Sotheby's to showcase Indian photography at New York sale

Source : The Economic Times,Ashoke Nag
KOLKATA: Sotheby’s is uncorking Indian contemporary photography at its September auction in New York. The auction is projecting photography as the next big development on the Indian artistic horizon. Each photographic image is estimated in the range of $5,000-15,000.
Among the lots is ‘Fragments of a Wedding Diary’ by Surekha, the 3rd edition of 5, which is a digital image on archival paper. This is a set of 33 framed photographs executed in 2001.
Estimated at $10,000-15,000, the work has been exhibited in museums in Finland and the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre.
Another piece includes Sunil Gupta’s ‘Homelands’.
The work was showcased in the seminal exhibition, ‘India: Public Places, Private Spaces, Contemporary Photography and Video Art’ in Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey in 2007. It was included in a show in Switzerland in 2007. Gupta’s work at Sotheby’s is estimated to fetch between $5,000-7,000.
Featuring in the selection of photographs is also Vivek Vilasini’s “humorous” work titled ‘Last Supper’. Here, he depicts people in Kathakali outfits seated around a dining table as Christ and his Apostles.
“The choreographed work showcases the beauty and ability of photography as a medium,” said Ms Maithili Parekh, Sotheby’s deputy director. The value of the photograph is between $10,000-15,000.
In the collection is also ‘There Is No Border Here’, a piece photographed by Shilpa Gupta estimated in the range of $6,000-8,000. In step, one finds Tejal Shah’s ‘Encounter(s)’ executed in 2006. Shah’s works have figured in solo exhibits in Mumbai, Berlin and New York. ‘Encounter(s)’ is pegged at an estimate of $6,000-8,000.
“As art prices for paintings and sculptures reach astronomical levels, collectors are turning toward photography which is an affordable and, yet, innovative medium. There are also photographic shows being staged in venues like Newark Museum, New Jersey. Now, Sotheby’s is bringing cutting-edge Indian photography at its Indian art sale in New York,” Ms Parekh said.

Rare treat for art lovers as Hirst comes to India

Source : The Times of India, Neelam Raaj,TNN
NEW DELHI: Indian artists have gone global and now, international auction houses are hoping desi buyers will too. In a bid to tempt Indian collectors, who have shown an inclination only for homebred artists till now, into buying western art, Sotheby's is bringing highlights from its upcoming sale of Damien Hirst's works to India. Besides giving potential buyers a preview of the September sale in London, it will give art lovers here a rare chance to see Hirst's work.
The showing — the artist's first-ever in India — will be held at the Capital's Oberoi Hotel on August 28. Hirst, known for his trademark dead animals in formaldehyde, is Britain's richest living artist and perhaps its most provocative. He is groundbreaking not just as an artist but also in the way he markets his art. By tying up with Sotheby's to sell his latest body of work at an auction, he's circumvented the traditional dealer, gallery system.
And he's expected to reap the profits. The two-day London auction of works which come straight from the Hirst's studio is expected to fetch in excess of 65m pounds ($125m approx). The Golden Calf, the centrepiece of the 'Beautiful Inside My Head Forever' sale, is expected to realise 12m pounds ($24m approx). Though the Calf with its 18-carat gold horns and hooves will not be travelling to India, 14 other works — including Hirst's top-selling butterfly paintings, skulls and some bling — will be showcased here. Also travelling to Delhi will be a Tyeb Mehta work from his Falling Figure With Bird series. The piece, a highlight from Sotheby's upcoming New York auction of Asian and contemporary art, is valued at $1-1.5m.
Oliver Barker, senior international specialist at Sotheby's, said the Hirst exhibition in India was part of a broader corporate strategy to focus on emerging markets. Not surprising, since a lot of demand in the global market is being driven by wealthy Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern investors.
"Till now, Indian collectors — both resident and non-resident — have shown an interest in art originating from their own culture but now they are thinking global. This is a relatively new phenomenon," says Barker.
Interestingly, the reverse is also true with western collectors like Frank Cohen and Francois Pinault showing an increasing appetite for Indian art. So much so that works of Indian artists like Subodh Gupta (dubbed the Damien Hirst of Delhi) are not relegated to some ethnic category at international auctions but mixed with the best from around the world. Thus, a Gupta frame is alongside art by Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol in the same auction.
So it isn't a surprise that now, Damien is looking Delhi-ward. "People will be blown away by the scale and ambition of Hirst's collection. I think he's interested in getting work into parts of the world that have not had the opportunity of buying major pieces before, including India, China and Russia - and we've certainly had a lot of interest from collectors in these places."
Paddle in hand, the Indian buyer is an increasingly common sight in global art auctions. And now, his palette is turning global too.

Christie’s September sale - mix of old and young masters

Source : Sindh Today Aug 15th, 2008
New York, Aug 15 (IANS) International auction house Christie’s is all set to spice up sales in mid September here with its 140 lots of South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art, which will see major works from modern masters to cutting edge artists like Tyeb Mehta, M.F Husain, J. Swaminathan, Ram Kumar and Subodh Gupta.
The sale desires to succeed an overall estimate of $12 million. The highlights include a 1979 Tyeb Mehta Untitled (’Yellow Heads’) assessed at $300,000-500,000 (Rs.12.7 million-Rs.25.5 million). This painting is reminiscent of Tyeb’s diagonal series in which he divides the plane of the canvas with a prominent slanting line.
M.F. Husain’s ‘Ritual’, valued in the bracket of $600,000-800,000, reflects Husain’s sensibility that grew out of the roots of Cubism, Expressionism and Abstraction.
The sale also features an important work by Ram Kumar, who was influenced by names like Modigliani and Leger. The Untitled work, created in 1961, is estimated in the range of $500,000-700,000.
Indian abstract guru J. Swaminathan, who was known to inspire many a young artist at Bhopal Bhavan is represented by a work that seeks its inspiration from folk and tribal art, miniatures as well as Indian mythology. His Untitled work here is from his ‘Bird and Mountain’ Series and is estimated at $300,000-500,000.
Also in the sale is Rameshwar Broota’s ‘The Same Old Story II’, a 1979 oil on canvas, pegged poignantly in the range of $150,000-200,000.
Manjit Bawa’s Untitled, an amazing oil, painted in 1992 is placed in the bracket of $150,000-200,000. This is an unusual Krishna with an embellished head dress of a single peacock feather and wispy white and lavender structures beaming out of his head. Interestingly Bawa’s work is the image on Christie’s card for its Aug 20 preview in New Delhi.
Among the contemporary art offerings in the younger set of artists, Subodh Gupta’s symbolism is shown by two major works. ‘Miter’, revolving around stainless steel and stainless steel utensils, boasts of an estimate of $600,000-800,000. This work is the third in an edition of three. In the same vein, Gupta’s oil on canvas, ‘Steal 2′, is priced at $800,000-1 million.
Most important however in terms of artistic import is Mumbai-dwelling Kerala artist Riyas Komu who is set to blaze Berlin’s Bodhi Art in October with a solo showing. At the Christie’s sale here, Komu’s ‘Designated March of a Petro-Angel’, an oil on canvas, is estimated at $60,000-80,000. This work was exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2007.
The art work belongs to a series of monumental photo-realist images of a bewildered, veiled Iranian woman looking dramatically in different directions, struggling to find her place in society. It was among the strongest contemporary paintings on show in Venice and Komu co-opted an Islamic vocabulary to make the work speak of an international as well as urgent resonance.

Bajaj Capital enters art advisory services

Source : Moneycontrol.com New Delhi, Aug. 10
Bajaj Capital, an investment advisory company and distributor of financial products, has diversified into art advisory services. For the purpose, the company has set up an art house — Bajaj Capital Art House.
“Of late, our clients have started showing interest in other asset classes like art. So we decided to extend our advisory services to art. What we are going to offer is neither a portfolio management scheme nor an art fund. It would be services like advice on buying and selection of art works,” Mr Rajiv Deep Bajaj, Vice-Chairman & Managing Director of Bajaj Capital, told Business Line.
Mr Bajaj highlighted that art had limited downside as compared with pure equities. For Bajaj Capital insiders, art advisory services are dubbed as “seventh wonder” as it is the seventh area that the company is entering into. The company is already providing advisory services in direct equity, mutual funds, real estate, life insurance, general insurance and fixed income.

