The gavel goes down at the Emami Chisel Art auction on February 23 in Calcutta

Art is the ultimate luxury. And when we lose our spending power frills like art are the first casualties. It is a law of nature that a bust will follow a boom as inevitably as night follows day, and almost overnight Indian contemporary art has no takers.

It is not as if prices have dropped dramatically, but the market is going through a correctional phase, as it were, and sanity is finally returning after the madness of the past few years.

M.F. Husain, who had single-handedly placed Indian contemporary art on the international map, said over the telephone from Dubai: “It is a great setback for galleries. It has affected mostly middle rung artists. But the big ones are untouched.” Though he added: “Art thrives in times of crisis. Rich people drown their frustrations in art. It involves a lot of emotion. Or they go to the oldest profession in the world. Art is equated with the oldest profession.”

For the last five or six years the prices of Indian contemporary art had been reaching stratospheric heights without any regard for quality. Investors and art funds went around mopping up whatever art work they could lay their hands on. Some artists, including senior practitioners, went in an overdrive, churning out works quite indiscriminately to meet the demand.

Investing in art was considered as fail-safe as investing in a blue chip company, at least during that period of time. A Delhi gallery on a buying spree bought the entire lot of Rabin Mandal’s works. The artist, who had toiled all his life, got chicken feed in return. That was better than nothing at all.

Jogen Chowdhury’s exhibition at CIMA Gallery

Even in Calcutta with its suffocating poverty — the proliferation of malls, flyovers, restaurants where people can go for fine dining, and dress designers are just window dressing — and the relative obscurity in which some talented artists live, as compared to their counterparts in Delhi and Mumbai, the impact of the economic upswing was felt, however late in the day. After the first galleries opened in the city in the mid-1980’s, their numbers gradually began to multiply, and by the end of the last century every nook and cranny and apartment block could boast one.

Most of these are just single-room affairs without any infrastructure to speak of, and even a well-known sari shop in Gariahat doubles as one. However, galleries with the wherewithal did not mind pumping in more funds into their existing establishments or to open brand new ones. CIMA has opened Studio 21 in its bid to create an alternative to the commercial gallery. Sanskriti art gallery in Alipore moved from its earlier address to more comfortable and roomy apartments in the same posh neighbourhood. Anant owned by the Sighanias opened a branch of its Delhi gallery close to the house of the Mittals, although few know that it actually exists. Ganges art gallery owned by the Bajorias made over an old house and turned it into interesting exhibition space. Galerie 88 has spread its wings, opening branches in Mumbai, London and Dubai. Seagull has introduced a second exhibition space.

Underpromoted Bengal art may be (galleries take most Bengal artists for granted while rolling out the red carpet for the so-called stars from Mumbai and Delhi), but young local artists have attracted Aicon gallery in the poshest district of London. Debnath Bose, Adip Datta, and Rathin Kanji have had shows there and sculptor Debanjan Roy is slated to have an exhibition in April 2009. Bose Pacia New York, established in 1994, and said to be the first gallery in the West to specialise in contemporary art from south Asia, has in the past exhibited Jayashree Chakravorty and Jogen Chowdhury.

The cosmetics group Emami has joined hands with Chisel Art, which owns Aakriti art gallery on Hungerford Street, to create the first auction house of eastern Indian. Emami Chisel Art has held two successful auctions on February 23 and November 8. Two fantastic spaces for exhibiting art have been ready for some time but their owners have not thrown them open for reasons best known to them — nothing to do with economics.

Calcutta may not have a museum to show off Bengal art but in the past few years it had enough galleries to create the illusion that Bengal was at last turning around. It is rumoured that a Bangladeshi tycoon now behind bars had funded a gallery in a fashionable Park Street apartment. It downed shutters soon after it opened like many of its poorer counterparts that have been wiped out of existence. Yet the quality of the shows rarely improved. The same names circulate ad nauseum.

Not just Delhi and Mumbai galleries, even galleries in this city began to publish lavishly produced catalogues and throw wine-and-cheese (forget the quality of the comestibles and the plonk that goes for Chardonnay) launch parties. Although most galleries here scrimp on snacks and often forget to turn on the AC, exhibition openings inevitably attract gatecrashers, all known faces who make short work of the vegetarian’s delights served.

Galleries here don’t pamper artists the way they do in Delhi and Mumbai but in the immediate past they have taken groups of Calcutta artists for trips abroad. Earlier, galleries used to hold art camps at tourist destinations in the country itself but now they travel in style to faraway Egypt, Tunis, Istanbul and of course China. Living in clover for the first time, penurious artists immediately went upscale — from alleys to apartments in condos, and from buses and trams to chauffeur-driven vehicles.

Now, after having made a killing over the past half decade or so, many gallerists in Calcutta are complaining that their lucky break is over, for the time being at least. These gallerists are only echoing the plaints of art dealers and curators all over the world from the US to China.

The downturn had actually begun last year although in the past six months or so the pinch has been felt more acutely. To begin with, those who had bought art in haste discovered soon afterwards that it was impossible to offload these in a seller’s market. Capital gain tax was introduced then and thereby profit made by selling art work became taxable. To make matters worse, 10 to 15 galleries all over India, including Calcutta, had been raided by the Income-Tax department and the market became quite jittery as a result. The stock market crash followed soon and entire portfolios were wiped out. Now nobody has the money to invest in art. So art galleries are facing a setback.

It is said that well before the “meltdown” effect Jogen Chowdhury and Paritosh Sen were barely managing to sell and it is possible that galleries and auction houses were acting safe and underpriced their stock. Jogen Chowdhury drawings that were selling for Rs 18-20 lakh were now available for Rs 8-12 lakh, and yet there were hardly any buyers. Dharmanarayan Dasgupta was Rs 12-15 lakh in the middle of the boom, now for Rs 5-7 lakh. A full sheet Paritosh Sen was Rs 12-15 lakh, now Rs 8-10 lakh. One and a half years ago, the going price for middle-ranking Chandra Bhattacharjee’s 30 x 42 inch works was Rs 7 lakh. Now his 36 x 48 inch works are available 30 per cent less — Rs 5-6 lakh.

The Emami Chisel Art auction on November proved once again that high priced art is not selling. Ganesh Pyne was rejected by buyers, although Bikash Bhattacharjee’s work of 1979 did go under the hammer for Rs 52,58430.

Commenting on the current situation, Rakhi Sarkar, director, CIMA Gallery, said: “This is a good jolt. Arbitrary assessment of art will not be there. One has to be patient for the next one year. This is the time for serious shows. Art comes last in the list of people’s priorities.”

Arun Vadhera, whose Delhi-based gallery is one of the biggest in the country and who sells both Ganesh Pyne and Jogen Chowdhury, admits that sales have dropped substantially by 33 per cent to 40 per cent. However, the Bengal masters are “part of history” and have an abiding appeal.

Prakash Kejriwal, who had set the trend of opening galleries in Calcutta, rightly says that this is the time for collectors, not investors. “But in India collectors are not even 10 per cent of the total market. Artists don’t like to reduce their prices. When asked they quote their last price. So galleries are reducing their margin. That is why the art market has contracted substantially. People are going back to old masters or top modern artists.”

According to reliable sources, galleries that sell Indian art in London — there are six of them — are finding it hard to keep their head above water. Arani Bose of Bose Pacia, which has opened a branch in Calcutta, while admitting that there is a “dramatic reduction” in sale, says the canvas crisis will “push experimentation” and people will be willing to look beyond the Subodh Gupta pop paintings. Sounding a positive note he says: “This will unshackle the Indian contemporary art from the market.”

Even that will be a temporary phase.

Soumitra Das