auction,” he said. “Unfortunately, at the moment their expectations on price are way too high.”
Evidence is mounting that after years of spectacular growth, art prices are falling. The Mei Moses index, which tracks auctions, suggests prices fell by 4.5% last year, after five years of growth averaging 20% a year. Artprice.com, which also tracks auctions, said that the proportion of works worth more than €1m (£882,000) left unsold increased sharply in the second half of last year.
Hoffman said some art owners would have to accept big losses if they needed a fast sale.
There are other indications that the luxury-goods market is flagging in the face of recession.
Business-jet travel in Europe was down around 16% in December compared with the same month last year, according to figures compiled by Eurocontrol, the pan-European air-traffic agency. There were on average 1,540 flights a day in December, 15.9% down. In July there were 2,614 flights a day, although most of the difference is accounted for by seasonality.
Traffic in America is estimated to be down by around 11%, according to a report from analysts at UBS.
Brokers say secondhand aircraft prices have fallen sharply, with a glut of aircraft on the market. The substantial premiums being paid six months ago for the early delivery of new aircraft have also largely disappeared, brokers say.

Investing in art

by Nalini S Malaviya. Source The Economic Times
This year, the stock market has seen major fluctuations and there are still no signs of easing of the economic recession. Investors are facing a dilemma about where to invest. The financial scene appears bleak at the moment, and most predictions point towards a troubled future.
Recent trends in the art market, too, have failed to inspire confidence in investors. Prices of most artists have fallen either substantially or at least marginally. Many senior artists are now opting to have an exhibition of their works without offering any pieces for sale. This appears to be a strategy to try and maintain their market rates, but, how successful it will be, will become clear only over the next few months.
In such turbulent times, investors should be wary of making any fresh investments in art. In case they would like to do so they should consider all aspects related to the art market dynamics - investment timeframe, risk factors and ease of liquidity. You could opt for artists who are considered safe from a financial investment angle, and who have established and proven themselves over the years.
Although, this forms a safe category and involves blue chip artists, the amount of initial capital is fairly high, and that can be deterrent for many investors.
The other option which is appearing attractive is investing in upcoming artists. The major reason why this is catching on in a big way is that prices are low and these make for excellent wall fillers. However, you must be aware that the risk is high with this category. As the capital required is low, many people are open to spending a part of their disposable income on such art. In this case, if you can do a certain amount of research, and back it with technical expertise in order to select quality works, it increases the chances of picking up a winner.

The Road Ahead

Source : Express India Vandana Kalra
Despite a looming recession, Indian artists are busy preparing for the several exhibitions slated for 2009
At Christie’s, MF Husain’s diptych Battle of Ganga and Jamuna came under the hammer for over Rs 6 crore in March, and in June the auction house set a record for Indian modern and contemporary art when it sold FN Souza’s Birth for over Rs 10 crore. The year 2008 was filled with success stories for Indian art, until, like everything else, it became victim to the global economic recession. Suddenly auctioneers started finding it difficult to excite bidders. The usually grand art openings became less lavish, with a minimalist menu and a basic catalogue. The timeline for the end of this downslide is hard to predict, but galleries and artists are doing whatever it takes to please connoisseurs for the year ahead.
The Indian art world is most excited about the inauguration of the new wings at the National Gallery of Modern Art. Covering an area of 24,700 sq meters, the new wings will have touch screens to give detailed information regarding programme schedules and will include a larger library, preview theatre, conservation laboratories, a cafeteria and an over 200-seat auditorium. The date for the ribbon-cutting ceremony still remains unannounced, but officials at NGMA have already planned exhibitions for D-day. Select museum collections will be on display, along with Tyeb Mehta’s retrospective and an exhibition of Nandalal Bose’s work that has returned after travelling to San Diego Museum of Art and Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Gallery Espace in New Friends Colony celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2009. “There are two major publications and exhibitions planned in July and December,” says Modi, who has also planned a Mekhala Bahl solo in January and a Nilima Sheikh solo in April at the New Friends Colony Gallery.
Other solo exhibitions in the offing include Amitava Das’s ‘The Body Social’ at Delhi Art Gallery in February and before that Baroda-based Art Home will bring to Delhi, sculptures in steel and wood by Jeram Patel at Triveni Kala Sangam in February. Vadehra Art Gallery will showcase recent work by Anjum Singh and Ram Kumar in January, followed by Rameshwar Broota in February and Anju and Atul Dodiya in April. While Arun Vadehra hopes to accommodate an exhibition of Pakistani women artists that was earlier scheduled for December 2008, Aparajita Jain’s Seven Art Limited will also show works by artists from Pakistan. Titled ‘Breaking News’, this will comprise artwork by Imran Ahmed, Nadia Shaukat and Hamra Abbas. At The Devi Art Foundation, Rashid Rana will curate an exhibition of select artwork from Lekha and Anupam Poddar’s collection to portray contemporary art practice in Pakistan, between August to December.
While one can expect art patrons to hobnob over art by masters like Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali at Marigold Fine Art’s second exhibition scheduled early next year, in April, French photographer Marc Riboud will display his images at Tasveer. Also in the photo world, Dayanita Singh will showcase coloured photographs for the first time in India at a solo at Nature Morte and Richard Bartholomew’s photographs will be exhibited at Photoink in January.
Those looking for younger talent, meanwhile, can head to Lalit Kala Akademi, where Vadehra will present Shilpa Gupta’s work in March and to Talwar Art Gallery for A Balasubramaniam’s solo in spring.
Will the impressive line-up bring good news for the mart? Vadehra feels that economic graph and art should be viewed independently of each other. “It’s not the first time that there has been a lowdown and the market isn’t that bad. We have had healthy sales in the last few months. One should look forward to good art,” he smiles.