A study on creating new markets for Indian art

Mukti Khaire, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School and R. Daniel Wadhwani, an assistant professor at University of the Pacific, have looked at the emergence of modern Indian art as a category in the international fine art market between 1995 and 2007.

Their study, entitled ‘Changing Landscapes: ‘The Construction of Meaning and Value in a New Market Category - Modern Indian Art’ defines the core premises of market creation for modern Indian art in the following three broad steps:

Redefinition of the category: Art academics and historians started the process of redefining as well as reinterpreting 20th-century art from India in modernist terms, underling its originality and bringing out its aesthetic value. This essentially implied that the art had a much higher economic value than ascribed before.

Creation of valuation metrics: This particular part of the process occurred among the commercial role-players in the entire ecosystem. Auction houses opted to translate the academic discourse into straightforward constructs that not only simplified the new category to key stakeholders, but also enabled comparison and consequently proper valuation of the works. The idea was to generate meaningful trade in the art arena.

Broad acceptance and precise understanding of the category: These constructs employed in auction texts helped define the precise value of modern Indian art. Western galleries and museums started taking notice of the new genre. They began to hold special exhibitions and retrospectives, to further establish it as a legitimate fine art category.

In essence, the researchers underline the importance of co-opting changes in the broader context as timely opportunities to create new markets. While the ability to create valuation metrics for new market categories holds the key, entrepreneurs should also realize that no single actor can generate the broad, inter-subjective agreement in order to the establish a new market. They must take cognizance of the role played by other commercial and non-commercial actors in the ecosystem.

For instance, while non-commercial actors like academics create the foundation for modern and contemporary Indian art market, the media and auction houses enhance its dissemination for a widespread understanding. The conclusion sums up the core of this extensive and enlightening research on the construction of meaning and value in Indian art as a new market category.