Findings of the Art Market Confidence Survey

The latest Indian Art Market Confidence Survey released by the art market research agency, ArtTactic, (Researchers: Anders Petterson and Nathan Engelbrecht) offers some interesting insights. Some of them are listed below:

•Most experts feel the Indian art market will need at least a couple more years to find its feet again and recover. The overall Confidence Indicator for it is down marginally from October 2011 (by just 2 percent). The confidence in the economy has gone up to 45 percent from 28 percent, off-setting a 9 percent fall in confidence levels for the Modern art market, and a 24 percent fall for the Contemporary Indian art market.

•In spite of the slightly negative market trend, experts are positive about the near-term future of Indian Modern art market (the next 6 months). The round of auctions in March 2012 for Indian was rather disappointing, as the Modern & Contemporary art market witnessed another season of decline, touching a total sales volume worth $10,438,532, down 27 percent lower than March 2011 and 9 percent from September 2011.

•The art market has experienced a steady fall in the last 20 months as far as India is concerned. Current sales volume are more than 60 percent lower than June 2010. In comparison to a period 6 months ago, the survey respondents are getting more nervous and negative about the market. The latest Indicator is at 45, down from 55 (-18%) in October 2011.

•The short-term outlook, as gauged by the Expectation Indicator is at 58 (up from earlier 50). It implies that the experts are a bit more positive about the coming 6 months period in comparison to the current situation. The hesitance is also apparent when one considers what the experts are thinking the Indian art market direction will be in the coming 6 months.

•About 30 percent of the experts feel the For the Modern Indian market will go up (34 percent in October 2011), and nearly 70 percent feel it will remain flat (66 percent in October 2011). In fact, an immediate recovery appears to be some distance away, with close to 50 percent of the experts believing the Modern Indian market will need two more years at least before a broader recovery will happen.

•Among the artist covered in this report are Subodh Gupta, Maqbool Fida Husain , Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Francis Newton Souza, Sayed Haider Raza, Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, K.G. Subramanyan, Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna, Himmat Shah, Arpita Singh, Zarina Hashmi, Jogen Chowdhury, Rameshwar Broota, Ravinder Reddy, and Rashid Rana.