‘The Surface of Each Day is a Different Planet’ by Raqs Media Collective

Raqs Media Collective has treaded a dynamic and diverse terrain—from, text image to assemblages, video to installation, from encounters to online media objects, and performance and. The trio of Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Jeebesh Bagchi see different disciplines and forms.

Raqs is a Persian word. It describes the state that ‘whirling dervishes’ enter into when they whirl. It’s also a term to denote dance. At the same time, it could be an acronym for ‘rarely asked questions’...! The members have exhibited extensively in the context of large-scale international exhibitions such as Documenta 11, the Venice Biennial, and the Liverpool Biennial and in major art spaces such as Serpentine Gallery, the Walker Arts Center and Taipei Fine Arts Museum among other international venues.

Their talks began manifesting themselves as a way of sharing notes from research and back stories of artworks with their publics in various parts of the world: in order to tell stories, and leave them half told, with space and time for listeners to fill them in as they fancied. In conjunction with this exhibition, Shuddhabrata Sengupta’s lecture-performance was also held. Their new project at New York based efflux is titled ‘The Surface of Each Day is a Different Planet’. An accompanying note mentions:

"What happens when you layer one time on to another time? Do you get two times at once, or, do you register some other, singular temporal experience, analogous to the mysteriously singular 'composite' portrait of many individuals, which is neither a sum of the parts of the photographs of many faces, nor an average but a 'new' different face, which looks as if it belonged to a unique life.

A life never lived, but made manifest as a photographic accident. Can there be a time made of juxtapositions, a time never experienced, but made serendipitously manifest by interpretative accidents? By the careful cultivation of chance encounters in scattered archives..."

By blending elements, observing mutations as and where they happen, and keenly watching on the way in which the world navigates through their triangular consciousness, they generate motives for its continuity and its pleasure.

'This too shall pass' by Sudarshan Shetty

The Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum presents a new show, entitled ‘This too shall Pass’ by Sudarshan Shetty.

It’s the first of a series of exhibitions planned by the Museum to re-establish its historic connection with the Sir J. J. School of Art. During the 19th and early 20th century the position of curator of the Museum and the principal of the School of Art were held by the same person. Many of the objects in it were produced by the JJ school students. The museum is a rich repository of the history & culture of the city.

The exhibition series is planned as a residency where artists respond to the Museum's collection and engage with its history and archives. The works in the series by Sudarshan Shetty engage what he refers to as "memory at large," playing on the viewer's encounters with the quotidian worlds of the city, home and street as they incorporate everyday objects, machine parts and readymades, easily available in the streets around his home and studio in Mumbai.

However, his practice takes these origins as points of departure for a rigorous investigation of concepts of self and nature, things and beings, effect and affect and absence and presence. Drawing on a world of shared meaning, the object-assemblage materially incorporates and disperses those shared meanings into the viewer's experience.

Sudarshan Shetty is best known for his enigmatic and moving sculptural installations has long been recognized as his generation's most innovative conceptual artist in India. Working with the mechanical animation of objects and the philosophical implications of the quest for mechanical life, he draws on a terrain that centers on the social life of things and their capacities to offer new kinds of subjective experience.

While inviting the viewer into an uncanny and seemingly occult universe of objects, this language also puzzles by embedding contradictions in the forms themselves and playfully parodying the possibility of a ‘natural' order of things and a ‘normal' order of humans as makers of meaning.

‘In The Waves And Underneath’ by Pooja Iranna

"Don’t be absorbed with the waterwheel’s motion.
Turn your head and gaze at the river. You say,
'But I’m looking there already.” There are several signs
in eyes that see all the way to the ocean. Bewilderment is one.
Those who study foam and flotsam near the edge have purposes,
and they’ll explain them at length!
Those who look out to sea become the sea, and they can’t speak about that.
On the beach there’s desire-singing and rage-ranting, the elaborate language-dance of personality, but in the waves and underneath there’s no volition, no hypocrisy, just love forming and unfolding."

—Rumi

The above verse sums up the spirit of Pooja Iranna’s new show. Her exploration of the human psyche has been a long-standing one.

Curator Ina Puri’s note on nww show, entitled ‘In The Waves And Underneath’ at New Delhi based Palette Art Gallery points out how the artist recalls having witnessed, in her formative years, the ultimate submission of a generation grappling with the bewildering demands of a consumerist, modern society, their illumined hopes and dreams of the past era consigned to memory. The silhouette of the city’s skyline—once a spangle of minarets and tomes being replaced by an ugly tangle of multistoried constructions reaching up to claim the skies—also made its imprint in her conscious memory. The architectural spaces, in her work, speak of the human condition.

In the artist’s pictorial realm, images appear from past and present times, capturing her impressions of the city she calls her home, as it metamorphoses into a metascape she barely recognizes. Standing at the edge of this precipice, part-real, part-fantasy, she seems to say to the viewer, ‘Come, travel into my space and inhabit my world. Listen to the unspoken voices of the walls whispering their secrets to you…’

In Pooja Iranna’s world, there is the feeling of cosmic loneliness, the spectre of ‘an abandoned world encased in glacial solitude…’ Who is more alone? He who feels his own seclusion or he who feels the solitude of the world? In the waves and underneath, there’s no volition, no hypocrisy, just love forming and unfolding.

A new show that maps artistic ‘Digression’

‘Digression’ is the title of a new show at New York’s Hendershot Gallery, featuring works by Divya Mehra, Justine Reyes, Chitra Ganesh, Liz Magic Laser, Mary A. Valverde, Simone Leigh, and Kenya (Robinson). It marks the inaugural exhibit at the gallery’s new venue.

The exhibition draws its title from a talk with Kara Walker in which the artist states ‘I’m sorry. I just digress. That’s all I do.’ In fact, digression is something that we apologize for in everyday speech; it’s construed as a problematic accident, a divergence from the main point, which weans away meaning and also dilutes the concentrated ‘essence’ of an artwork.

Elaborating on the theme, an accompanying note states, quoting linguist Sandra Schor that digression is something that we encounter along a carefully networked, formally composed route of discourse, which holds our attention, attracting us by how powerfully it tends to arrest us in its own form, its own argument hidden within an argument. The write-up adds:

“Just as a map does not always bring us to the most exciting place, digression can thrust us into a space of the unknown, the unfamiliar, a place that is unexpected and perhaps even a bit frightening simply because it is alien. Within digression lie the hidden stories, those that only come to light by an act of moving away from ‘the subject at hand’ — whether that is a conversation topic that one wishes to avoid or the entire accepted canon of literature or fine art. Digressers are like dreamers, creating imaginative acts without censors. Here, in the realm of digression, anything is possible.”

The artists access the hidden tales of their identities and their cultures through digression, thus pulling the viewers away from the fiction implicit in social norms. They enable us to interact, even play, sans the proverbial map. We end up somewhere unexpected, rather surprised, having followed their alternative paths.

Lehman's corporate art collection to go under the hammer

The auction house Christie's has published the catalogue for the sale of "artwork and ephemera" collected by the former bosses of Lehman Brothers, which will go under the hammer on 29 September, to mark the second anniversary of the firm's collapse.

Among the 300 lots on offer as part of Lehman's corporate art collection from Christies, there are pieces, which might set the hearts of art lovers a flutter. British artist Matthew Ritchie’s abstract oil & marker work is slated to fetch roughly £70,000 and £100,000; a painting by Gary Hume, titled ‘Madonna‘ has been listed for over £80,000, and a drawing by Jim Hodges ‘All To

One‘ is expected to touch the price mark between £30,000 and £50,000.
Some of the pieces are rarities. Among those on offer include the late 19th century ornate giltwood overmantel mirror (£1,000-£1,500); and two Chinese barrel-shaped garden seats (£1,500-£2,000). There are dozens of Victorian prints plus several sets of books.

Administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers expects the event to raise £2m, just a dent in the billions sought by its European creditors. An auction of artworks possessed by Lehman in the US will happen at Sotheby's in New York in the last week of September. This auction event boasts a quality contemporary collection, with artworks from Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, John Baldessari, John Currin, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Roni Horn and Gerhard Richter.

The events offer a glimpse into the mores of the failed banking world that has been collecting excellent art for several decades both as an investment and to display wealth in its offices. Commerzbank sold a Giacometti sculpture earlier this year. It had inherited it when the bank took over another financial institution a year earlier.

Deutsche Bank has in possession one of Europe's best collections. RBS is believed to boast of the largest corporate collection of art in the UK, owning over 2,200 pieces, including work by David Hockney, Patrick Caulfield and LS Lowry.

A painter who depicts the ironies of the life around

Ram Kumar’s paintings express the desolation or sense of loss he witnessed in the life around him. A leading name from India’s modern art movement, he is renowned for his ephemeral landscapes.He was greatly inspired by its mystical imagery of day-to-day life in Varanasi. When he first went there almost five decades ago, he felt a haunting sense of hopelessness and desolation in the dimly lit, deserted lanes of a dark night.

The starkness of this haunting experience only grew with every subsequent trip to the holy city. These impressions marked a major transition in his thought process and practice. The young painter spent hours at the riveting riverbanks engulfed by a vast sea of humanity. The wary faces with a prayer on their lips seemed like masks that bore marks of sufferings similar to the creaky windows and doors jutting out of old structures.

Seeing the lifeless bodies brought from distant villages, awaiting their turn for liberation, he felt the fading boundary between life and death. The somber sight left a lasting imprint on his artistic sensibility. Gradually, a new visual idiom arose from the depths of an introspective experience.

Analyzing Ram Kumar’s growth trajectory, art critic Ranjit Hoskote has noted in an essay: "He spent the first decade of India's independence, perfecting an elegiac figuration imbued with the spirit of tragic modernism. To this period belong those lost souls: the monumental Picassoesque figures packed into a darkened picture-womb, terrorized workers, emaciated doll-women and the bewildered clerks trapped in the industrial city. Rendered through a semi-cubist discipline and memorialized, these fugitives are trapped in a hostile environment and in their own divided selves."

The extreme irony in the life around reflects in his paintings. If his Benares series is a haunting meditation on death, the landscape paintings focus on brighter side of life. The vibrant colors and shimmering surfaces exude a sense of restless vitality.

A spotlight on veteran artist Ram Kumar’s art and life

The core concern in Ram Kumar’s work remains the pathetic human condition. A sense of alienation in crowded cities disturbs him as an artist.

Though hailing from a large middle-class family sans any creative environment, he and his brother developed interest in literature. In 1945, he happened to visit an art exhibition, and he almost immediately joined art classes. As his passion for painting grew, Ram Kumar decided to travel to France. Fortunately, he received the French Cultural Council scholarship (1949-52). It was a great learning experience for him to meet the likes of Octavio Paz, Jacaques Roubaut, Andre Lhote, and Fernand Leger.

In his early works, the painter opted for an elegiac figuration, exuding the excruciating spirit of tragic Modernism. He also drew upon exemplars like Georges Rouault, Gustave Courbet, Edward Hopper, and Kathe Kollwitz. Infused with a great ideological fervor, he dedicated himself to constructing an iconography of victimhood and depression.

The paintings imbued with a touch of melancholic Realism not only reflected his acute disillusionment with the anonymity and monotony of urban existence, but also alluded to the disillusionment with unfulfilled promises after India’s Independence. These compositions represented a major phase of the country’s post-Independence art.

A series of solos of his wonderful work have been held in India and internationally over the last six decades. It has also been featured in several recent group exhibits. His retrospective exhibitions have been held at NGMA (1994) and Jehangir Art Gallery courtesy Vadehra, Delhi (1994); Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal (1986), and Birla Museum, Kolkata (1980). The veteran artist has won several honors and awards, such as Officers Arts et Letters, France (2003); Kalidas Samman, Madhya Pradesh government (1986); Padma Shri, Government of India (1972); J. D. Rockefeller III Fellowship, New York (1970), and the national awards (1956, 1958).

A visionary link seems to exist between his paintings and his stories. If his landscapes appear remote and alien, his stories are troubled, sad and brooding. The colors – greys, yellow ochres and browns – soak in their deft tonal subtleties, and his lines pulsate at every point of its length. Stylistically and thematically, Ram Kumar’s amazing oeuvre grips your mind and heart.

Artist Bani Abidi’s solo show in Mumbai

Mumbai based Project 88 is to host artist Bani Abidi’s first solo in the city. The inspiration for the title of the show, Section Yellow, comes from bureaucratic reins one has to face while crossing boundaries. In keeping with her earlier works like ‘RESERVED’, ‘Security Barriers A- L’ and ‘Intercommunication Devices, she continues to explore notions regarding spaces, objects and situations that exert control over societies.

Born in Pakistan, Bani Abidi divides her practice between New Delhi and Karachi. She graduated from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1994 and completed her Master’s from Art Institute of Chicago, in 1999.

Her works have been exhibited widely in solo and group shows such as ‘Karachi’, Green Cardamom, London 2010, ‘Where Three Dreams Cross', Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; The X Lyon Biennale 2009, Lyon, France; 7th Gwangju Biennale 2008, Kwangju, South Korea, among others. Her works are in the collections of MoMA, New York and Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi, and other private collections. In 2011 she will be artist in residence at the prestigious DAAD Artists –in –Berlin program.

As an artist, she is conceptual in approach. She works primarily with video and photography. They often comprise humorous moments drawn from everyday life that she employs to comment on various socio-political and cultural situations that concern her. Her new video and photographic works are about people who are going elsewhere. For example, ‘The Distance from Here’, a video work is a glance at the psychological effects that the entire process has on applicants queuing in lines to apply for visas.

Through multiple frames and gestures Bani Abidi builds up an anatomy of preparation, anxiety and patience. The entire video is a play on coercion using migration as a metaphor. Additionally, the exhibition also comprises sets of photographic works, Exercise in redirecting lines, Untitled and One of Two.

National Art Week of New Media in Chandigarh

Leading artists have gathered for the first National Art Week of New Media in Chandigarh.

The event is a joint initiative of Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi and the National Lalit Kala Akademi. The six-day panorama will include some of India’s most important art personalities - critics, historians, editors of art journals and artists, - — get together. The event, which will take place from September 21 to 26,

According to its chairperson Diwan Manna, the art platform has been conceptualized for viewing, discussing and understanding specific concerns of contemporary artists. It will also try to explore new avenues, mediums and intrinsic possibilities within visual arts with art connoisseurs, art historians, scholars, critics, and even students. He has been quoted as saying: “Lectures, panel discussions, slide shows, exhibition of works from the collection of LKA, Delhi, will make the event absorbing and interactive. Art lovers will be excited at the myriad possibilities in art practice and appreciation.”

Keeping in view the Akademi’s work in Chandigarh, National Akademi has supported and funded the event. Among those participating in the event is Bharti Kher, an artist who works with a wide range of media from installation to painting, and digital photography to sculpture. Her practice interrogates the relationship between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’, to address issues of identity, feminism, consumerism, race and class. Sudarshan Shetty has long been recognized as one of his generation’s most innovative conceptual artists.