Market size
The size of the art market is currently estimated at about Rs 1,500 crore and it is recording an annual growth of 30-35 per cent. The auction size was $5 million in 2003 and has grown to $50 million in 2008. In India, the levy of capital gains tax legitimises art as an asset class, Ms Sushma K. Bahl, an art consultant, pointed out.
Taken from Business Line, thehindubusinessline.in

Le marché de l'art ne connaît pas la crise

Source : Boursorama
Selon le quotidien "Les Echos" d'aujourd'hui, "les résultats du marché de l'art international au premier semestre confirment la tendance positive observée le mois dernier sur le marché parisien". Les salles de ventes Christie's et Sotheby's à Londres enregistrent de bons résultats. La première annonce un volume de ventes mondial en hausse de 10 % au premier semestre 2008 par rapport au 1er semestre 2007. La seconde enregistre son deuxième meilleur résultat de son histoire avec un volume de ventes établi à 3 milliards de dollars (1,94 milliard d'euros) au premier semestre. "Les secteurs qui se portent le mieux sont l'art impressionniste, moderne, d'après-guerre et contemporain, les bijoux et les montres, ainsi que l'art d'Asie, indien et arabe", rapporte le journal. Les perspectives s'annoncent bonnes : "le marché de l'art va dans l'ensemble rester solide et stable", selon le directeur général de Christie's.

Art as an investment

Source : Sify Finance Minna Kumar
Volatile stock markets have become the norm. Real estate requires huge chunks of investment and bank deposit rates are hardly able to keep up with rising inflation rate. Given this scenario, art seems to have become a safe option for investment. Art experts feel that, apart from gold, it is the only commodity which gives steady returns. Art can make its own money over a period of time.
The flip side is equally relevant. With surging salaries for technology and finance professionals and a growing middle-class ready to splurge, art in India has many takers. It has also led to art prices increasing substantially over the past decade.
fund your investment
The organised art market in the country is valued at around Rs 800 crore a year, which experts say is growing at a rate of over 30 per cent per annum.
According to Osian's-Connoisseurs of Art Private Ltd, a leading archive and auction house, those eager to invest must come ready not only with funds but also with expertise. Apart from taking a call on the type of artist, art collectors have to take a long-term stand towards this form of investment.
Given the steady rise in the value of artwork, this form of investment is certainly not short term. Give it some time and this does not mean lifetime but at least around three years. In some cases, certain pieces of art have given 100 per cent returns and more.
Financial institutions such as Citibank, ABN Amro, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank have had to foresight to look at art as a viable form of investment. Banks have set up art advisories, where high networth individuals (HNIs) are offered advice to select and purchase or sell art works. Several banks have tied-up with auction houses and art galleries for the purpose. A number of financial institutions like Edelweiss Capital and Dawnay Day have also 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. These funds may soon come under the purview of market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
Apart from private collectors and art galleries, art can also be purchased through online auctions. Through this medium, collectors can purchase works of artists in other parts of the country and also get a mix of well established and lesser-known artists.
Online auctions like Saffronart, which featured the work of painters, sculptors and installation artists, attracted art lovers and investment oriented people from across the globe.
Prices of works of art are surging like never before. Recently, a 1971 water colour by M F Husain titled “Shiva” recently sold for Rs 34 lakh. About a decade ago, Hussain’s works fetched about Rs 60,000.
Auctions of modern and contemporary Indian art have fetched million of dollars in overseas markets in recent years. For example, Christie’s sold a Tyeb Mehta painting for $1.6 million just two years ago.
With international auctioneers taking a keen interest in the Indian art scene, a growing brood of art curators, advisories, auctioneers and online galleries, there is no derth for ways and means to purchase art. Potential investors are however advised to do their homework about the artists, his previous works, the authenticity of the artwork and the dealer or gallery.

India reaping boom in global art investment

New Delhi, July 24 Source : IANS
Investment in art continues to be robust globally despite the credit crisis in other financial sectors. And India is reaping the benefits of the boom as it tries to emerge as a mature market, says art investment guru Phillip Hoffman.
'The art market continues to perform strongly, exhibiting long-term growth year after year,' Hoffman, who is in his mid 40s, told IANS in an exclusive e-mail interview from London.
Hoffman, the chief executive of the Fine Art Fund Group, which is the first fund to invest in art as an asset class worldwide, is launching the Indian Fine Art Fund to cash in on the demand for Indian art by investors in the global market.
'We at the Fine Art Fund Group believe there is a high level of creativity and talent in India, which is going to make this market move even further; and with continued global exposure in 2008, we think it is the right time to invest in Indian art,' Hoffman said.
The art fund pioneer, who was the youngest member of auction house Christie's International Management Group at 33, is also credited with setting up the Fine Art Fund II and the Chinese Art Fund. He has been associated with funding and investment in international art for the last 18 years.
The current size of the global art market indicates the volume of investment it is attracting, says Hoffman who is visiting India next month to address the India Art Summit-2008.
'It is estimated that the size of the art market is $3 trillion with an annual turnover of $30 billion. However, as the market becomes more global, some predictions claim that the annual turnover will rise to $100 billion by 2012,' Hoffman said.
India, however, said Hoffman, was still in its emerging phase. 'The size of the market has grown from $2 million to approximately $400 million in seven years alone,' he said.
An expanding buyers' base is triggering the investment boom in Indian art. In the past, Indian art was purchased by rich Indians in the country and non-resident Indians abroad.
But it is now finding investors overseas, thanks to the spurt in the international exhibitions and global auctions of Asian art, Hoffman explained.
'However, we believe that the demand for Indian art is continuously growing and that the market has not yet matured. An international fair of Indian art can help boost the growth rate by directly involving the galleries and artists alike, getting collectors and investors on site. And thus generating general interest,' Hoffman said.
The Fine Art Fund Group chief believes that modern and contemporary Indian art had been undervalued as compared to other areas of the art market. But with the boom in the financial markets, real estate and other asset classes in India, many new art collectors are establishing themselves and purchasing works from artists of similar heritage, Hoffman said.
The Indian art scene, feels the investment honcho, is already global in a sense.
'It continuously attracts international buyers, dealers and auction houses. Indian art is well represented by galleries worldwide and is closely followed by collectors and investors alike. I think there is much room for growth in the Indian art market.
'Prices are rising and are much higher than they were, say, five years ago. However, compared to Western contemporary art, there is potential for a hike in prices,' Hoffman said.
Much of the investment boom in Asian art has been prompted by a new wave of investors, which includes buyers like India, China, Russia and the Middle East.
'These new geographical segments have made a powerful entrance by bringing both new artists and investors in the market,' Hoffman said.
The boom in investment and growth in the country's art market is here to stay. 'It has never been affected by recession so far and has proven to be a very stable investment option with a positive history,' Hoffman said.
According to him, the market correction of the early 1990s, which followed the art market boom of the late 1980s, was largely due to the entry of Japanese buyers, who used the market for purposes of money laundering and tax evasion.
The Japanese investors bought art works en masse and dumped it back into the market creating an artificial high.
'But that boom could not be sustained. Now, the art market is global and as such cannot be affected by any single group of buyers or investors,' Hoffman signed off, predicting a steady road ahead for investment in Indian art.

Art market boom benefits Christie's and Sotheby's

Source : Financial Times By Deborah Brewster Published: July 18 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 18 2008
The boom in the art market has handed strong results to the two big auction houses, with Christie's and Sotheby's together selling about $7bn worth of artworks in the first six months of the year - 12 per cent more than last year.
Christie's said yesterday it had total worldwide sales of £1.8bn ($3.6bn), a rise of 10 per cent on the same period last year. That includes both auction sales and private treaty sales.
It sold 457 works for more than $1m each, compared with 430 sold in the same period last year.
Christie's is privately owned by French billionaire Francois Pinault, and does not provide profits or revenue. Ed Dolman, the chief executive of Christie's, said: "Christie's robust results for the first half of 2008 reflect the ongoing strength of the international art market... Christie's extensive international network has introduced an increasing number of buyers to the international art market from growth markets including Russia and the CIS States, the Middle East, India and China."
Sotheby's, which is publicly traded, said it had auction sales of $3bn in the first half.
However, it said its big contemporary art sale was held in early July, a few days after Christie's equivalent sale in late June.
If that sale were included in Sotheby's sales, the total would be $3.1bn. Its private sales will be released in August, the group said.
Christie's said Europe and the UK comprised £837m in sales, and the US £631m. Asia and the Middle East contributed £179m, and Dubai - reported separately - contributed £20m. Christie's said its growth in Asia alone was 63 per cent, as Chinese and Indian buyers emerge as increasingly big buyers of both their own art and western art.
Despite the widely reported growth in contemporary art, Impressionist and Modern works were the single biggest category at Christie's, selling £497m, just ahead of post-war and contemporary art, which contributed £408m.
See Business Life
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Click and tell!

