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Aasheesh Sharma
A space to experiment, due recognition and assured buyers. What more does the 1990s artist need? At a time when market behaviour has become impossible to fathom, a husband and wife team of management graduates is revolutionising design management.
Meet Amit and Hardeep Gupta, the couple behind Vis-a-vis, the country's first design gallery, who provide a marketing channel for non-painting design forms like sculpture, ceramics, glass, graphics, furniture and textile designing.
Contemporary artists do not have a luxury which Van Gogh had -- an elder brother in Theo, who used to sponsor him and sell his work. Today, they have to sustain themselves in an increasingly competitive market, where more trained artists mean cheaper works of art and where pricing is determined by snob value and intelligent marketing. That is where the design manager steps in.
``Till now young designers tried to look for business on their own. Now, design managers can market their designs on a retail basis and help them sell theircreations. We provide retail selling through our annual show called Confluence (on from October 4 to 24 this year),'' says Hardeep.
``We provide a platform for designers to take art beyond the hackneyed. Artists are encouraged to do their own thing without thinking about buyers or mass producing their creations to pander to the market,'' claims Amit.
A former employee of Hindustan Thompson Associates, he draws a parallel between his advertising job and design management. ``In HTA, I was interacting with my art department to brief them about what the client wanted in the product campaign based on the market needs. Now, I go to the designers first -- who design without taking the market in consideration -- and then try to sell their creation in the market. In Confluence 98, for instance, the brief given to the designers was that there is no brief --`design what you've always wanted to, and we will sell it to the market','' he says.
What are the gains for the Guptas' in the exercise? ``The stakes arequite high. We take a commission from the sales proceeds. Last year, the sales were to the tune of Rs 7 lakh. This year, we have already sold works worth Rs 2 lakh in three days and are expecting a business of around Rs 12 lakh,'' says Amit.
But what percentage of the shares do the artists actually get. ``Well, in more than 90 per cent of the cases, the profits are split into two equal halves,'' claims Amit.
A key activity for Vis-a-vis, besides exhibitions is organising design workshops for corporate clients. ``There can be two kinds of workshops. One is where our team of designers will visit the client's company and interact with their marketing and advertising men to design products which they are selling. For instance, Sleepwell, one of our sponsors, could tell us to design foam furniture for them. So in a 7-day workshop our team of designers could assess their demands and create designs for them. On the other hand we could organise design workshops for corporate managers where both of them gain --the designers can become more conscious of market needs and management-oriented and the managers can learn how to think laterally and more creatively, '' informs Amit.
Talk about competition and Amit perks up, ``We have no competition. We are the first ones to provide an identity and a base for design artists in the country. Though there are design shops like Good Earth and Ogaan, both run by socialites, they sell their art under their own labels, without giving due credit to the artists. Therefore, we are flourishing on the confidence of the artists who are committed to work with an outfit which gives them a name and the freedom to innovate,'' he says.
A future project which is awaiting sponsors is a show of lensman Prabuddha Dasgupta's photographs in London, comprising images he captured in his frames in Ladakh and another featuring puppeteer Dadi Padamjee and vocalist Shubha Mudgal in a jugalbandi.
Having made the transition from selling marketing ideas to marketing art( Hardeep's formeremployers were the Indian Market Research Bureau), do they feel like going back? ``No, we love this work and plan to make it our long-term vocation. It's not just the money, we are trying to change the profile of Indian design in the eyes of the world too, '' says Hardeep. Amen to that!
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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