Founded in 1992 in Delhi by Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Jeebesh Bagchi,, the hybrid practice of Raqs is as expressively poetic as it’s rigorously analytical. The Media Collective has curated exhibits, edited books, collaborated with architects, writers and theatre directors, and staged innovative events, founding processes that have greatly impacted contemporary art in India. Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra’s collaborative work in painting, sculpture, video, graphic design, installation, product design, websites, music and fashion has been equally appreciated.

Who won and who lost in the art market churning?

The art market has apparently recovered and regained its momentum in the first half: 71% jump in revenue from Fine Art auctions alone! This market fact has been quickly grasped by the top auction houses now predicting annual growth in close to 3 figures in order to assuage a still slightly hesitant market.

In line with the current market trend, Sotheby's and Christie's have posted impressive first-half revenue figures - up 140% and 67% respectively versus their 1H 2009 Fine Art revenue. In today’s dynamic market context, the figures appear perfectly natural. However, when compared to their previous growth benchmarks, the picture may not look that rosy.

For instance, the latest combined revenue figure for the auction houses is almost 25% lower than 2007 1H and almost 20% below the combined figure for 2008. A news report by Artprice elaborates:

“Between 2002 and 2008, the Christie's and Sotheby's duo never left more than 30% of the Fine Art auction market to their competitors. Since July 2008, this figure has been rising and in 2H 2009 the combined market share of the competitors amounted to 46% of global auction revenue. While the Chinese auction houses account for most of this increase, the other Western auctioneers have not managed to take advantage of the gradual dilution of the duopoly’s market hegemony and the emergence of a highly globalised art market.

In the second half of this year, it is quite possible that the two global auction giants(Sotheby's and Christie's) will re-affirm their domination. This is because their fine art revenue in first half of the year was much better than their combined 2009 total. But if they manage to, it will be against what now seems like a well-defined global trend. On the other hand, Phillips de Pury et is in constant decline, behind the Chin’s Poly and China Guardian.

Phillips, was acquired by Bernard Arnaud between 1999 and 2003 apparently to compete with Christie's has failed to generate more than even 4% of the global art market share since 2001-02. Their aggressive and seductive strategy does not seem to have yield. Simultaneously, the French auction companies have lost market share. Artcurial is in ninth position behind Dorotheum and a long way behind the English and Chinese houses. Apparently, China is the biggest winner from the present global art market crisis.

Arunkumar H.G.’s new series of works

Gallery Nature Morte presents Arunkumar H.G.’s new series of works, entitled ‘Tract’. The solo show in New Delhi continues with many of the themes the artist explored in his previous solo ‘Feed’ in 2006.

The new series is primarily composed of interesting sculptures in various forms and materials, along with some photographic work as well as wall reliefs. They together explore the core concept of Land and all it entails and then elaborates upon: mystical metaphors for the ensuing human and social bodies; issues of ownership and use; rural population migrating to urban centers and cities; environmental degradation and consciousness of its abuse; the production/distribution of food and the inevitable consequences of health, markets and waste management. Curator and cultural activist Himanshu Desai states in his essay:

“The term ‘Tract’ is pertinent to many of the artist’s concerns including environment, land and body. Dictionary definitions of the word stand proof:

1. Geography: An expanse of land or water (pertinent to the artist’s upbringing in agricultural environs that make him question the very nature of land or water ownership).

2. Anatomy: A system of organs and tissues that together perform a specialized function: e.g. the alimentary tract or a bundle of nerve fibers having a common origin, termination, and function (suggestive of Arunkumar’s interest in the effects of consumerism on nutrition, health and environment).

3. Liturgy: An anthem consisting of verses of Scripture (analogous to Arun’s lament on the loss of ancient agrarian wisdom in the face of capitalism).

The show gives no single message. It’s intended to give multiple layers of speculation and a sense of discovery to the viewer. Though this particular manner of storytelling might induce a degree of unease and ambiguity, the very idea is to coax speculation and keep any or all sermonizing at bay, as the curatorial essay concludes.

The 20/21 British Art Fair

The 20/21 British Art Fair, the only fair specializing exclusively in modern and contemporary British art, will take place at the Royal College of Art, London SW7, from 15 to 19 September 2010.

It has come to be recognized as a quality platform for modern and contemporary British art. Art lovers get to see some of the great names of 20th century art: Bacon, Freud, Frink, Frost, Hepworth, Hockney, Hodgson, Lanyon, Lowry, Moore, Nash, Piper, Riley, Scott, Sutherland and Spencer. Alongside is a large selection of work by both emerging and established contemporary artists – Hirst, Emin, Grayson Perry et al together with others who may be the stars of tomorrow.

Ed Vaizey, the culture secretary, opened the event. A UK Telegraph report mentioned: “With artists petitioning like mad against the proposed spending cuts to be announced next month, he will not be expecting an easy ride. But as it’s a trade fair, he will have the opportunity to appeal to the wealthy collectors present to follow Lord Sainsbury’s example in supporting the nation’s institutions – and its dealers too, of course.”

The art fair, now in its 23rd year, not only offers an enormous variety of art under one roof but also an opportunity to tap into the expertise of the 60 leading dealers. Whether your taste is for the earlier work, Scottish Colourists, pop art or the contemporary, the breadth and depth of over a hundred years of British art may well surprise. With prices from the low hundreds to hundreds of thousands, it is not to be missed!

Visitors can check artworks by Henry Moore, Elisabeth Frink, Allen Jones, Barbara Hepworth, SJ Peploe, Wyndham Lewis, William Roberts, Matthew Smith, Albert Irvin, Banksy, Howard Hodgkin, Ceri Richards, Graham Sutherland, Jacob Epstein, and Mark Gertler, among others. It provides a sneak peek into the latest and the best from the British art scene.

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.

What does it take to create and sustain a market for art?

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

The former, an Assistant Professor at HBS, has done her PhD (Management) from Columbia Business School after completing her Masters in Management from IIT, Mumbai. In appreciation of her academic excellence, she has received a special award from the Eugene Lang Center for Entrepreneurship. She has undertaken an in-depth study of the role of entrepreneurs and incumbent firms to construct a market for products comprised of subjective attributes as well as intangible value.

The study deals with the creation and consolidation of a market for modern and contemporary Indian art. Elaborating on its purpose, an accompanying paper states:

“Before 1995, fine art was produced in India sans little demand largely because it was considered provincial or decorative (in nature). To create a market for art, it was redefined as a new product category, i.e. modern Indian art, by a variety of participants including academics, artists, critics, and commercial auction houses. As Western museums and individual collectors started to take notice, prices for pieces rose, from a few thousand dollars to as high as millions of dollars, in some cases.”

This forms the background against which the two have contextualized their research work on a highly insightful study of genuine value construction as detailed and meticulously laid-out processes in a new dynamic market category. The observations of the HBS analyst is based on a premise that the Indian art market is a unique case to understand how entrepreneurs may well take advantage of fast-changing contexts and build on the actions of other players in the ecosystem to benefit from new market domains.

Tracing the growth trajectory of Indian art

When the HBS analyst Mukti Khaire first wrote a case study on an Indian start-up for online auctions of modern Indian art, she realized an interesting story of market creation was at play. Elaborating on the concept, she states in an interview to the HBS Working Knowledge:

“The case was particularly relevant to the study of market creation owing to three reasons. First, the art itself (the ‘product’ so to speak) was produced since the late 1940s in India although it had not been systematically traded in a sustained manner in international art markets until the early 1990s, which indicated that a market for the art had had to be actively created. Supply alone did not generate demand.