Source : Deccan Herald, Banalata Bipani tracks the journey of Indian photography which has come a long way from being relatively inconspicuous to commanding big bucks in the international auctions.
First it was Indian paintings and now it is Indian photography and vintage photographs of India that’s making waves in the international art market. Photographs account for as much as seven per cent of art auction sales in 2007, although this category of art is priced at one tenth the price of paintings. During Christie’s recent contemporary Indian art sale, price of works by Indian photographers ranged from Rs Four to Rs 12.7 lakh.
Five years ago, a photograph by the famous Indian photo-journalist Raghu that fetched $100 in India, is now being valued at $10,000. Ravi Prasad, CEO and president of Himalaya group of multinationals and wife Trupti Prasad bought a 3.5 ft X 5 ft photograph of a 23-year-old relatively unknown photographer called Shibu Arakkal in Bangalore in 1999. The single edition cost the Prasads Rs 8,500. Today, Arakkal’s limited edition prints are priced Rs 50,000 upwards, not taking into account the smaller size or the single edition, as opposed to multiple editions.
Further this year the famous Osian’s Art Fund in India, run by connoisseur Neville Tuli, just acquired 45 original, silver gelatin prints by Henri Cartier- Bresson, which are a collection of photographs of Mahatma Gandhi. Apart from a 17.5 percent custom duty to bring these artworks to India, Osian’s paid British pounds 80,000 (Rs 66 lakhs) which is the highest price paid by a private institution in India for a collection of photographs.
Photography developed in Europe around the 1820s. Louis Daguerre, who perfected the daguerreotype in 1839, attracted the attention of investors with the advertised slogan: “(the) daguerreotype is not merely an instrument which serves to draw nature; (it) gives her the power to reproduce herself.” The process reached Calcutta as early as 1840, although the earliest extant daguerreotype plates date between 1842 and 1845. Photography in India is mainly credited with four ages – the 1839-1911 period when only professionals and gifted amateurs could handle the camera, 1911 to 1945, when the scientific developments of the war years made photography more gadget-oriented, and the period 1945 to 1995, when the newly introduced digital cameras changed the concept of photogrraphy.
Nurtured by eminent photographers like Deen Dayal of Hyderabad, Maharaja Ramsingh of Jaipur Indian photographers ensured that the British Era of Indian photography was well documented and photographed. Raghu Rai’s 1984 photographs of Indira Gandhi’s death and funeral stand in a long Indian journalistic tradition, as do Manish Swarup’s 2002 pictures of the effects of sectarian violence in Gujarat.
As an indicator of trends closer home, gallery exhibitions of contemporary photography in Mumbai in early 2007 boasted typical prices from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 per 2’ X 3’ print, for limited editions (usually of 10 to 20 prints per image), and sold, perhaps, two to five images in a week long exhibition. In comparision, by mid 2008, the galleries are seeing prices from Rs 10,000 to Rs two lakh each, yet seeing sales of 10 to 20 images over a week.
It is important to know what the buyer must look for in investing in photograph by Indian photographers. As per the curator of New Era Art Gallery in Mumbai:
Foremost, of course, is the perceived value of the artist. Even mundane works by a celebrated photographer will command high prices.
An undamaged print, in pristine condition, ideally printed on archival quality media, mounted ideally on acid free board.
Certificate of authenticity signed by the artist, specifying the edition size and the serial number of your print.
Signed declaration by the artist of holding the copyright of the image and rights of exhibition and sale.
Copies of any required model, release property or release for images containing a recognisable model.
Maharaja Features

Christie's rides art boom in India, China

Source : Economic Times LONDON : Auction house Christie’s says it has recorded a 63% growth entirely due to the emergence of Indian and Chinese buyers of both their own art and western art. Christie’s total worldwide sales in the first half of this year amounted to £1.8 billion, a rise of 10% on the same period last year.
That includes both auction sales and private treaty sales. It sold 457 works for more than half a million pounds each, compared with 430 sold in the same period last year.
Europe and Britain comprised £837 million in sales, and the in the US £631 million, Asia and the Middle East contributed £179 million, and Dubai reported separately contributed £20 million, according to the ‘Financial Times’.
Artist records were established, including for 38 Japanese artists, 10 Indian artists, eight Chinese artists and 11 Korean artists. Ed Dolman, the chief executive of Christie’s, said in a statement: “Christie’s robust results for the first half of 2008 reflect the ongoing strength of the international art market. Christie’s extensive international network has introduced an increasing number of buyers to the international art market from growth markets including Russia and the CIS States, the Middle East, India and China.”
Asian art that went under the hammer at Christie’s in this period is worth around £139 million, making it the third biggest sales category after Impressionist and modern art worth £497 million and Post-war and contemporary art worth £408 million.
According to artdaily.org, the auction of South Asian Modern/Contemporary Art realised £5.4 million, the highest total for the category in London.
The auction saw 12 artist records broken with Francis Newton Souza’s ‘Birth’ (1955) selling for £1.3 million setting a record price for an Indian modern and contemporary

Envies

Fair Ground

Source : Business Standard, Gargi Gupta / New Delhi July 19, 2008
The ShContemporary is a sign of a mature Chinese art market.
Come September, and eight galleries from various Indian cities will be travelling to the Middle Kingdom.
Their desintation, the ShContemporary 2008, or the Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Fair as it's formally called, held in Shanghai from September 10-13. This is only the second year of the fair, which was instituted as something of a meeting ground for the best of contemporary art from the East and the West.
Quite successfully, since as many as 130 galleries from 23 countries participated last year, along with dealers, curators, museum representatives, artists and visitors numbering around 25,000. The Indian presence was not inconsequential (considering that Indian galleries are relatively recent to the art-fair scene).

Four galleries — Bodhi, Chemould Prescott, Sakshi and Nature Morte; three artists in the "best of discovery" curated section, showcasing young and promising talent — Shilpa Gupta, Sharmila Samant and Ravikumar Kashi; and another three in the "best of artists" section for the more established names — Jittish Kallat, Sudarshan Shetty and Zarina Hashmi.
Sales were good says Geetha Mehra, founder of Sakshi Gallery, adding "There was a lot of energy in the air." Nivedita Magar, director with SKE Gallery in Bangalore, reports much the same.
"Many inquiries are still coming in," she says. The gallery, which specialises in new age, mixed media kind of work, was recommended for participation at the inaugural ShContemporary by Pierre Huber, a Geneva-based dealer who was artistic director of the fair (he has since stepped down after allegations of "conflict of interest").
Despite a few glitches like very high import duties — which meant Magar spent far more on transporting the art works within China than she did shipping them from India — and taxes on Chinese nationals buying foreign art, the Shanghai experience was valuable, Magar feels, "as it set off a network".
This year, the Indian contingent to Shanghai is far larger than 2007's — eight galleries, with such established names as Gallery Espace, Vadehra and Threshold, among them. The "best of discovery" section announced already has six Indians — Deeksha Nath (curator and critic), Tushar Joag, Vibha Galhotra, Ved Gupta, Sumedh Rajendran and Suhasini Kejriwal.
But there's more to the China-India art encounter in recent times than the ShContemporary. The most important here is the 2006 exhibition at the Arario gallery in Beijing, "Hungry God", which had a large selection of contemporary Indian artists like Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Tallur L N and Sonia Khurana.
Lately, these isolated encounters look set to become two way. "We already collect Chinese art and have been showing them selectively in our group shows at Sakshi," says Mehra.
In art, as in their economies, there is a tendency in the West to see the two countries together as the two Asian giants with the most "happending" art that collectors must watch out for.
To give just one example, last year's Rencontres D'Arles, arguably the most important international photography festival on the calendar, focussed on both India and China. The truth, however, is a little more complicated. While we celebrate the record $2.48 million that Souza's "Birth" recently went for at a Christie's auction, Yue Minjan's 1995 oil "Execution" went for $ 5.9 million last year at Southeby's, while the "Mask Series 1996 No.6" by Zeng Fanzhi fetched the highest price ever by an Asian artists — $9.7 million, at Christie's Hong Kong auction in May.
High prices, of course, don't mean anything. But fairs like the ShContemporary, especially the importance they are given by galleries and curators globally, show how much more mature the Chinese art market is.

