Indian contemporary art is doing well abroad. But the Indian market for it is far larger than its market abroad. That is why we are seeing the entry of US-based art galleries like Bose Pacia in New Delhi. Apart from this, we find that a number of our embassies and High Commissions are actively bringing artists and works from other countries to India and are offering our contemporary artists visits, residencies, scholarships and the like to give them exposure to other contemporary art developments than ours. This is a good thing.
Of course, a major window to the West has been opened by our contemporary artists who have made different places in Europe, the US and Canada their home. France, of course, gets the pride of place, with SH Raza, Akbar Padamsee, Sakti Barman and Rajendra Dhawan having lived in Paris for years, not to mention a large number of lesser-known artists. FN Souza was London and New York-based.
Also, gifted artists like Krishna Reddy and Anil Revri, both of them original abstractionists live in the US. Another non-figurative abstractionist is Sohan Qadri who lives in Denmark and has recently held an exhibition in New York organised by Sundaram Tagore. Mansa Ram, the well-known Delhi artist, now lives in Canada. Moreover, now that the Tate Gallery plans to hold a retrospective of Souza, we can say that our contemporary art has come of age at last.
What does it tell the investor? First and foremost, that they can concentrate, for global impact, on artists like MF Husain, Tyeb Mehta, FN Souza, SH Raza and VS Gaitonde safely. They represent basic trends in our contemporary art that have a future. In global terms, many of these artists share common ground with Pablo Picasso, whose sales are today on top of the market.
First, among those who are influenced by Picasso and share his predilections, Souza is the foremost, and to a lesser extent, Husain. Then we have two Kolkata artists Bijon Choudhury and Paritosh Sen, with some series of Sunil Das, reflecting Picasso?s waywardness. Sakti Burman too, belongs to this genre. In Delhi, we have the work of KS Kulkarni. These I believe, form the core of an investor?s stock.
Then we come to the non-figuratives, with Gaitonde leading the pack. His remarkable blend of French colour-based art and oriental calligraphic signs has that best quality of Indian contemporary art that fuses Western and Eastern traditions in a very concretely Indian way. From here on, Sohan Qadri with his background of tantric ritual, abstracts from it the concept of energy, while Raza reduces that symbolism to formal abstraction, though of late he has made some works with Sanskrit slokas inscribed on them, bringing his work perhaps a little too close to a more literal conceptual art. But taking the path between Gaitonde?s and Raza?s we have new young artist Anil Revri from the US, who will be showing there soon. And, of course, Krishna Reddy. Collectors eyeing global outlets can pick up their works with no hesitation.
So much for the global market. The Indian market too is worth the investor?s while. Here, we have artists like GR Santosh, Biren De, Bal Chavda and Lakshman Sreshta who provide an excellent core for investors in abstract art. The Indian market, however, is different. Here, no collection worth the name can do without a work of Gaganendranath Tagore, Abanindranath, Nandalal Bose and Ram Kinkar Baij. Then there are Kolkata artists like Ganesh Pyne, Ganesh Haloi and Somnath Hore. And from the South, KCS Panicker and KG Subramanyan. This makes a good core collection.
From among the radicals, Vivan Sundaram, Arpana Caur, Debabrata De, TM Asiz and Atul Sinha are good to begin with. But coming to brass tacks, canvases are the best investments, and the bigger ones sell better in the global market than the smaller ones.
In India, though, not only does figurative art do better than the non-figurative, but smaller works and even good drawings (if properly authenticated) are worthwhile investments. So, the Indian investor would do well to wear bifocals before buying, as these investments cater to two different markets at the same time.