“Second, this was a case in which actors other than the producers (i.e., the artists) interpreted the product to explain and construct its value to consumers, allowing us to examine the entire ecosystem of players important in creating expectations about a new market category. Third, the processes of reinterpretation and value construction are particularly explicit and overt in the art world, where critics and reviewers etc engage in public discourse that compares works and discusses the attributes underlying their relative value.”

She along with Daniel Wadhwani tries to follow the growth trajectory of Indian art. Until the early 1990s, it was largely characterized as ‘decorative’ in international art circles. Since it was identified with that category, its value remained low. It was after 1995 that Indian art was classified as modernist and therefore ‘fine art’. It was then accepted as having more aesthetic and economic value than ascribed earlier.

Several prominent auction houses translated the changing academic discourse into fathomable constructs, enabling a larger group of participants and lay consumers to follow finer points of modern Indian art. As the understanding of modern Indian art spread, its value automatically increased.

This resulted in a greater media coverage, which naturally expanded the circle of interested stakeholders that converged on the better understanding of modern Indian art.
Despite the recent correction, the positive upswing is expected to continue. The momentum clearly suggests a sustainable rally.

Can art derivatives revolutionize the market?

The Financial Times, UK published an interesting article by Matthew Vincent on a peculiar sidelight of art buying, yet unexplored: future and options. This point was raised in the context of a ‘Self-Portrait with a Palette’ by Édouard Manet’ sold for a predetermined price before it was put on sale in Sotheby’s London auction in June.

Throwing light on the art investor selling at Sotheby’s, the news report mentioned:

“He is someone who should know all about the advantages of using options, futures and other kinds of derivatives: Steven A. Cohen, founder of the $16bn hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors. “Instead, though, he trades art at auctions driven by market sentiment, and in private sales prone to comical accident. For instance, he got the Manet self-portrait from a Las Vegas hotelier for $35m-$40m, but had to cancel his $139m deal of ‘Le Rêve’ by Picasso after the same vendor inadvertently stuck an elbow through the canvas. Had he been buying and selling derivatives, making profits and avoiding losses would arguably have been much easier.

Meanwhile, a hedge fund manager seems to be combining both trading and art investing. The Paris-based hedge fund Quant Hedge CFO, Victor Lebreton, is also listed as the investment manager and president of the Art Hedge fund, which engages in both foreign exchange trading and investments in ‘fine art & art derivatives to sustain cultural creation’.

However, neither Ferguson Solicitors nor the French fund is likely to generate enough buzz to give anything resembling a sustainable futures market. The article concludes:

“In theory, art derivatives sure would bring far greater liquidity as well as enhanced efficiency to the market that would mean potential cost related benefits for both
collectors and investors. Art derivatives certainly can revolutionize the art market by offering an easier and simpler way for managing the risk and return of art."

Fund managers, dealers and index compilers would first be required to get together. According experts, there’s nothing to stop this. To have in place a ‘true’ hedge for art, what needs to be developed are derivatives with art as the ‘underlying’.

Can art dealers act more like hedge fund managers?

If art, it is said, imitates life, why has it taken such a long time for those ‘high art’ purveyors to follow the practices of those practising the high life norms?

The above pertinent query is raised by Matthew Vincent of The Financial Times, UK. To put it plainly, the writer wants to know: Why is that art dealers do not act more like hedge fund managers? The idea has struck the columnist having come across two peculiar transactions in the world of art, recently: the sale of Tom Saunders’ work for a predetermined £1, and that of artist Édouard Manet’s ‘Self-Portrait with a Palette’ for $29m-$43m (It was put on sale in Sotheby’s London auction in June.)

The later (dated 1878) is one of the two rare self-portraits available. It’s considered by a section of experts to be his most valuable artwork still in private hands. Had it reached its estimate’s bottom end, the loss incurred could have been a substantial one for its owner, based on what the media reports stated he actually shelled out in a private sale.

On the other hand, the Saunders work doesn’t even exist yet. Being sold, via the London based murmurART gallery, is the right to buy this Camberwell College of Arts graduate fellow’s art for £1 in a decade’s time. But that is going to cost £2,000, based on what UK law firm Ferguson Solicitors, thinks is the right price level for an ‘option’ contract. Analyzing the case, the FT writer mentions: “

And in this, as in much great art, there is an exquisite hidden irony. According to Rupert Beecroft, the corporate lawyer at Ferguson who put together the Saunders deal, it is arguably the first art derivative of its kind. Last year James Layfield, a UK entrepreneur, offered a 10 per cent stake in his future lifetime earnings for £1m, but this was more a private equity proposition than an options trade"

Beecroft explains the idea, adding it’s like an option. The strike price is £1 and the premium is £2,000. It can only be exercised in 10 years’ time, at maturity. Certain contractual issues are: Which future work would be (treated) ‘optionable’ and what exactly would happen if the artist was no longer working in 2020? But these haven’t deterred prospective investors, who have expressed ‘a serious interest’ in the idea.

A new group show at Berlin based Nature Morte

‘Treacherous Path’, an exhibition at Berlin based Nature Morte, features a site-specific project by Julia Staszak, as well as installations by Raqs Media Collective and Radhika Khimji.
It focuses on different artistic methods of collage, layering and appropriation.

The centerpoint of Julia Staszak's installation is a structure derived from the facades of Hindu temples in South India, which incorporates works by diverse artists. Blurring the lines between conceptual art, painting, decor, collage and curating, the painter often integrates her own paintings, other artists' work and found objects into original and unfamiliar configurations. Her penchant for toying with political correctness becomes particularly poignant because it complicates the cultural expectations involved in such an invitation.

In the past few years the Raqs Media Collective (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, and Shuddhabratta Sengupta) have become increasingly visible on Europe's cultural platforms, participating in museum and gallery exhibitions as well as academic forums and symposiums. Their sculptural work, ‘The Reserve Army’, appropriates the Modernist sculptures made by the Indian sculptor Ram Kinker Baij, who appropriated Yaksha and Yakshi, two mythological Indian figures, to grant legitimacy to the newly independent nation, while Raqs' re-presentation of these figures speaks of India's convoluted entry into the world of advanced, multi-national capital.

With the addition of accessories for the figures, a digitized, futuristic backdrop and dramatic lighting, Raqs Collective employs a theatrical mise-en-scene to manipulate meaning, similar to the program of Julia Staszak.
Last but not the least, Radhika Khimji’s multi-media works create an unstable constellation of reactions between gesture, drawing, negative space, and architecture. Created for the exhibition ‘Progress Reports: art in an era of diversity’ at INIVA in London in 2009, her ‘Corner’ articulates the subtle shifts between an object and its support, the frame and its boundaries, an abstract motif and the representational meanings we project on to it.

‘Material Witness’ pairs unconventional subject matter and medium choices

‘Material Witness’ is the title of a new joint show at Bose Pacia, New York. It denotes an individual containing real or alleged information, or ‘material’, which is important to criminal trial. As such they get bound to the event irrespective of intent or interest. The works in this exhibit explore this very concept related to the artist’s subject and medium choices.