Meet China’s top collector of contemporary art

Source : The Art Newspaper, Chris Gill | 17.7.08 | Issue 193 Guan Yi tells us about his plans to open a museum and sculpture park on a 16.5-acre plot of land in Beijing
Guan Yi, 42, has assembled the most important holdings of contemporary art in China. He comes from a family which made huge sums of money in chemical manufacturing in Qingdao but in 1997 ceded management of the family business to his brother to concentrate entirely on collecting. At the time most contemporary art was going abroad to foreign buyers and he believed that “we Chinese should recognise that this art of our time is important”.
Guan Yi believes he is collecting art as a mission, doing the work that public institutions and the Chinese government are failing to carry out. He now owns “700, maybe even 800 works” of Chinese art including pieces by Huang Yong Ping, Wang Guangyi, Zhang Peili, Wu Shanzhuan, and Yan Lei. Around one third of the collection consists of large-scale installation pieces. He says he is increasingly frustrated by the rampant speculation in the Chinese art market which is making it difficult for talented young artists to emerge today. He also sees the lack of professional art critics in China as another big problem. The tendency in China to equate high prices with art historical importance is hampering the development of significant work, he says.
Although Guan Yi prefers to stay out of the limelight, he granted us a rare interview at his warehouse in Song Zhuang, on the outskirts of Beijing, to discuss his project to build a museum for his collection as well as a sculpture park for works commissioned from international artists.

The Art Newspaper: What are your intentions for your collection?
Guan Yi: I am planning to open a large contemporary art museum in a district of Beijing called Beigao, which is between the 798 art district and the airport. The land I hope to develop is next to a space where China’s Ministry of Culture is also planning to open a contemporary art museum.
TAN: Are you working with the Ministry of Culture?
GY: No, they are doing their project independently. I am doing mine, they are doing theirs.
TAN: In China all land belongs to the government and usage rights are a complicated issue. Have you discussed this with the authorities?
GY: Yes, we have communicated, but there are some outstanding legal issues regarding the land. In China, land is not for personal use. Under present law you can only get a 20-year lease on land, so we are negotiating on this point. The amount of investment I commit to the museum will depend on the guarantees I receive from the government on this issue. We want a definite decision.
TAN: What is your idea for this private museum? There aren’t many such museums in China.
GY: I have collected a lot of installation work. What you can see here, in my warehouse, represents only 10% of my collection. One third of what I own is installation work and some pieces are more than several hundred metres in size, so to display my collection, I need a space of 15,000 sq. m. If you give these big pieces to a government museum such as the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, the Shanghai Art Museum, or the Guangdong Museum of Art, they have no place to put them. So I thought the solution was to build an art museum, not far from the centre of Beijing, something like Dia:Beacon [in upstate New York].
TAN: So Dia:Beacon inspired this project?
GY: Yes, partly, but they have converted a disused factory, whereas I will construct a new building to display my collection. I especially like the idea that I can get architects and artists to collaborate on this so the space can be designed around the works of art, to make the space fit the art. This model is new for China.I have 16.5 acres of land, and the built space cannot be more than 15% of the entire area. So a big part of the land will be used for a park which I will use to show installations. And this will be the international part of the museum complex.
For example, I admire the Serpentine Gallery in London. Hans [Ulrich Obrist] and Julia [Peyton-Jones], the co-directors, are my very good friends. When Hans visited my collection he was very excited, very moved, by what I have here. So, I would like to invite international artists to create installations for this section of the museum. Works that fit the environment, so it will become an installation park.
In a way it will also be an environmentally-themed museum. It will use solar power and other devices. Also, the transportation around the park will be powered by environmentally friendly methods. We would like to explore ways that artists can turn this into a kind of installation work. For instance, I very much like the work of the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson that was in Tate Modern [Eliasson’s giant sun, The Weather Project, was installed in the Turbine Hall from October 2003 to March 2004]. In 2003 I met him in Shenzhen, and when I saw his work in Tate Modern I wanted to buy it, but it was too expensive.
TAN: Is the museum going to be entirely funded by you?
GY: It is my personal project, my own money. The more we talk about this museum, the more I feel I should talk about the things that happened in the past which brought me to this point. In the 1980s, I was also an artist, but maybe not as modernised as other artists, I can’t paint very well.
I can’t write well either, but when I was quite young my older brother bought me a Nikon FMR. In the 1980s in China, this was an extremely good camera, so I became a photographer. That time in China was called Wenhua Autobahn, or the Culture Utopia period.
TAN: Yes, I’ve heard that in the 1980s, books were freely translated and there was a lot of information coming in from the West, even though the economy wasn’t developed. But it all ended after 4 June 1989.
GY: Yes. So I was around during that time, until 4 June. Then in 1992 or 1993, as China’s economy started developing, I went into business. I still paid attention to developments in the art world, but by then information was restricted and you couldn’t read about much in the Chinese art press. People would bring me Taiwanese art magazines, artists’ magazines and by 1997 I was already thinking about returning to the art world. But how to do it? There was no way for me to be an artist. For a while I thought of becoming an architect, but then I discovered that wasn’t so easy either. So for a long time I made a lot of plans, and attended a lot of exhibitions, events, and thought about how I could return to the art world. At the same time, I would see work I liked a lot, so I started collecting.
After I started buying art, I realised that the whole system for collecting contemporary art in China was organised for foreign buyers, everything was going abroad. No one Chinese was collecting contemporary art. This got me very excited. I thought that what I could do was come up with a method to save some contemporary art for China.
The last 30 years have been years of great change in China, in our society, in our ways of thinking. It is an immensely important period in our history. It is symptomatic of government ideology, that there was no systematic collection or protection of art and culture during this period. So I became anxious to do this. I am not being a nationalist, I just feel that we ourselves should have kept some work of this period, not others. For example, if this work is collected in Paris, and then they give it back to you or lend it to you, this is a separate thing but we Chinese should recognise that this art of our time is important.
The big problem is that the government is not collecting these works. In reality it should be the big three national art museums collecting this art, but actually they collect very few works.
I have loaned various works from my collection: after the Ullens show [Guan Yi loaned several pieces to the Huang Yong Ping retrospective which closed at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing’s 798 district in June], I am lending several works to Japanese museums—three institutions are hosting a three-month show of Chinese art. But I would now like to give this collection to the country, or more accurately, give it to society. If I say I am giving it to the country, I don’t know who that is, where do I look to find the person to give it to?
Another factor is that they will just look at my collection and say “this art is very expensive”, there’s no understanding of whether it is good or not. So no one understands its value and this is a real problem. Before my collection is handed back to the country or society, I will have to wait, until they are clearer about what it is.
There are other things that make me anxious, for instance that works of art are increasingly expensive, even young artists are expensive and it is hard to keep up. So now, when we buy things, we need to be increasingly careful to choose only the best art. There is no extra money to go and buy other things. So I only collect the work of a small group of artists, maybe around 30. There are tens of thousands of artists in China today, but I think to collect 30 to 50 artists, is enough. I think now, it’s even hard to find 30. If you were to choose ten from each decade of the last 30 years, this would be enough. And these 30 aren’t necessarily the 30 most expensive on the market.
TAN: Would you consider selling works from your collection at auction?
GY: I won’t sell at auction, but I now own 700, maybe even 800 works. So, maybe, some works are no longer as relevant to my overall collection or do not fit into my system.
TAN: Do you think there is a danger when you sell the work of a particular artist—like when Charles Saatchi was perceived to be no longer collecting an artist—that this could damage the artist’s career?
GY: Well, Saatchi stopped buying Damien Hirst’s work and Hirst is doing pretty well. Hirst is important, but his work is a bit too expensive.
TAN: So how do you choose works for your collection? Do you pay attention to what the critics say?
GY: I decide by myself [Guan Yi shows me two inscribed doorpost signs from an old temple]. These words describe how what happens outside the temple has no influence on the interior, but how being outside the temple you can still be inside the temple in your mind. You can carry the spirit of the temple with you. I pay great attention to this. I think in China, there is too much “tryism” [a combination of capitalism and trying things out to see what happens. Guan Yi points to another phrase on the doorpost].
This phrase refers to an ancient Chinese monk who went to India to study Buddhism, but what this means is we don’t have to travel to India to study Buddhism. If you are very familiar yourself with Buddhism, there is no need to travel. What I mean by this is not a kind of nationalism, many people have been here, groups from museums all around the world have visited this warehouse. But to understand Chinese contemporary art, you must understand that its history is very short, it is hard for us to know what is good and what is bad. And with the [prices achieved at] auctions recently, this makes it even more difficult, as people use this as a way of judging art. So now it is very hard to write about Chinese art. There is no education, there is no tradition, no texts. How do you get an accurate answer to any question? Who can tell you? Chinese critics? There are far too many problems with them. Too many people have become business-oriented, so you have no idea if they are telling the truth or lying. In the west, critics are clearer on the work, so the price and critical meaning are quite separate, but in China critics aren’t clear. Can we trust the national art museums? The art museums are also not clear, the market has such an influence. So, I rely on myself.
TAN: Is there anyone else who shares this desire to keep some contemporary art of China in the country?
GY: No, I am alone. I really don’t know if other people are with me or not, I don’t communicate much with others. If you look at a lot of other collectors, they are following the auction market. If you follow the auctions, then the whole thing is turned upside down. I’ll tell you a story: in 2004, just when this warehouse was finished, a lot of people, including bankers, came to visit to have a look at my contemporary art.
But after they had looked, they wanted to know: all of this work I had spent so much money on, what is it? They said, if you gave it to me I wouldn’t want it, and I would have nowhere to put it. But then, in around 2006, they got back in touch. They said they had heard these things had become extremely expensive and that they would like to come again and have another look. And I said, “no way, no way” would I let them look again. Because they didn’t understand what they were looking at. It was only when the art had a price attached to it that they paid attention to it. So, it is not about art or culture for them, it is about a capitalist way of looking.
Now, a lot of people are investing in art, it has become a kind of stock, a lot of people are paying attention to it. Capital is becomingly increasingly important in art, and you must be especially careful of it, it’s a bad influence. It’s like Marx said. I have re-read Marx and a lot of what he said is right. It is not about developing art, it’s all about the price. This means this is the most difficult, most dangerous time for art in China. To be a young artist now is increasingly difficult. In the 1980s, for example, it was easier to become a good artist.
TAN: Some young artists now sell for tens of thousands of US dollars right at the beginning of their careers. Is this dangerous for their development as artists? Maybe a Picasso can cope with this, but for most artists it is normal to go through a period of struggle, to discover what it is they want to do.
GY: Yes, although there aren’t that many like Picasso. In China a lot of young artists come up with an idea, and with that one idea they can sell several hundred pieces. In the 1980s an artist would have an idea, then do perhaps two or three works and then leave it and move on. Now it has become like a production line this idea, several hundred pieces, that idea 200 pieces…not a lot to do with art.
TAN: Many believe that the political art coming out of China is made for foreigners. Do you think it is foreigners encouraging political expression? Or is it Chinese artists painting what Westerners perceive to be Chinese, like Mao Zedong or the Cultural Revolution?
GY: I think this is a very simple question, like a child’s question. So how will I answer? These political paintings are a very small, insignificant part of Chinese contemporary art.
TAN: So which contemporary artists do you think are important?
GY: The most recent period: Wang Xingwei, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Zheng Guogu, Zhou Tiehai, Yan Lei, Liu Weihua, Cao Fei, Qiu Anxiong—they all represent this time.
Translated from Mandarin by Chris Gill

