It is one thing to say that there is no recession in the art market and quite another to expect any thing that calls itself art to sell. A lot of what finds itself in galleries is not art all. And much of it is neither contemporary nor modern. And often, even our artists produce works that are not art simply because they want to access a market for artifacts that has nothing to do with it.
This is especially true for artists who repeat the images of gods and goddesses. They have a market of devotees but not of art lovers. And for artist to be reduced to such a sad state of affairs reflects his or her complete lack of faith and failure to sustain his or her expression as valid in the world of today.
Of course, there are still artists who can create novel images of gods. I bought exactly such a work of the sculpture KK Kamra. It was an award winning marble sculpture that looked like a germinating bean. And only after years of looking at it from different angles I realised it was a minimal of the elephant god! But such images are rare.
Among such images one can rank the decayed and wrinkled Ganesha of Jogen Choudhury, and a few others from the collection of Mr Hitkari of Delhi. The majority of such works may command a devotional price, but they are not good investments. It is the same with works that use precious stones or rare metals. They command high prices on account of the materials used but are not necessarily art. They even serve to detract buyers from the elements of art that exist as part of such production.
This is especially true of Indian sculpture. It is precisely because of the powerful tradition of our classical sculpture, both in stone and bronze, that our modern sculptures are often awed by it and create works within its ambit, thus finding themselves isolated from the lucrative market that has emerged for Indian art all over the world. Sculptors have to create something new to place themselves on record.
They have done so in the past, like Adi Davierwalla?s monumental sculpture commissioned by Homi Bhabha, or Ram Kinkar Baij?s ?Yaksha? and ?Yakshi? at the portal of the Reserve Bank of India, Balbir Katt?s stone abstracts, Somenath. Hore?s minuscule narrative sculptures or Amarnath Sehgal, Prodosh Das Gupta or Dhanraj Bhagat?s monumental sculptures. None of them profess even scrap of divinity. That is why they have made a mark on our contemporary art history. The same can be said of Satish Gujral?s early burnt wood that look like ritual fetishes but are not. It is the break from tradition of reverential sculpture and not the elements of continuity with it that mark them out.
The same can be said of the young sculptors who are coming into the limelight today, like KS Radhakrishan Valsan Kolleri, Latika Katt, MJ Enas, Hemi Bawa, Atul Sinha Manish Kansara, Gyan Singh, Shiv Singh, Bharat Bhushan, to name only a few. The range is enormous and they come from every part of the country.
It is a pity that our new breed of farmhouse owners still have not acquired the finesse to distinguish between good sculpture and marble accessories in general. If they do, Indian monumental contemporary sculpture can well achieve the same status as contemporary Indian painting. It is not for nothing that sculptors from abroad like Stephen Cox are working among Indian stonecutters for decades now. Even Isamu Noguchi, the noted Japanese American sulptor, had pieces of sculpture inspired by India in this studio i Mure in Japan. Contemporary Indian sculpture needs to be promoted. There are many good sculptors in the country. And they need to be nurtured to develop. This is evident from the recent exhibition of sculptures in the country.
This is evident from the recent exhibition of sculptures of Sagar, a Patiala based sculptor, whose studies of cattle are collectors pieces. They are street cattle but one can see the break from the banyan tree forward as part of a modern visual presentation. His best works again are those that break away from the traditional image we find in our classical temple and vihar art. Sculptures like ?Festival? ?Resting under the Tree? ?Leaf? and ?Everlasting Tree? bear witness to the fact that here is a sculptor who is working away from the bustle of the art market and shows a quiet evolution of promise at a natural pace, because of it. Discriminating patronage of his work could give us yet another monumental sculptor of promise. One hopes this happens as his works are still very moderately priced indeed.