Defining moments of the decade gone by...

This was a decade when sales figures made more news than talented artists or art commissions, notes Anindita Ghose of The Mint publication in an insightful essay. Following are some of the observations in the essay that we have summed up for you:

1. The 2000s started, in a way, in the mid- 1990s. Sotheby’s auction house held the first sales devoted to Indian art about a decade and a half ago (in 1995) in New York. The auction flagged off a gradual ascent of contemporary Indian art on the global scene.
   
   
2. Contemporary Indian art continued to enjoy a spillover of this significant milestone. However, the shallow and immature art market was not perhaps able to contain the euphoria. As it happened, prices started spiraling out of control, to unreasonable levels.
   
   
3. Between 2005 and 2006, the canvas turned murkier. Some fanciful investors and gallerists allegedly colluded to shore up bids in a false manner. And in all of this muddle, the quality of art being churned out became a secondary factor; it almost turned into an assembly line.
   
   
4. The best illustration of all this chaos perhaps was a spate of art funds that sprung up that promised a lot, but only flattered to deceive. They failed to deliver, thus disappointing the investors and shaking their faith in Indian art’s ability to live up to the hype. On the continuing upside that defied logic, the mad boom spurred unsustainable ambitions.
   
   
5. This frenzy witnessed was very much in tandem with the largely money-minded upmove in other regions of the world, albeit on a bit different scale. On the one hand, contemporary Indian art was celebrating its million-dollar dazzling debut, Damien Hirst from the UK was tagging his much-hyped diamond-studded skull at a far higher scale. The British artist’s ‘For the Love of God’ sold for $100 million.
   

In the upcoming posts, we shall track the decade further for its highs and lows...