The exhibition includes large scale ‘paintings’ made with a variety of non-traditional substances. Historically a painter, Bari Kumar started to experiment with fabric constructions around 2007. These can be considered to mimic the pixilation aesthetic seen in many of canvas paintings done by him. His work on view is largely comprised of fabric constructions. He depicts segments of nude bodies with the material used conventionally to cover bodies he emphasizes the shifting contexts of the human body and its covering as well as the miscommunications, which arise when such distinctions do not follow a set trajectory.
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By using the fabric (sari lining fabric) intended for a sari’s inner lining he also brings to the fore a material frequently seen, albeit rarely adored. He lends a voice and position perhaps to an ‘unspoken variable from visual culture’. Other participant in ‘Material Witness’ is Buenos Aires-based collective, Mondongo. Both Bari Kumar and Mondongo in their works have explored theories of voice and deft representation of materials and subjects. A press release states:

“By using materials that are intrinsically linked to the message of the work the objects become complicit with their message. The works themselves become both the perpetrator and the perpetrated creating a vacuum of intense representation. By using a commonly acquired and viewed material to depict a related but far more contentious form, the artist emphasizes questions of voice, marginality, and inherent meaning. Mondongo's work has followed a similar path."

An insightful pairing of subject matter and medium in works by both Bari Kumar and Mondongo builds a sort of visual meditation on the agency of certain common materials and the moments of prescribed or purposeful meaning.

Owais Husain’s complex albeit mesmerizing works

It is not easy to decipher the fine layers of meaning embedded in Owais Husain’s complex albeit mesmerizing works. They have to be seen and perceived through his eyes. For example, in one of his earlier exhibition essays, he has stated: "The largest struggle we are witnessing today is not between nature and technology or between conflicting moral beliefs; it’s between our inner and outer lives.

"It’s the old philosophical 'mind-body' problem reaching a crescendo as an ecological drama where the end result rests not upon our realization alone that the natural-physical environ is one & the same as our bodies, but also that nature in itself is a form of mind.”

His equally powerful figurative work tends to dwell upon transfixed moments between ubiquitous people and situations. The complex works he often creates like house that you can find entry through both a window and a door to fathom the mystery. And as long as they elicit a response, he has no complaints.

Peeping into his restless mind, a recent AFP report notes: “To meet him is to understand why he opts to work in so many different mediums. He speaks in metaphors, jumping from subject matter to another and readily terming himself a ‘misfit’ who cannot be categorized neatly.”

Though traces of influence of his legendary father can well be detected, the sensitive artist has managed to create a niche for himself by following a totally different and refreshing approach to painting - slightly more intense and introspective - in a sense, more autobiographical in nature.

Now that the dust has settled down a bit regarding his father’s exile and subsequent acceptance of Qatar’s citizenship, Owais wants to take a dispassionate look at the turbulent times faced by his father. He has already outlined a documentary, focusing on the emotional turmoil during this trying phase as revealed in letters akin to emotional testimonials about what he experienced during the exile.

An artist inspired by his legendary father's legacy leaves his own mark

Owais Husain’s just concluded exhibition, the first solo show in Mumbai for nearly a decade, has drawn critical applause. Putting the series in perspective, the artist reveals how he has been silent or quite a while, before feeling an urge all of a sudden to vent the thoughts bottled up inside his head. It’s an echo of the silent phase he has suppressed all this while.

The new set of work revolves around an ensuing battle between one’s heart and the mind. It displays the various facets of relationships. He is currently working on an
experimental opera, having just finished shooting a film that will mark his directorial debut. Spelling out the difference between painting and filmmaking, he narrates that art is a solitary act whereas film involves a different kind of mathematics where one can get more experimental.

He is an artist boasting of probably the most recognizable surname in modern and contemporary Indian art history. His father is undoubtedly among the country's most internationally renowned and respected painters, unfortunately mired in controversies ever since he ruffled the religious feathers of touchy morality brigade. Having accepted citizenship of Qatar after a prolonged exile, MF Husain is unlikely to revisit his homeland.

The master painter, known as the pioneer and trendsetter of Indian modern art in the post-Independence era, was forced to give up on his Indian citizenship after a spate of protests. For record, Husain was forced into an exile in 2006 after a spate of criminal cases were slapped against him across the courts in India. Owais was supportive of his father's decision.

Meanwhile, he has also enhanced his reputation as a talented and dynamic artist. He does not carry that baggage of being an illustrated father's son. His deft brushstrokes create thickly delineated forms in constant movements. He prefers abstraction than pure forms. Notably, the element of the narrative is strong.

The Progressives score over the contemporary artists

The celebrated Progressives continue to thrive on the long-lasting adulation that they have enjoyed over all these years. Reputed collectors of Indian art internationally, including Rudy von Laden, Emmanuel Schlesinger, Kito de Boer, and Charles Herwitz have preferred these artists.

Even collectors, who have recently arrived on the scene, follow suit. As a result, the Progressives’ hold on the auction market has been rather firm. They occupy a large chunk of the secondary sales market, according to analysts. However, it is disconcerting that several deserving names have only remained at the peripheries of popular perception.

Thankfully, many Indian contemporaries have seen their fortunes worldwide take a positive turn. For this, they must thank the maverick London based collector, Charles Saatchi. It’s not that India does not boast of such influential names. For example, Anupam Poddar has certainly made a very vital contribution to the development of Indian contemporary art. But the media somehow is not so vigorous in pursuing and sharing his passion. Elaborating on this tendency, The Business Standard art writer Kishore Singh asks in a recent article:

“Can you recall the reticent collector (Devi Art founder) feeding the media interesting information about his recent buys? Sugar baroness Rajshree Pathy might well be more flamboyant (and also a bit more eclectic in her selection), yet her buys seldom make news (She owns a fantastic collection in her Delhi home and intends to set up an art university & museum in Coimbatore). Other known collectors like Rajesh Sawara and Ashok Alexander also have refused (or been deprived of) the spotlight.”

What the Indian art scene probably needs is a pool of collectors that will drive the media attention towards new artists. Someone clearly needs to take up the mantle on their behalf. The time has come for the new shift…

Indian collectors and their passion do not draw enough media attention

Most records and major noteworthy sales in recent years have involved works by the Progressive artists and their associates, like Tyeb Mehta, MF Husain, Akbar Padamsee, and Jehangir Sabavala. Serious collectors start wisely with them, but when they tend to underplay the focus on other important artists they collect, it is rather detrimental to their valuations.

Sadly, between the Progressive artists and the more recent contemporaries like, Atul Dodiya, Bharati Kher, Subodh Gupta, Manjunath Kamath, and Riyas Komu, there seems to be a ‘lost generation’ that is less celebrated than the attention-grabbing Progressives. Making his point, art expert Kishore Singh notes in The Business Standard essay:

“Recently, the Jehangir Sabavala auction of ‘The Casuarina Line’ for a whopping Rs 1.7 crore resulted in almost a media frenzy; now consider when you saw something similar for an artwork by Surendran Nair, or G R Santosh by Manjit Bawa, Anjolie Ela Menon, or Jogen Chowdhury? Late Manjit Bawa’s prices on an incline draw less attention (probably) for not being part of the Progressives’ group.

"Though the contemporaries grab more eyeballs, can you recall their buyers? A widespread belief is that contemporary artists’ works end up in either museums or in institutions that robs them of the intimacy ‘personal’ or people-led buys evoke. It certainly does little toward generating the competitive spirit among collectors.”

Collectors looking for contemporaries shrewdly perhaps base their worth on attractive bargain values today, which have the potential to become tomorrow’s masterpieces. In this, they apparently follow the artists often being promoted by the world-renowned collector, Charles Saatchi.

As is widely known, the London-based famed advertising guru has turned his passion for art into a public frenzy. Every time he opts to buy a particular artist, or supports one, new markets and price highs are made. Sadly, the process goes the other way, too. So every time he decides to dump an artist’s work, his or her prices inevitably fall. Perhaps India needs its very own Saatchi.

