Bajaj Capital Art House promotes and guides on art as an asset class

Bajaj Capital, a renowned financial services firm, decided to venture into the domain of advisory services for art investment and building of art assets/ portfolio a few years ago. The company launched the Bajaj Capital Art House (BCAH).

It acts as an inclusive centre for professional, comprehensive and standardized services in visual art. The aim is to provide a balanced and well-diversified investment portfolio to the clients looking for a reliable investment asset class. Art is a good bet from this perspective owing to the aesthetic pleasure that it offers as well as its potential as a good investment avenue.

Elaborating about the various investment products the firm offers to its client, Bajaj Capital Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Rajiv D Bajaj, had been quoted as saying: “Art is an under penetrated asset class in the portfolio of investors including the high net worth individuals. Art would be our ‘seventh´ wonder as we already have advisory on mutual funds, life insurance, general insurance, fixed income, stock broking and Real Estate. Not only HNIs but other investors can also have the option to include the product in their portfolios.”

The idea behind launching art advisory services is to advice our clients on buying art pieces, which see a considerable rise in valuations over a period of time. Bajaj Capital Art House looks to facilitate the buying (and selling) of paintings for its clients through various established art galleries backed by its own capable art advisory to help them in the process. The art house celebrated its first anniversary in August 2009 with a comprehensive group exhibit, entitled ‘Beyond The Form’, comprising over forty works including paintings and sculptures by noted contemporary artists.

Key ideas on how to invest in art in the current context

It’s vital to establish how to invest in art, so we wish to provide our readers with a few important tips in the current context.

The changed context and connotations of the market also needs to be understood. “Now that the real ‘investors’ are coming back to the art market as it opens up after almost a year-long hiatus, it’s vital to establish who a genuine investor is and if yes, how to invest in art.”

These are the critical issues that art expert Kishore Singh deals with in an insightful essay in The Business Standard. Following is the precious piece of advice on his part:

First as an investor, as he notes, you cannot hope to begin with less than Rs 20 lakh, with an annualized budget to at least match that (you may invest more by turning some of your existing collection around, However, the same should add to the original kitty instead of becoming the kitty).

You need to choose a range of works to start your investment exercise. To put it in other words, buying a single Sakti Burman canvas for Rs 20 lakh cannot be called an investment. Critically, your collection needs to be ruthlessly weeded. Any buying/ selling decision on your part should ideally be dictated by the mind and not the heart even while you can continue to enjoy your choice of art.

To sum up, you should work with galleries and experts, who can take the responsibility for prices and for filling in gaps that, you might find difficult to plug yourself as an investor.The key is not to get carried away or become excessively pessimistic as the market sentiment changes from euphoria to despondency. Simply sticking to one’s basics and instincts can help.

Tips for ‘starting your career as an artist’

Angie Wojak is associated with the Columbia University’s School of the Arts, whereas Stacy Miller is the faculty at the Parsons School for Design, teaching in the photography department there. Having served as the Director of Career Services both at School of the Arts, Columbia University as well as the Parsons School of Design, the former has decades of precious experience in the domain. Miller also has been part of the College Art Association, as the research and professional development director.

Owing to their rich background, the two possess considerable expertise on what constitutes a successful artist’s career and how one can go about building it gradually. They have culled it all together in their insightful documentation, as an introductory note elaborates: “The book covers topics essential to the emerging artist like artist’s resumes and CVs; building community through meaningful networking, constant collaborating, and finding mentors; setting up a studio; developing solid marketing plans; locating alternative exhibition venues; and refining career aspirations. It also includes inspiring interviews with well-known players in the art scene and professional artists.”

Apart from possessing immense talent and intrinsic vision, sincerity and sensitivity, expertise and experimentation, dynamism and diversity, what does it really for an artist to become ‘successful’? Well, connotations of the term will definitely differ from past era to the present, and from one practitioner to another. But to establish a strong foothold in today’s competitive and challenging art scene, an artist must possess some basic characteristics. In fact, most successful artists have certain qualities in common irrespective of the form, medium and era they belong to, believe Angie Wojak and Stacy Miller. The two have spelt out the secrets in their insightful book, entitled ‘Starting Your Career as an Artist’

‘Starting Your Career as an Artist’ is a perfect step by step guidebook for aspiring art practitioners who will follow how to handle their careers, as well as leverage technological advances and utilize the several opportunities and tools available in today’s marketplace, even while staying true to your inner voice and pursuing your boundless passion for art.

Art scene of India is improving

Some time back, a news report in the Wall Street Journal by Margherita Stancati and Shefali Anand had mentioned: “Collectors still see artworks by artists of Modern India School of painting, a movement spearheaded by Souza, Raza and the late MF Husain, as a safer investment than contemporary art.

Widely seen as a status symbol, the works of this older generation of painters have quite often broken the $1-million barrier, something happening less frequently with contemporary artists. The financial crisis left this segment relatively unscathed. Works by the younger generation of artists are widely viewed as a riskier investment option than modernist paintings. And their prices suffered the most during the financial meltdown. However, the relatively low prices mean that savvy collectors could stand to gain.”

