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| An untitled work by Ravindra Reddy |
This column comes back after a long break due to other professional commitments. But I have still kept my eye closely trained on the world of art and I want to give you an update on the state of the market along with some of the commercial dynamics which I detect are at work now.
First of all, let me say I don’t think it has been a good summer for Indian art. We lost the doyen of the art community in India with the passing of MF Hussain. He was an artist who put this country on the global art map. Anything said about his contribution to the Indian art scene, his free spirit and his whole attitude towards life will never do justice his true importance.
We also have seen some poor sales results from three important auctions during the summer. Let’s look at what has been going on and get a handle on future price movements as we head into the autumn auctions.
If we combine the three summer sales of Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Saffronart, the total sale value amounted to Rs 52.5 crore. That’s a hefty 21 per cent below even the Rs 66 crore figure, which was the low end of the auction houses’ estimate range.
Tyeb Mehta’s three works accounted for over 35 per cent of the entire turnover. Without his paintings in the sales, the total would have been even lower. Tyeb Mehta with his Figure on a Rickshaw, a 1984 oil on canvas, set a new artist record of Rs 12.75 crore. He also did well with a small canvas Kali, which went for Rs 5.25 crore in the Saffronart sale — clearly signalling a trend and a complete price re-rating of his works.
The situation was even worse for Contemporary artists with some top ones failing to even sell in the auctions. For some of those who sold, the prices they fetched were much lower than before. The only Contemporary artists who fared well were Ravinder Reddy with his sculpture of lady heads and Bharti Kher’s work Rugged Terrain.
Internationally, though, sales have been much better. The art markets have recovered well and Art Basel, the world’s premium art fair, reported brisk business.
So what is dragging down the art market in India? We see symptoms of the malaise afflicting the Indian market with art funds continuing to fail, galleries that keep on closing and auction results grinding slowly downwards.
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| Kali by Tyeb Mehta |
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| Bharti Kher’s Rugged Terrain |
The problem is that we only have a market for Modern works — so that is Hussain, Raza, Souza, Padamsee and Tyeb Mehta mainly. There is no market for the Contemporary artists or artists who produced their most significant works post the year 2000.
But the reason for that is simple. Between the years 2003 to 2007, values moved up between 10 to 100 times in some cases. Now we are seeing a price correction and values are down 50 per cent from an illogical peak. Some of the artists just dropped off the radar as their prices were ridiculous. Look into auction history for the years 2006 to 2008 and you will see some names that don’t even figure on auction lists anymore.
Artists refuse to believe that times have changed and that the world has become a more conservative place. They keep looking for that handful of gullible collectors who make them feel that their exorbitant prices are the real prices. This has the effect of shrinking the real collector base as no one likes to lose money forever.
And for all those artists and galleries who claim that art should not be seen as a financial investment, my reply is that anything over a threshold of Rs 1 lakh should be seen as both an aesthetic as well as a financial investment.
Collectors, for their part, should not get into art in the expectation of making money. As we have seen, it is indeed difficult to make money investing in art in this country. Get into buying art for the love of it and see how it enriches your life.
I have always believed that if art is priced right, a lot more artists will be encouraged and a lot more collectors will engage in buying and collecting art. The right prices will also attract new people to have real art on their walls instead of purchasing cheap offset prints from the road that are framed well.
This kind of affordable buying of original art is all possible now. I recently met a person who had logged onto bestcollegeart.com, an initiative which is supported by me, among others. He had just bought two works by young artists Nikhil Acqui and Ishwar Gurung for Rs 2,000 and Rs 4,000 respectively. So for a scant Rs 6,000, he had purchased two original works and become a new collector.
This is just one example. Travel to any country in Europe and on the weekends, they have great art markets on the curbside where people who paint for the love of art bring their canvases and it is very economical to buy the works.
For sceptics who may dismiss paintings from such sources as bestcollegeart.com as mere pretty daubs, it is well to remember that FICA’s Emerging Artist of the Year, Paribartana Mohanty, came out of bestcollegeart.com. He showed at Art HK in Hong Kong with six strong canvases at the Nature Morte booth, sharing space with established Contemporary stars like Thukral & Tagra.
So this monsoon, feel the raindrops, cater to your senses and go and buy some art — but do take care of your pocket though.