Understanding Raqib Shaw's art practice

Born in Kolkata, Raqib Shaw belongs to a family of carpet makers and shawl traders from Kashmir. The strife-torn scenic landscape and his ancestry have greatly shaped the richly layered exquisite paintings by him. His passion for art took him to London, where he studied at Central St Martins School of Art. A series of international shows brought him to limelight.

For example, his spectacular and visionary paintings displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and a solo show at the Tate Britain enhanced his reputation as a world-class artist. When he arrived in London, the first Western painter he encountered was Hans Holbein, who incidentally inspired this body of work.

The talented artist's earlier series ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ also received immense critical acclaim. The erotically charged works courtesy Victoria Miro were inspired by Hieronymous Bosch’s 15th century triptych. The artist depicted a dizzying scenario of erotic hedonism, both gruesome and explosive in its debauchery. It was a fantastical underwater world full of mythical creatures populated with hybrid creatures and fusing a wide array of fabulously painted flora and fauna.

The works from this series commanded astounding attention and prices internationally. A painting from it fetched Rs 19 crore at a 2007 Sotheby’s auction in London. Other small size works subsequently went for Rs 1.27 crore (Sotheby’s, February 08) and Rs 4 crore (February 2010, Christie’s). Raqib Shaw's another significant show, entitled ‘Absence of God’, at White Cube, London (2009) focused on the peculiar ‘presence of absence’ felt by many intellectuals, often leading to a fear of the void. The concept spurred the restless artist to fill that void and create a fantastical imagery.

Putting his ideas in perspective, reviewer Norman Rosenthal of the UK Telegraph noted in an essay, “When he first came to London, the artist was overwhelmed by some of the paintings in the National Gallery by artists like Botticelli and Bronzino. Holbein and Piranesi also became points of reference. The extraordinary era of Moghal India, with its extravagant, bejeweled empire, which resulted in a wonderful flowering of Indian painting, also found an echo in his art.”

An artist known for gloriously opulent and complex paintings

His awe-inspiring oeuvre tends to recreates myth and fantasy with devils and angels, horror and beauty infused in equal measure. The extraordinary work
captivates the viewer’s eye with its intricate detail and rich colors. A fantasy world, which simmers with erotic tension and violence, lies beneath their glittering surfaces.

The multi-faceted artist is known to employ mix media, such as car enamels and industrial paints coupled with decorative materials comprising glitter and precious gemstones for densely patterned and elaborately layered surfaces that combine an Eastern and Western perspective. A wealth of dense imagery fills Raqib Shaw’s paintings and sculptures: fantastical creatures and devil-like gods, decayed ornamental architecture, and exquisitely painted flowers and grasses.

They conjure up both a beautiful and horrific universe. Raqib Shaw unveils a chain of cultural contradictions, essentially based on the twin factors of self-knowledge and dream psychology. Known for his gloriously opulent painted images, the internationally acclaimed artist creates a fantastical realm, enriched with jewel-like
surfaces, bright colors, and intricate detailing. The elements deceptively mask the violent and sexual undertone.

His practice is based on a deep understanding of the rich history of poetic-visual culture of both East and West, having drawn on a rich seam of influences from India, Japan, and China. Known to be an excellent draughtsman, he can effortlessly produce thousands of drawings of flowers, and creatures - both real and imaginary - that make their way into the vibrant paintings. They are then meticulously infused with
enamel-like paint, later to be covered with countless tiny emeralds, rubies etc. Intense shades of captivating colors achieve a high degree of precision with his expert touch.

Apparently inspired by a wide range of sources, the artist unveils explosive collisions of mesmerizing fact and fiction, nature and culture. The startling aesthetics unveils itself only on closer examination to bring out sexual bizarreness and violence. At a latent level, it touches upon the vices of mindless consumption and profligacy as well as intemperance that that afflicts mankind.

Experts foresee a good demand for quality art worldwide

Here are some facts and opinions to substantiate the broad belief that the art market is recovering:

According to ArtTactic, average auction prices and volumes for modern Indian art are now back to the June 2008 peak levels. Emphasizing the recovery, its recent release mentions: “The current year has been very good for the Indian art market. It’s a remarkable recovery after volumes dropped 63% and prices fell 46% between September 2008 and March 09. The Modern market recovery is also rubbing off on the Contemporary Indian art market, which has remained subdued.”

Anders Peterson, who runs the London based analysis firm, thinks that auctions are now much like a filtered version of the art market reality. Works of high quality, rarity and proven provenance are more likely to sell. And those that do not demonstrate these qualities will continue to fetch lower prices or none at all. According to him, the focus is back on selective established modern artists such as Gaitonde, Husain, Souza and Akbar Padamsee with ‘proven historical value’.

Another report from Art Radar Asia concurs that a significant change from the earlier trends is the consistent sales of established Indian modern artists rather than the contemporary ones. However, the overall push in the market performance has helped contemporaries’ sales as well. Art expert John Elliott mentions in an essay: “Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Saffronart sales suggest that the top end of the modern Indian art market is firmly on the rebound after the 2008-09 crash, showing a considerable improvement for India’s leading modern artists.”

Castlestone Management specializing in alternative assets foresees a 40 percent increase in art prices over the next couple of years. It correlates the trend to rising equity prices, terming it a key indicator for analyzing the art markets trends.

Significant features of the current art market scenario

After enduring a prolonged and painful correction, contemporary art is now gradually advancing. Experts feel that the market is currently under a consolidation phase. Here, we list down some of the noteworthy aspects of the ongoing recovery in the market, based on media reports and the expert opinions.

Seemingly listless at the beginning of the year, the auction scene has gathered momentum. The primary market is comparatively still looking sluggish. Also, there is hardly any visible trickle-down effect to many of the emerging art forms. In a quest to target the discerning and choosy buyer, the auction houses are choosing to focus on quality works. Incidentally, most top lots at recent sales are dominated by traditional and modern art.

The artists with strong international backing and visibility seem to have greater scope and speed of recovery. For example, Bharti Kher and Subodh Gupta have staged a comeback faster, even as many of their counterparts await resurrection. Progressive modernists such as FN Souza, VS Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, SH Raza and MF Husain are witnessing good demand. (Surprisingly, their works were on offer for a steal, a year ago.)

Reflecting the slightly cautious mood, a section of buyers remains wary. In its first quarter report of 2010, the Mei Moses art index of marketable artworks, has registered a decrease of nearly 5 percent. Echoing the cautious sentiment, Sharmistha Ray asks in a recent Economic Times essay whether it’s all happening too soon. A shallow market is much more susceptible to predatory speculation, a lesson we should have learned well by now. If ever we needed the voice of reason, it’s now, the expert observes.

Summing up the situation, Kelly Crow of The Wall Street Journal reveals in a news report: “So far this year, the clash in attitudes - one cautious, the other giddy - has created an unpredictable marketplace in which artworks tend to fly or flop without warning!”

Troubled businesses are selling art to raise funds

When companies fall, it can result in an art market bonanza. For example, bankruptcy administrators of Italian airline Alitalia disposed a collection of Futurist works for more than 1 million euros. Sotheby's sold nearly 1,000 photos by lens masters like Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange in June during a bankruptcy court-approved sale of defunct camera-maker Polaroid’s collection.

The trend of corporations purchasing artworks in good times and disposing them off in bad is quite an old one. IBM president Thomas Watson, Sr. gathered works by artists like Frida Kahlo for decorating the IBM pavilion at New York’s World Art Fair in 1939. Decades later, the cash-strapped company sold its rich collection for $31 million through Sotheby's.