Indian artists make big money at Sotheby's

Source : The Economic Times KOLKATA: Sotheby’s day sale of contemporary art in London has seen some Indian artists achieve tidy prices.
Raqib Shaw’s Chrysanthemum & Bee,which was estimated at £80,000-120 ,000, has been picked up for £103,250 and Anish Kapoor’s After Marsyas, with an estimate of £70,000- £90,000, has sold for £109,250.
At the same time, a Subodh Gupta Untitled (Across Seven Seas), sporting an estimate in the range of £40,000- £60,000 has been bought out for £85,250.
In the same breath, T V Santosh’s Man Made Famine and the Rats, which was pegged at an estimate of £40,000-60 ,000, has gone for £121,250. In step, an Anish Kapoor Untitled, assessed to sell between £400,000 and £600,000, has been acquired for £481,250.
In an email to ET from London, Mr James Sevier of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art department, said: “The group of works by Indian artists in our major sales of Contemporary Art in London, once again performed exceptionally well. Seven of the nine works offered realised a price that was handsomely in excess of their presale high estimate. We were particularly delighted with the new auction records established for Anish Kapoor (in the Evening Sale) and the leading Pakistani Contemporary artist Rashid Rana (in the Day Sale)."
“The positive results confirm the continued and growing international interest in the Indian contemporary art field. We’re looking forward to building on this again in our Contemporary sales in London in the autumn.”
Incidentally , Pakistan’s Rashid Rana work Veil #6, which showed an estimate of £60,000-80 ,000, shot past the presale value and went for a whopping £325,250.
The international section was led by names like Francis Bacon, Anthony Gormley, Richard Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Interestingly, the Basquiat masterpiece, Untitled, from 1982-83 was sold on behalf of the rock band U2 for £5.081 million.
The painting was acquired jointly by members of the band after it was first spotted by bassist Adam Clayton at Robert Miller Gallery in New York. The band acquired Untitled in 1989, and it has since resided in their Dublin studio.
A group for 12 works from the Helga and Walther Lauffs collection performed well above expectations when they raised a total of £18.983 million against a presale estimate of £6.470- £8.930 million.

The breakdown of buyers by lots saw Europe leading the way with 49%, US at 39%, Asia 3%, with other regions in the bracket of 8%.

`Economies opening up do boost art prices`

Source : Business Standard Q&A/ Maithili Parekh. Kishore Singh / New Delhi July 04, 2008

London's summer of contentment has nothing to do with a delayed spring and everything to do with flourishing art prices, as record sales proceeds keep the accountants scratching their heads at the impossibility of those zeros. Sotheby's June sale of impressionist and modern art, for instance, proved to be its largest ever with a value of Rs 865.67 crore. At separate Christie's auctions, first F N Souza, then S H Raza, scaled the Rs 10-crore benchmark with works auctioned, respectively, at Rs 10.68 and Rs 10.88 crore each. And on Tuesday and Wednesday, at Sotheby's sale of contemporary art, where Indian artists rubbed shoulders with their peers from around the world, Mumbai-born, London-based Anish Kapoor set a new record for his Untitled sculpture that won a bid of Rs 16.75 crore (two other, smaller works were auctioned for Rs 4.15 crore and Rs 94 lakh respectively). At the same sale, the gavel went down for Subodh Gupta at Rs 5.17 crore, for Rashid Rana at Rs 2.8 crore, for T V Santhosh at Rs 1 crore, while Raqib Shaw fetched Rs 89 lakh and Bharti Kher Rs 65 lakh.
While Christie's has traditionally been more active in the Indian art market, Sotheby's interest has now peaked, with Mumbai-born Maithili Parekh joining the auction house in London to look after Indian and diaspora clients and, as she says, "to source works from India". As deputy director-business development, Parekh is convinced that "collectors are getting more discerning" which is why "mediocre work is not commanding premium prices" any more. She spoke with Kishore Singh at the conclusion of the contemporary sales on July 1 and 2:
Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor and Subodh Gupta in the same catalogue — wow, have we arrived!
Including Indian works in a sale of international contemporary artists so they aren't pigeon-holed is an important step. If Western artists are considered international, so should Indian artists. Sotheby's has been the market leader in including works by Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, T V Santhosh alongside artists such as Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon in international contemporary auctions. Our first such auction took place in February 2008 in London. Since then we have had three more sales where the highest quality Indian art has been sold with works by international artists.
Has there ever been another period in memory when international art prices were as stratospheric as they are today?
Historically, the art market has had its price cycles but the exponential prices we are seeing today are truly remarkable. Such high prices for Indian art have never been reached before.
Why should art have such premium when nothing else — not films, music, architecture, fashion or food — comes as close?
Good art has a timeless quality to it. It represents and defines a period in the history of human civilisation. Owning such a work is priceless. The top artists of any generation are true geniuses.
How do you predict the art market for the rest of this decade?
I believe the art market will continue to flourish, bringing in fresh blood and ideas and experimenting with new media. I also believe that the artist and the collector are getting more discerning, so we are seeing better quality art being created.
There is fear that in a global world, the supply of art is drying up, hence this rush to unexploited markets in Asia.
I think new artists, fresh ideas are coming up all the time and it is critical to identify the best art and nurture it through the primary and secondary markets. In Asia, where we are witnessing a tremendous growth spurt and changes on the economic, cultural and political fronts, I believe the creative process has also received tremendous encouragement and will continue to flourish.
Why have Indian (and Chinese) artists been so late in finding recognition? Is there a correlation between the opening of these markets and the rising prices of art?
There is definitely a correlation between the Chinese and Indian economies opening up and the art of these regions being recognised. Wealth creation drives patronage of the arts, which is what we're witnessing.
The association of art is increasingly being limited to investment.
Art is being seen by certain people as an asset class but I believe it is only passion for art that can sustain a collecting tradition.
Have prices for Indian art peaked?
This is hard to predict but I do believe that Indian art prices will continue to rise. Indian art is at a much lower price point than, say, Chinese or Russian contemporary art.
What does India need to do for more art to be seen by the public?
The establishment of art foundations, museums and art educational institutions are all steps in the right direction. We need organised government funding and institutional support to make contemporary art more accessible to people at large in India.
For their money, what artists should collectors be looking at?
Younger artists are a good purchase. Buy with instinct and passion. As far as the moderns go, good works by Tyeb, Gaitonde, Husain, Raza, Souza, along with the second generation including Arpita Singh, Zarina Hashmi, Jogen Chowdhury. In the contemporaries, Jitish Kallat, Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, T V Santhosh, Anish Kapoor are some of the names. This list is definitely not exhaustive but a good start to collecting some well-known artists.
When can we expect Sotheby's to auction Indian art in India?
Sotheby's has no plans yet of holding auctions in India. Our clientele is global and diverse, we continue to do business with clients based in India through their participation in our London and New York salesrooms.
In this ambitious marketplace, is there room more for the modest collector?
Absolutely yes. Works by younger artists, smaller works by the masters are all good buys for the modest collector. At the Sotheby's Indian sale in London on May 2, we sold a lot of works between the £2000-5000 range.