A leading global art market research agency, ArtTactic, regularly publishes Confidence Surveys that provide an in-depth analysis of the market conditions on basis of field data and analytic tools such as a risk and speculation barometer. By collating and dissecting aspects like sales volume, average price and bought in rates, they judge the success ratio of auctions by comparing pre-sales expectations with final results. Their periodic Global Art Market Outlook reports examine the prevailing trends within Indian markets as well as other top art markets.

Contemporary & modern Indian art prices began soaring around a decade ago or so, setting the industry wheels fast in motion. Even while sales patterns suggest the art market is showing signs of recovery, few really expect it to reach pre-2008 levels. After the financial downturn hit global markets, India wasn’t spared either. Indian art prices fell in that period, by more than half. It took a heavy toll on many art funds set up a few years earlier. Though it is not realistic to expect prices to soar anytime soon, that’s not necessarily such a bad thing, with some terming it an artificial hype!

A celebrated artist talks about collecting art

Renowned artist Bose Krishnamachari believes the Indian art scene has significantly metamorphosed over the last two decades primarily through the west because collectors there promoted Indian art and artists such as Sudarshan Shetty and Riyas Komu.

He quips: “They understand that art is all about freedom. Anish Kapoor wanted to show his art in India but there’s no space here for it; there are no institutions. Artists here miss opportunities since we lack the space or the vision.” However, there are a few positives as well. He adds: I noticed while curating a show that the number of female artists (I chose) is more than the male artists. I think women artists in India, these days, are stronger than men. There are many upcoming artists worth looking like Charmi Shah Gada and Suchitra Gahlot.”

He is able to manage different roles of an artist, collector and gallerist since, to put it in his words, “I am serious about what I am doing. I feel the same kind of pressure being an artist and a gallerist. People think I’m ambitious, though I’m not. But it’s good if they think so,” he concludes.

Explaining how he started with the process of collecting art, Bose Krishnamachari had mentioned in a past interview (Jigna P of Hindustan Times) that art is his passion. He might sometimes ask his artist friends about a work he doesn’t like, even though he is actually eyeing another one. When asked whether he re-sells any of the art works, his spontaneous reply was: “No, never. Nor do I barter my art collection. It’s dead money.”

The artist is not against investing in the art market, per se, but he thinks it is interesting when an artist opts to collect works of other artists. In the future, he reveals, he would like to possess work by Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons’s ‘Puppy’, and more works by Sudharshan Shetty.

Indian art market: the road ahead

An Art Market Confidence Survey late last year stated that the confidence in the Modern market of India remained high, in spite of negative economic outlook. The overall Market Confidence Indicator was down by close to 30%, as the confidence in the country’s economy significantly dropped. In spite of this, experts remained positive about the Modern art market, with some confidence returning to the contemporary art market.

On the other hand, according to the Indian auction data analysis publicized a couple of months ago on basis of most recent sales by the key auction houses, the Modern & Contemporary art market experienced decline. The nascent Indian art market, still awestruck by the prices Tyeb Mehta, F N Souza, S H Raza, or Subodh Gupta command, is largely echoing the Western market (trend) in appreciating values for historic or rare works. However, there is a lot of scope for Indian masters as well as globally-recognized artists to grow, an opportunity that the country is probably missing out on owing to lack of infrastructure and the state support those like in China do.

Writer and art critic Kishore Singh explains, `to an extent, private entrepreneurship can be credited with building up exposure, prices and knowledge.’ While any hope of a recovery is premature yet, individual works have been drawing buyers at record-selling prices.

He adds, “This is perhaps because rare works entering the market to create liquidity for their owners are attracting those with wealth but no previous access to high-value masters. The trickle to buy quality works in developing countries could soon become the proverbial flood, but what lessons are there in it for India? After a roller-coaster ride, the art market in India now seems to be on stable ground, The Wall Street Journal news report by Margherita Stancati and Shefali Anand had observed.

Formative years of artist B. Prabha

Born in the village of Bela, near Nagpur in Maharashtra in 1933, B. Prabha first studied at the Nagpur School of Art before arriving in Mumbai for further honing her skills as an artist, albeit with hardly any support – monetary or otherwise.

It was a meager existence with no source of sustenance except for some pieces of family jewelry that she sold to survive through this tough phase. She completed a Government Diploma in Painting & Mural Painting from Sir J.J School of Art, Mumbai (1954-55) where she received a scholarship to specialize in mural painting. Her first show, while she was still in the art school, proved a memorable one for her. Homi J. Bhabha, an eminent Indian scientist, acquired three of her paintings. The gesture was a big confidence booster and she never looked back after that.

Recounting her formative years, she had stated: “I dreamt of being a singer and I was equally good at painting. My elder brother advised that I couldn’t master two vocations at a time. So I had to make a choice between singing and painting after completing my matriculation. That was very difficult, indeed! And after a lot of introspection, I opted for painting. At that time, there were not too many women painters (in India). I respected Amrita Sher Gil a lot. My ambition was to become a renowned painter (just like her) and to take my paintings to all corners of the world.”

B. Prabha’s works have been shown in a series of solos and group exhibitions at prestigious venues in India and abroad, including ‘Shradhanjali’, a show dedicated to her husband, sculptor B. Vithal whom she married in 1956. During their long period of struggle, the two were often supported by other fellow artists who offered them a place to stay and even to store their works. Her marriage, in a way, was turning point in her life as the fellow artist changed her perspective both as an individual and also as an artist…