Judd Tully, art expert and editor-at-large of Art & Auction, felt it was unlikely to see big firms selling off works in bulk owing to the negative publicity such events would generate, as it clearly raises a red flag that they obviously must be going broke.

Germany's HypoVereinsbank disposed a blue sponge painting by artist Yves Klein in June from its collection for 6.2 million pounds through Sotheby's. When Commerzbank took hold of Dresdner Bank, it also acquired an Alberto Giacometti sculpture ‘Walking Man’ that became the most expensive work ever when it went for 65 million pounds at Sotheby's auction in London earlier this year.

Lehman Brothers auctions at Sotheby's (New York) and Christie's (London) are expected to raise over $10 million for the creditors, only a fraction of the debt worth $613 billion held by Lehman after it collapsed in late 2008, leading to a global financial meltdown. The underwriter expected interest in the sale to be good not merely owing to the quality of the art on offer, keen to see if the Lehman provenance would increase the intrinsic value of the collection - memento mori of the great global credit crunch.

A close link that the art and corporate world share

An interesting new report ‘Will tough times trigger corporate art selloff?’ by AP writer Jill Lawless establishes the link between the art and corporate world – both in good and bad times.
Corporations collect and invest in art for various reasons. Turning a profit is perhaps the least important of this. Some major companies like to see backing talented artists as a way of fulfilling corporate social responsibility, or philanthropy purpose - artworks can be lent to galleries and museums for special shows.

Then there are corporate entities that use art for the purpose of flaunting their wealth. The former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fred Goodwin, often boasted about the David Hockney in his plush office. Sometimes, artworks are used for enlivening the drab work environment.

Art insurer and collector Robert Korzinek wants the office premises to have a stimulating environment. This is achieved with a trove of contemporary artworks by Grayson Perry, Gavin Turk and others. The aim is to stimulate staff, and the guests.

On the other hand, industrialist Alexander Orlow adorned the lifeless walls of his factory in the Netherlands with cheerful abstract works, inspired by ‘joie de vivre’, to encourage his workers. This was almost half a century ago. Later, British American Tobacco took control of the firm and shut the factory. BAT sold over 160 of the works this March at auction for more than 13.5 million euros.

It was in the 1970s that Deutsche Bank of Germany started collecting art. The bank now has a trove of over 56,000 works, by artists like Joseph Beuys, Nan Goldin, Jeff Koons, Lucian Freud, and Henri Matisse. These paintings are proudly displayed on the main office walls across branches in close to 50 countries.

With things turning gloomy, many businesses are turning to art. It was more likely that many of the troubled companies would sell only selected high-value works, to avoid the discomforting media glare.

Corporate looking to offload their artistic riches

Corporations rather concerned about the falling bottom line are looking at their office walls, literally. Over last few decades, the world's wealthiest companies and banks have created art collections, which are the envy of many leading museums. However, some are now keen to sell off their precious possessions, adorning office walls and boardrooms, to pay off creditors.

The category of such sellers includes Lehman Brothers. The collapsed bank’s multimillion-dollar art collection boasts works by Gerhard Richter, Damien Hirst and others. It’s set to go under the hammer. Saul Ingram, The European corporate art services head at Sotheby's, has been quoted as saying in an AP report:

"Over the last five or six years we've dealt with more and more corporate as well as private clients. Obviously there have been economic changes in the last couple of years, and I think that has heralded a change in attitudes — that these collections need to be trimmed, to focus on quality."

Top companies around the world are sitting on immense artistic riches the public seldom get to see. A news report by Jill Lawless of AP elaborates:

“The JP Morgan Chase Art Collection, founded by David Rockefeller, has over 30,000 pieces, including works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman and Andy
Warhol. In Britain, the banks RBS, HSBC and Barclays all have large caches of art — unlike BP PLC that despite drawing environmentalists’ protests accusing it of using art sponsorships to whitewash its oil-stained image, does not have a large corporate collection of its own.”

The private and corporate collections head at Christie' points to a rise in the corporate side of the business. Cathy Elkies expects the trend will continue. The art expert adds, "Organizations in some cases are editing and refocusing their art collections. Some others are looking to divest themselves of their art offerings completely."

‘Being Singular Plural: Moving Images from India’

A unique event at Berlin based Deutsche Guggenheim, entitled ‘Being Singular Plural: Moving Images from India’ collates film and video works by some of the innovative media practitioners. Shumona Goel and Shai Heredia, Sonal Jain & Mriganka Madhukaillya of Desire Machine Collective, Amar Kanwar, and Kabir Mohanty have a background in cinema.

Most of them continue to screen their films in international festivals. They employ film and video to formulate complex aesthetic, technological, and sociopolitical statements that question the often-bombastic cinematic strategies, methods, forms, and subjects of the global media industry.

'Being Singular Plural' celebrates and explores the unobtrusive and the unseen. Jean-Luc Nancy's idea from his book of the same name, first published in 1996, in which the individual is always understood within a social framework, gives the structural scaffolding for the exhibition. Elaborating on its purpose, a curatorial note by Sandhini Poddar elaborates: “The films' and videos' images do not serve as windows to the world, nor point to any transcendental truths, but are presented as they are,
distinguished by their evidence.

"As the author has argued, the emptying out of representation, wherein evidence lies, points to the moving image as an end in itself rather than a means to an end that may lie outside the image's surface. This embodiment of truth, as it resides within the very structure and materiality of the moving image, overturns previous expectations of how it communicates - it seeks to bridge worlds through affect and sensation."

Recognizing the complex character of 'first person plural' and the interconnectedness of all beings, the selected films and videos invite the viewer to study, reassess, and challenge conventional categories such as fact and fiction, art and cinema, and objectivity and subjectivity, thereby instigating new kinds of viewership.

This is one among the several ongoing international shows of contemporary art from India that are contextualized in backdrop of the country’s new economic challenges, social complexities and personal challenges at an individual level apart from tracing
its enchanting visual trajectory.

Two significant shows of Indian art at Aicon

Two significant art shows at Aicon Gallery in their New York and London premises feature interesting themes.

The NY group show features works by Jaishri Abichandani, Shelly Bahl, Ruby Chishti, Mike Estabrook, Iqbal, Naeem Mohaiemen, Sandeep Mukherjee, Nitin Mukul, Anjali Srinivasan, and Chitra Ganesh among others. Through diverse mediums, they examine the conceptions and expectations of reality each with their own unique interpretation.

The participating artists here explore the idea of memory as a continuous and multi- faceted representation in a constant state of flux. What emerges is a kind of objectivity that rests less upon tangible reference points, but rather associative recollections. Whether appropriated and reconfigured from popular sources, or registered as pigment on a surface, the works explore the crafting of reality, and how memory serves us.

‘Malleable Memory’, curated by Nitin Mukul, prompts us to embrace our inherently subjective interpretations of both personal and collective histories through the evolving and illusive device of memory. The idea is to inform our understanding of ourselves, our pasts and our futures. On the other hand, their London show is entitled ‘Dali's Elephant’.

It features works by Sakti Burman, Jogen Chowdhury, Manjit Bawa, K. Laxma Goud, Rekha Rodwittya, Prasanta Sahu, Avishek Sen, and Suneel Mamadapur that trace the echoes of Surrealism in modern and contemporary art from the Indian Subcontinent. Explaining the origin of the show, an exhibition note reveals, “Air India commissioned Salvador Dali to produce a limited edition ashtray which was to be given to a select group of lucky first-class passengers in 1967.