Investors Turn to Art; Sales Make Record $1.1 Billion

Source: Bloomerg News By Scott Reyburn
July 4 (Bloomberg) -- London auction houses sold a record 558.8 million pounds ($1.1 billion) of art including fees over two weeks, with buyers coming into the market seeking to make money as other investments stalled.
The total, calculated by Bloomberg from auction house results, is the highest for Impressionist and contemporary sales in London, beating the 521.1 million pounds in February.
``There's no confidence in stock markets at the moment,'' said London dealer Alan Hobart, of Pyms Gallery. ``People have realized there's money to be made out of art.''
The auction houses' day sales of ``affordable items'' under 500,000 pounds showed continuing demand. A week ago, analysts said that the global economic slowdown and credit crunch might reduce sales for priced at less than $1 million, while billionaires such as Russia's Roman Abramovich would continue to buy trophies.
The high point of the series was the 40.9 million pounds with fees paid on June 24 at Christie's International for Claude Monet's 1919 water-lily painting, ``Le Bassin aux Nympheas.'' The price, twice the mid estimate, bid in the room by the London-based art adviser Tania Buckrell Pos, was the highest paid for an Impressionist work of art in Europe, said Christie's.
When contacted by telephone, Buckrell Pos said she could not make any comment about the nationality of her client. ``But there's no doubt that people are now treating art as an alternative asset class,'' she said.

Sale Totals
For the first time, Christie's and Sotheby's held Impressionist and contemporary auctions in successive weeks. Their contemporary sales, combined with Phillips de Pury, fetched 260.9 million pounds. February's sales were 250.1 million pounds.
The pursuit of ``passion investments'' by the world's richest individuals remains undeterred by economic volatility, said the World Wealth Report, published last month by Merrill Lynch & Co. and Capgemini SA.
Worldwide, High Net Worth Individuals spent 15.9 percent, the highest proportion, of their ``Investment-of-Passion'' dollars on fine art, said the report. The European wealthy are the most avid consumers, spending 22 percent of these dollars on art, it said.
On July 3, Sotheby's 329-lot day sale of contemporary art made 26.8 million pounds with fees against an estimate of 19.8 million pounds to 28 million pounds. Eighty-three percent of the lots found buyers.

Keeping Up
``Many new buyers are coming into the market,'' London dealer Michael Hue-Williams said in an interview. ``It's a `keeping up with the Joneses' thing. They see contemporary art at a friend's place, then they want to own some. The easiest thing to do is go along to an auction house.'' His Albion Gallery represents international contemporary artists.
``The doom mongers are wrong,'' said London-based dealer Kenny Schachter. ``Contemporary art's where the action is. It's become a commodity market like oil or copper.''
Sellers were making profits from works by emerging market favorites bought in the last three years. In May, the Pakistani- born Rashid Rana topped the ``Indian Contemporary Art Market Confidence Ranking'' by London-based research company ArtTactic.

Pornographic Photos
Rana's 2007 work, ``Veil #6'' -- an image of five women in burqas, made of thousands of tiny pornographic photos -- sold at Sotheby's to a telephone buyer for 325,250 pounds with fees. The 5-foot, 10-inch-wide photomontage, with a lower estimate of 60,000 pounds, was from an edition of five.
``The current gallery price for this type of Rana is about $60,000,'' Conor Macklin, director of London's Grosvenor Gallery said in an interview. The gallery, which specializes in Indian art, held a 2005 exhibition of works by Indian contemporary painter T.V Santhosh, who is second in ArtTactic's Indian art confidence rankings.
Santhosh's 6-foot-wide canvas, ``Man Made Famine and the Rats,'' was bought at the show for $15,000, said Macklin. At Sotheby's it sold for a twice-estimate 121,250 pounds with fees.
``The international appeal of these artists is making them fetch high prices,'' said Macklin.
James Sevier, specialist in charge of Sotheby's auction, said that more than half the lots had sold to European private buyers in his day sale.
``A lot of them buy at our evening sales and so aren't the sort of people who are affected by economic downturns,'' he said.
Christie's and Phillips experienced more mixed demand at their contemporary day sales.

New Saleroom
On June 30, Phillips only managed to sell 57 percent of the 391 lots it was offering at its new saleroom in a former mail sorting office in Victoria.
The auction, with many young Western and Chinese artists, totaled 6.3 million pounds against a low estimate of 11.2 million pounds.
When contacted by telephone, no senior specialist at Phillips de Pury was available for interview.
``It's all about presentation, marketing and getting the estimates right,'' said London dealer Gerard Faggionato, who represents the Francis Bacon Estate. ``Sotheby's were also selling more classic material.''
The following day Christie's raised 22.4 million pounds with fees from 337 contemporary lots, 67 percent of which found buyers. The presale estimate was 22.8 million pounds to 32.2 million pounds.
``Christie's had good material,'' said Schachter. ``The estimates were just too high. The market's in good health, but if you get too aggressive with prices it can be fickle.''

Young making it big in art markets

Source : The Economic Times Ashoke Nag
KOLKATA: In an art market which is somewhat in a state of flux, especially at the retail or gallery level, it may be interesting to check out the genre of art being acquired now and the buyer categories. While on one end, the older artists are still being acquired in step with the top crust of modernists, the bulk of buying still seems to be centered on the contemporary group of young artists.
"The first group of buyers would embrace the seasoned collectors who continue to pick up the odd Raja Ravi Verma, Hemen Mazumdar or the Tagores and some of the other Bengal School works and Jamini Roy. Other early realistic works being bought are those by Pithawala and Dhurandar, to mention a couple. But, this buyer class is shrinking since these artists can be bought largely by Indians as foreigners are not allowed by law to buy into most of them, unless they are participating in an overseas auction. At the same time, the volumes generated by these works are low because of the non-availability of quality pieces," an art market source told ET.
The second category, and what appears to be the most vibrant, are the purchases which revolve around the contemporary band of artists. "These are artists who have come up in the last 5-10 years. Fuelled by increasing demand levels abroad and backed by galleries both overseas and in India, price tags of these artists have spiralled.
The young NRI population are finding these works to be eminently investible. At the same time, many museums internationally, which are also looking for cutting-edge art, have trained their sights on a cross-section of the contemporaries from India," the source said.
According to the source, interest in this brand of artists can be gauged from the fact that a frontline gallery in London, like Saatchi, which is known for its offbeat and revolutionary shows, is staging a show of Indian contemporaries titled The Empire Strikes Back.
Leading auction houses like Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonhams overseas and Saffronart in India have, in recent times, expanded significantly on their offering of contemporary works. "In the current scenario, anywhere around 30-50 % of the total number of works in a modern & contemporary art auction belongs to the contemporary bracket," the source said.
This leaves the category which relates to the modernist artists. Here, the 'museum' grade names, like F N Souza, S H Raza, M F Husain, Tyeb Mehta and V S Gaitonde, who are in limited supply in the market, continue to attract strong demand.
However, the modern artists below the topmost layer, are in a somewhat fluid situation. With market forces impacting the art scene somewhat negatively in the last year, buyers are failing to fathom the investment value of the second or third rung of modern artists. "It's unclear now which group of artists, modernists or contemporaries, will rule the roost in the future," the source said.

