The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I learnt this lesson of what the art market is like today when I organised the ?People in Progress? exhibition over the week when two festivals: Holi and Good Friday intervened. Worse, New York had attracted some of the biggest buyers in the country out to attend the Christie?s and Sotheby?s auctions in New York as well as an Indian art fair there. Also the share market being bullish as it is nowadays, was another element that was hostile to contemporary art sales as every bit of liquid cash was circulating there instead of in the art market. One could not have chosen a worse time to exhibit.
But what did one learn from it? First, of the 90 or so artists I contacted, refusals came only from two. Two others promised works, but shied away at the last moment. One among the organisers actually said his work was on the way, but it was never delivered. Some other blue-chip artists gave inconsequential works. But they were the exception. No less than 85 artists actually gave works, some of them of exceptional quality.
Was it because the art market was dull and artists were searching for anything that looked like a silver lining? It was not that either, for at least six of the works, and some of the best in the show, were bought by gallery owners. Sunaina Anand of Art Alive bought perhaps the best work painted by the young radical artist Yati Jaiswal that portrayed ant-like people eating away into the structures of the past that were transformed into an eye, reminding us that societies well past their prime are torn down by those they oppress but of an alternative vision is not provided the transformation remains still-born. At Rs 60,000, this work has made a new record for this young artist.
Another good price was the sale of a work of the ?Sohni? series by Arpana Caur at Rs 2.15 lakh that went to Payal Kapur of Arushi Arts. Dolly Narang of the Village Gallery bought an exceptional composition of a woman holding a green coconut by Abani Kant Dev at Rs 40,000. Biku Tandon of the Anayas gallery bought Saba Hasan?s powerful charcoal on canvas for Rs 30,000 which is an extraordinary study of line and motion. Manu Dosanj bought Ritu Singh?s virtuoso women in red for Rs 20,000. Radhika Singh bought Bikash Poddar?s landscape at a more than bargain price of Rs 25,000.
True, there were at least half a dozen gallery owners over and above these who came to the exhibition, but did not buy. But what interested me was the fact that the works that were bought reflect a search for originality. There were blue-chip artists at conventional blue-chip prices, but there were no takers for them.
The exhibition appears to have struck a chord in those gallery owners on the lookout for original works. What is more, they were prepared to pay five and six figure prices for works of artists who are new. This is an extremely healthy trend in our art world. It shows that the market is not satisfied with trading only in celebrities. It is looking for a broader base. This will bring windfalls for the young and as yet unknown. It will also burden them with the responsibility of ensuring they will not produce works that are slip-shod or, as is happening a lot nowadays, mere products of ready-made Western art from conventional raw material.
The West, being relatively poor in technique and craftsmanship, has made a virtue of necessity by concentrating on the mass-produced objects and mechanical products. But that is no reason for us to abandon what we are better at doing and superior in. The globalised world, in fact, calls on us to concentrate on precisely those things we are better at. And from the majority of works in this exhibition, it is obvious that the message has got round to a far wider range of artists than one imagined.
What is more, celebrity artists have nothing to fear from this development. It will broaden the base for their sales as well. Only those given to gimmicks and playing the role of mannequins for the consumer society are likely to suffer from these developments. And we have no reason to regret it.
Apart from gallery owners, dealers and collectors, it is interesting to see artists buying good art too. The well-known Mumbai artist, Krishnamachari Bose, bought a digital print by Vivan Sundaram at Rs 30,000. This is, of course, not at a new development. But it will definitely ensure a better standard of partronage of our contemporary art. Other artists whose works found favour with buyers were VP Singh, Subroto Kundu, Anju Badhwar Vora, Veer Munshi, Atul Sinha, Indrevir, Manoj Nayak, Kavita Jaiswal, Nand Kishore, Ruchika Singh and Bijon Choudhury, to name only a few. And none of their works were of the conventional variety.
Finally, the off-season success of this exhibition that was held at the Arpana Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature in the Siri Fort institutional shows us that our contemporary art has come a long way already. But it has far to go yet to catch up with the western art centres as far as the prices are concerned. So that is why it makes for good investment. And that is why even off-season sales give results we can look forward to.
Strengthening our sound basis in producing for the market, we must now ensure that the economic interest does not become the sole driving force behind a process that is both rich and varied in its human content already and will become even more deep-rooted in the future.