An initiative to take art to the masses

An innovative concept aims to nudge the growing number of contemporary Indian art collectors in the buying game.

Charles Saatchi terms today’s collectors ‘comprehensively & indisputably vulgar’ as testified by ‘the jamboree that was Venice Biennale this year’ underlining the fact that parties are now a more powerful temptation than actual pictures. But this has also drawn art patrons with wider horizons than ever before, expanding the art world to contemporary art from the Middle East, China and India.

Recently, a group of influential collectors, curators, artists and patrons assembled at the British Museum for a conference to debate the issue of art & patronage in the Middle East. Simultaneously, concrete steps are being taken in India to develop more discriminating taste through the India Art Fair Collectors’ Circle that aims at both enlarging and educating the country’s potential Saatchis.

The brainchild of IAF’s Neha Kirpal, it’s prompted by the influx of visitors ‘many of whom had never visited an art fair before’, drawing her attention to a ‘hunger for art’ and also a need to channel it sensibly.

The Collectors’ Circle will look to snare the interest of those ‘already engaging with the lucrative luxury lifestyle sector” still ‘intimidated by art that they feel needs specialized knowledge.’ For them, contemporary art is still alien territory though they know it can play a key part in their lives. Patrons and top collectors involved in this initiative include Rajshree Pathy, Swapan Seth and the Poddars.

One of its goals is to encourage all to buy art for love, and not money, and thereby stabilize a nascent market that has become volatile in its post-boom phase thanks to people who looked at it as an investment option only. So when the markets crashed, everyone wanted to liquidate. The explosion of the inflated bubble would also mean that more people from less privileged backgrounds, not necessarily millionaires, can now afford to buy art.”