Utensils cook up a Christie’s storm

Source : The Telegraph Amit Roy
London, July 1: To you and me, Subodh Gupta’s Curry 2 may look like metal bartan bought from the local bazaar for a thousand rupees or thereabouts and stacked neatly on a metal rack but last night at Christie’s in London, this piece of “installation art” fetched £301,250.
In case you haven’t got a calculator handy, that is Rs 26,091,262 — which, as the author Bill Bryson, more used to writing about astronomy, would say, is a lot of rupees.
Back in Bihar, where Gupta hails from, the traders in bartan may be baffled by how their boy has suddenly become the darling of western art connoisseurs.
Another two of Gupta’s works, Dubai to Calcutta, a metal sculpture, and Idol Thief, an oil painting, fetched £313,250 and £337,250, respectively, at Christie’s Post War and Contemporary Art auction last night. That adds up to £951,750.
Gupta has explained his installation art thus: “I am the idol thief. I steal from the drama of Hindu life. And from the kitchen — these pots, they are like stolen gods, smuggled out of the country. Hindu kitchens are as important as prayer rooms. These pots are something sacred, part of important rituals, and I buy them in a market. They think I have a shop, and I let them think it. I get them wholesale.”
Christie’s has lauded his art: “Methodically arranged according to type in a stainless steel cabinet that is part kitchen shelving, part display case and part cabinet of curiosities, the kitchen utensils — the balti, the lota, the thali, the kalasham, the kumbhaa and the pateela — that collectively form Curry 2 all combine in this work to form a dazzling, almost decadent sense of splendour.”
Just in case you are tempted to wander down to Shyambazar as a prelude to offering Christie’s your own decadent sense of splendour, it is worth taking note of the views of a Christie’s spokesperson.
“It is how the artist chooses to arrange the objects, otherwise you could say a painting is just canvas and some paint,” he told The Telegraph.

Incidentally, at the same auction, Syed Haider Raza’s painting, La Terre, went for £1,273,250 while Anish Kapoor’s polished purple mirror greatly exceeded its reserve price of £600,000-800,000 and sold for £1,071,650.
The Christie’s spokesperson added: “The market for modernist Indian artists such as (M.F.) Husain, Raza and (Francis Newton) Souza has seen prices regularly reaching into the dollar millions, driven by resident and non-resident Indian collectors at the outset, but now increasingly capturing a global consciousness.”
Nor does the excitement around Gupta end with Christie’s. His works are included in an auction of contemporary art due to be held at Sotheby’s tonight and tomorrow.

As with the Christie’s sale, the Indian art works are being sold at Sotheby’s, not in some ethnic category, but mixed in with the best from around the world. Thus there is also art by Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol in the same auction.
The auction houses hope that Indian buyers, who are the main collectors of Indian art, will be tempted to pick up non-Indian paintings and sculptures, while non-Indians will be similarly persuaded to add Indian works to their shopping baskets.
First, though, Indians have to develop a taste for the likes of Hirst who is given to chopping up animals and suspending them in formaldehyde — he has a piece on offer tonight composed entirely of dead flies dipped in black paint.
Sotheby’s experts are taking great heart that some artists in India are becoming inspired by Hirst. Among them is Gupta’s wife, who has produced a sculpture of a mean looking hyena. This will find a buyer but probably not from a middle class home in Calcutta.
An untitled sculpture by Kapoor, made from fine quality alabaster and with a reserve price of £1-1.5 million, is also on sale at Sotheby’s.
“It will probably go to a private collector who will make it the centrepiece of his home,” predicted James Servier, deputy director of contemporary art at Sotheby’s. “In fact, he may build a house round it.”

Indian art pieces auctioned for $ 8.809 mn

Source : Hindustan Times
Indian artists never had it so good - an auction of modern and contemporary Indian art here including those by masters like M F Husain, Francis Newton Souza and Tyeb Mehta - has fetched a fabulous $ 8.809 million.
The auction was held by the Christie's last evening and the highest price of £ 720,000 went for Syed Haider Raza's La Terre (1985).
A masterpiece of colour and composition, 85-year-old Raza seamlessly merges his horizontal bands with elegant obliques in what is considered one of the finest examples of painting in his oeuvre.
Premier abstractionist Vasudeo S Gaitonde's untitled piece crafted in 1968 fetched £ 490,000 while Souza's Landscape with Planet, a superb artwork (1962) went under the hammer for £ 311,200.
Husain's untitled masterpiece of 1960 was sold for £ 132,000.
Akbar Padamsee's untitled work of 1978 received the fourth highest price of £ 204,000 followed by £ 156,000 for Jagdish Swaminathan's artwork from the 'Bird, Tree and Mountain series' drawn in 1985.
Mehta's 1961 untitled artwork fetched £ 156,000 while Souza's 1960 masterpiece was sold for £ 132,000. A Landscape drawn by Ram Kumar in 1995 went under the hammer for £ 114,000.

Indian artist fetches $2.5 mn at Christie's sale

Source : The Economic Times 2 Jul, 2008 LONDON: Indian artist Syed Haider Raza’s ‘La Terre’ has fetched a record $2.5 million at Christie’s Post-War sale in London.
The leading highlight ‘La Terre’, a work done as far back as 1973 by Raza, one of India’s leading modern artists, sold for £12,73,250 (over $2.5 million) setting a new record on Sunday.
Three works by Subodh Gupta were unable to set any records against the high pressure bidding of international favourites, said a bidder in London who felt that Gupta has been hyped by market conditions. Gupta’s ‘Dubai to Calcutta’ sold for £3,13,250, his second work ‘Curry 2’ sold for £3,01,250 and his ‘Idol Thief’ fetched £3,37,250.
Meanwhile, a 1975 set of three self-portraits by Francis Bacon fetched £17.3 million in London, the most expensive lot at Christie’s International sale of contemporary art. At least four bidders competed for the 14-inch-high, gray-hued oil canvases ‘Three Studies for Self-Portrait,’ featuring faces that are twisted, sliced and gorged.
The lot, with a pre-sale estimate of more than £10 million and seen in public for the first time, went to an anonymous phone bidder. The record for Bacon was set in May when ‘Triptych, 1976,’ depicting a headless corpse eaten by vultures sold for $86 million.

Big Picture: It's a good time to buy art

Source The Economic Times
As the stock market continues its downward trend, there are a number of investors turning to art as an alternate investment option. In the past, we have discussed how domestic art is rapidly emerging as an asset class. Analysts confirm that despite last year's fall in the art index, this year it has been recording spectacular returns at both international and domestic auctions.
According to the latest ArtTactic Indian art market survey, the domestic and global economic situation is having an impact on the overall sentiments in the domestic art market. Despite this, both the Modern and Indian Art Market Confidence Indicators have reached new heights, showing the continued optimism in the market." Among the domestic contemporary artists T V Santosh, N S Harsha, Bharti Kher and Subodh Gupta take up the top positions.
At the recently concluded Saffronart's summer online auction 70 percent of the total lots were sold of which 66 percent were sold above their higher estimate. The sale grossed (inclusive of buyer's premium) USD 97.21 lakhs or Rs 38.88 crores. Subodh Gupta, S H Raza, Rashid Rana, and F N Souza continued their brilliant performances at this auction as well.
At the upcoming Sotheby's Contemporary art auction this week, domestic artists such as Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, T V Santosh, and Anish Kapoor, and a few others will also be featured. This incidentally is not an exclusive domestic art sale but features international artists and involves names such as Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon along with a host of other established artists.
The sale is offering eight works by the Indian contingent. These works are estimated to be around £2 million. In fact, Anish Kapoor's untitled sculpture alone is estimated at £1-1 .5 million. This is an interesting phase for domestic art and the results from this auction will clearly indicate how domestic artists fare in a mainstream international auction.
However, it does appear that domestic art has found widespread acceptance at a global level and investing in art might be a smart decision.