"He produced a small unglazed porcelain ashtray composed of a shell-shaped center with a serpent around its perimeter. This was supported by three stands, two of which point in the same direction and resemble an elephant's head. The third stand was inverted so that it resembled swan's head. The painter was initially paid no more than a few hundred dollars for his design but when they received the design the airline bosses were so delighted that they made him the surprise gift of an elephant. This episode is one of the few concrete encounters recorded between Surrealism and
India.”

How Vivek Vilasini approaches the notion of creating micro-worlds?

New Delhi based Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre presented an interesting group show of five contemporary artists, entitled ‘Surviving Sagas’ earlier this month – courtesy Ashna Gallery. Though the styles differ considerably, as in an aesthetic bouquet, when put together, they establish the areas of convergence of their concerned themes, which could create a macro narrative, in a way justifying the title of the show. Here is the gallery note on Vivek Vilasini:

The talented artist approaches the notion of creating micro-worlds as a form of cultural resistance through the revocation of old scripts on his painterly surface. These surfaces with fluorescent paints literally re-script the divested scripts from the language of Malayalam. He calls it as the ‘Glyphs in Tales’. These letters are the results of certain innovative minds who dared the hegemonic scriptural practices in the realm of publishing both in book form and in web form.

The script that the artist uses comes from the font set named Rachana, which literally meaning ‘writing’. By placing the script of a local language, which has lesser possibilities to capture the attention of the world, as a cultural symbol in order to oppose the hegemonic texts and their veracity, Vivek Vilasini imparts the idea of a micro structure that could challenge the predominant knowledge systems and historiography through the production of alternative knowledge systems and historiography through the implementation of a revised font set for the desk top as well as web publishing.

By investing the scripts with a new power and presence, he makes them the participants in a pageant or carnival where multi-cultural ideas are propagated in multi-linguistic modes. This is a world that the artist aspires to establish where parallel histories, subversive histories and the fringe histories get a say against and in relation with the hegemonic acts of making scriptures and cannons for the contemporary life.

In his digital images, one can find the linkages between his varied visual practices. He creates the tableaux of dominant images from art history by incorporating a new set of actors in completely local garbs. The same approach is visible in the production of micro worlds using script as bricks and mortar.

(Information courtesy: courtesy Ashna Gallery, New Delhi)

Contrasting manifestations of internal artistic realms

New Delhi based Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre presented an interesting group show, entitled ‘Surviving Sagas’ earlier this month – courtesy Ashna Gallery. Here is the gallery note on artists Gopinath and Murali Cheeroth.

In Gopinath we see a beautiful convergence of existential angst of contemporary man as well as his alerted political awareness. His sculptures emulate small little worlds where human beings build up their dream existences. He has a special way of emulating the classical sculptures in a contemporary medium of fiberglass and giving a meaningful twist by incorporating abstract and surreal figurative values to them. In this show, The artist thinks more towards generating a discourse based on the intellectual existence vis-à-vis his responses to the world ridden with violence and strife.

On the other hand, in Murali Cheeroth’s works what you witness is the manifestation of such internal worlds, which the artist very skillfully presents with all the paraphernalia of the outer world of reality. Murali subscribes to the images from daily life, as seen in city squares and construction sites. For him, city is like a language with an ever changing structure. The flux of structure is always tested against the imaginary structures that the artist creates within his inner world. Hence, the architectural images and the images of construction sites that we see in his works are not the images from an actual world. They are constructed realities within the artist’s mind.

Seen against an industrial landscape, he introduces an interface between two mechanisms; one the brutal force of an earthmover that helps in clearing the spaces for further constructions and the dead weight of a disused car, almost hung in the middle of the air. This world of spectacle that the artist deliberately creates moves between the real ‘real’ and the imagined ‘real’. Discounting people from the scenario of a spectacular drama is an artistic ploy that he uses to collapse the boundaries of two worlds.

By creating a world that looks almost similar to the hegemonic world, Murali Cheeroth incepts the idea of resistance within the system of powers. The lonely deer that strays into a suburban landscape becomes a powerful imagery as seen contrasted with the image of the radar that captures the frequencies of dreams.

(Information courtesy: Ashna Gallery, New Delhi)

Binoy Varghese explores the world of imposed innocence

New Delhi based Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre presented an interesting group show, entitled ‘Surviving Sagas’ earlier this month – courtesy Ashna Gallery. It featured works by five leading contemporary artists, namely George Martin, Murali Cheeroth, Binoy Varghese, Vivek Vilasini and S Gopinath.

An elaborate note on them brought out the nuances of their respective art practice and work. They are artists with different stylistic approaches, albeit all sharing a keen interest in the contemporary human beings’ materialistic and existential issues. They together explored the aspects of survival against the backdrop of the socio-economic and cultural anchoring of people to see how their survival is made possible by creating micro narratives out of their own lives. Here is the gallery on Binoy Varghese:

His artistic realm is full of micro-narratives of those disposed and dispossessed by a system of knowledge and power. He captures the faces of so many children in various garbs and places them against the most beautiful foliages and flowers. With a lot of happiness and verve these figures look at the viewer as if they were caught in a bubble of eternal innocence. Positing, someone into the state of eternal innocence is an exercise of ideological power that often we see both in the public and domestic realms.

His idea is to ‘re-present’ this innocence and engage the viewer to decode the secrets of their innocence. Binoy has been employing this method of representation for a long time and he uses this special way of juxtaposing the image of an innocent child against a backdrop, which is not so ‘natural’ to him/her. As a humanitarian artist, he puts forward a subtle critique on the system that produces such dispossessed children.

Of late, the artist has been attending to the issues of religious dispossession that has become a common characteristic of our much acclaimed democratic society. He stands up for their dignity by repeatedly painting their small little worlds.

(Information courtesy: Ashna Gallery, New Delhi)

George Martin’s artistic realm

New Delhi based Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre presented an interesting group show, entitled ‘Surviving Sagas’ earlier this month – courtesy Ashna Gallery. Here is the gallery note on George Martin:

The artist approaches the world is capable of discriminating people as per religion, caste, creed, fashion, language and so on from a pointed perspective. However, his engagement with the outer world of reality does not happen through the portraiture of people as they are or as they caught in certain symbolic situations. On the contrary, he looks the world around him through a filter of unreality, which could split, and dismember the palpable reality into pieces where the represented ones become patterns and they demand viewers’ complete devotion for cohesive reading.

He has always been interested in tracing the political, cultural and existential structures that are operational in our society, secretly and overtly exercising power on people. In his artistic world, which in all sense is a coagulation of several micro worlds, exists people, animals, architecture, vehicles and urban streets as phantoms that detach themselves from the reality.

These phantoms repeatedly remind the viewer of their own physical existence within the society. By not giving a particular identity to the people and by creating several grids between the people represented and the actual people who views the work, he deliberately collapses two worlds into one.

Colors and the kind of abstract possibilities explored by him act as a filter as well as grid in order to create a sense of distance. He makes an emotional distance from the subjects that he treats though he attaches the personal/emotional value to the final outcome of the painting. Each grid contains an element or a set of elements that constitute the whole and it is interesting to view these grids as a independent micro worlds in themselves, asking for engaged viewing from the people around.

There is a celebratory aspect in Martin’s paintings. But this aspect of celebration comes from his deep interest in post- modern ideas of celebrating multiplicities; he aspires for a world of multiple cultures and cultural attitudes, which are not steamrolled by the hegemonic forces.

(Information courtesy: Ashna Gallery, New Delhi)