Exposure makes Indian art prices gallop in global mart

Source : The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The price curve of Indian art is shooting north in the global market because of "increased consciousness" about it, say experts.
This has been brought about by greater visibility of art and artists from the country and easy access to relevant information about Indian art from the internet, they say.
"Indian art is becoming a part of international consciousness, why is why we have seen a spectacular growth in this field," Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the London-based Christie's, told IANS on e-mail.
"Boundaries are becoming more fluid. We are seeing more Indian artists being represented in international museum exhibitions and art fairs. The exposure is helping create newer collectors who actively seek out works by the best of Indian artists to add to their collections," Mehta said.
On June 11, a painting by F.N. Souza, an Indian artist who spent the better part of his life in New York, sold for $2.5 million, while an untitled painting by Tyeb Mehta (Figure in a Rickshaw) fetched 982,050 pounds setting new price records at the Christie's auction in London.
Five of contemporary artist Subodh Gupta's works were also sold in the same auction at record prices. Gupta's "Bucket", an abstract canvas with the symbolic motif of his trademark bucket, was sold for 121,250 pounds while his "Magic Wands" and "Cotton Wicks" were sold for 169,250 pounds and 15,000 pounds respectively.
Twelve artists set new records in terms of prices at the auction in London.
According to experts, Indian art in general had a higher price profile in almost every international art show this year.
A New Delhi-based dealer, Nature Morte, sold a set of three sculptures by Gupta for nearly $1 million, while a painting by rising star T.V. Santosh went out to a British collector for $170,000 at the prestigious Art Basel, the largest fair of modern and contemporary art in Switzerland. Gupta's seven-metre wide "Triptych" sold for $1 million in the same fair.
In March 2008, M.F. Husain's "Battle of Ganga and Jamuna" sold for $1.6 million in New York.
Auction houses and dealers attribute the boom to growing consciousness and appreciation of Indian art internationally.

According to Mehta, the new breed of collectors, who are armed with more money, are incredibly well informed. "They usually look for a combination of three factors in an art work - lineage, the artist and its freshness.
"For instance, the 'The Birth' by F.N. Souza which sold for a record-breaking price of $2.5 million, had the combination of all the three: it was a large museum quality masterpiece by one of the giants in Indian art and completely fresh to the market," Mehta said.
The freshness of the artwork, experts claimed, was instrumental in pushing up its price.
Peter Nagy, director of Nature Morte Gallery in Delhi, which sold almost all its works at the Basel fair, says the increase in price is directly related to the demand for the works and the increased attention that the international art world is paying to contemporary art works coming out of India today.
"This increased attention increases the demand and hence the prices go up," Nagy told IANS.
Citing Basel as an example, Nagy said the "audience in Switzerland wanted unique Indian works and were not interested in works and prints by Indian artists. However, the prices of the works were dictated by the prices set in India".
Another factor that determines the price tag is the stiff neck-on-neck bids, especially at auctions, and the wide client base. The competition among bidders triggers an artificial increase in prices.
The phenomenon is also gradually becoming applicable to Indian art, especially in international sales.
Describing the nature of the Christie's London auction of Asian art, Mehta said the auction hall was packed right from the beginning with clients from across the globe.
"There was also spirited bidding on telephones and through Christie's LIVE, which is a new platform for our clients to watch the live auction in real time and bid online from the comfort of home or office," Mehta said.
According to an estimate by the Christie's, the market for Indian art gathered steam over the last decade, totalling an impressive $42 million in 2006 from just $656,000 in a sale in 2000.
Before that, price milestones were generally one-time. In 2005, Tyeb Mehta's "Mahisasura" sold for a record $1,584,000.

A booming Indian art?

Source : Words from the solitude, Friday 20 June 2008

Let us start with some figures and facts:

(a) The global art market is worth about US$ 40 billion (Rs 1,70,000 crore).
(b) The Indian art market is worth more than US$ 0.24 billion (Rs 1,000 crore).
(c) The Indian art market has grown from US$ 2 million to a US$ 400 million market over the last seven years.
(d) From the benchmark year 2003, the Indian art market is growing at an average rate of between 20-30 per cent an year.
(e) A recent report by Fortune claims that the Indian art market has risen over 485 per cent in the last ten years, making it the fourth most positive art market in the world.
(f) Other than the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s, about ten galleries in New York, London and Singapore – added to the hundreds of galleries in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata - are now dealing regularly and exclusively with Indian art.
(g) Work by an Indian artist that sold in the late 1980s for perhaps $2,500 can now fetch more than $1 million.

Saffronart auction notches $9.7 mn sales, Subodh Gupta on top (Lead)

Source : Thaindian News June 21st, 2008

Mumbai, June 20 (IANS) New Delhi-based contemporary artist Subodh Gupta’s untitled work of steel vessels soared past S.H. Raza’s “Germination” to record a high of Rs.57 million ($1.43 million) at Saffronart’s summer online auction, which registered a total sale value of Rs.390 million ($9.7 million). Indian art has moved from a miniscule $2 million to a huge $400 million market over the last seven years and the latest Saffronart auction, which closed yet another record sale Thursday evening, is an indication that the art business is only set to grow further.
Hosted on a new, innovative and highly interactive platform, the Summer Online Auction featured the work of globally sought painters, sculptors and installation artists. World auction records were set for eight artists - Subodh Gupta, Hema Upadhyay, Badri Narayan, K.M. Adimoolam, Justin Ponmany, Chitra Ganesh, Bose Krishnamachari and Anita Dube.
On the first day of the auction itself several lots crossed their higher estimates, including works by Subodh Gupta, Hema Upadhyay, T.V. Santhosh and Justin Ponmany, setting the pace for the exciting bidding activity that continued till the last minutes of the sale.

At the auction, close to 600 registered bidders from all over the world competed against each other for the works of some of India’s most prominent artists.

Gupta’s work rose far above the expectations of Rs.8-10 million at the auction held Wednesday and Thursday, proving that young artists were taking over from the masters.
On June 11, Gupta had moved into the record making million dollar bracket with the sale of his untitled installation of steel pots for $1.2 million at Christie’s sale of Indian contemporary art in London.
Raza, whose work was estimated to fetch Rs.27.5-37.5 million, settled for second place with Rs.42 million at the Saffronart sale.
F.N. Souza’s image of a nude woman went for a winning bid of Rs.16.3 million. Of the 12 Husains, three went unsold and the highest bid was Rs.15 million. Cerebral artist T.V. Santosh’s work went for Rs.5.6 million and Bose Krishnamachari’s “Plot” sold for Rs.3.4 million.
One of Atul Dodiya’s works went unsold but the other attracted a bid of Rs.8 million. Among Jogen Chowdhury’s seven works, only one was sold.
“We have to recognize that people who purchase Indian art constitute a very different buyer base. These buyers purchase, particularly at the top end, from accumulated wealth and not from earnings. So, I think the market is good for superlative works,” said Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder and director of Saffronart.
He added: “While the results of this sale were stellar across the board, the fact that three of the top five lots were by modern Indian artists demonstrates a heartening resurgence in demand for premium modern works.
“This sale also marked the successful launch of our new auction technology, which is the first of its kind globally, and makes the bidder’s online experience as convenient as possible.”

Art market powers ahead despite credit woes

By Deborah Brewster in New York. Source : The Financial Times, June 21, 2008

Sales in the art market this week exceeded even the most optimistic expectations, with buyers at major New York sales defying widespread fears of a market slump as a result of the credit crisis.
Sotheby’s had its biggest sale ever by dollar value on Wednesday night, selling $362m worth of contemporary works. It sold a 1976 painting by Francis Bacon, “Triptych, 1976” for $86m, easily exceeding its estimate of $70m. The price was the highest ever paid for a contemporary work at auction. Bacon’s works would only fetch about $10m each a few years ago but the latest prices put the artist, who died in 1992, in the same price league as Picasso. Like many of his works, the triptych — which attracted three bidders — featured a distorted human form and was inspired by Greek mythology.
The previous night, Christie’s sold Lucian Freud’s “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping”, a painting of a voluptuous JobCentre supervisor, for $33.6m, setting a new record for the work of a living artist. It also sold a 1952 work by Mark Rothko, “No 15”, for $50m, which was above its $40m estimate. Christie’s sale generated $348m in total.
The final prices do include a buyers’ commission of more than 12 per cent which is not included in the estimates. But the results were surprisingly strong and confirmed the ascendancy of contemporary art, which has firmly supplanted the Impressionist and Old Masters works favoured by the previous generation of collectors.

The prices also support the view that the art market has become increasingly global, with buyers from new markets such as India, China and the Middle East, which provides a depth of support which was lacking in previous market booms.

The New York contemporary sales this week followed solid Impressionist and Modern auctions last week. Together, the two main auction houses sold close to $2bn in artworks during the two-week season - about 25 per cent more than last year. Sotheby’s and Christie’s each hold about 600 auctions a year, but the most expensive works usually sell during the May and November auctions in New York.
On the strength of the May sales, the two auction houses are already promoting their June sales of Impressionist and contemporary art in London.