Key developments in Indian art in the year gone by

Following are the observations in a recent essay by Parul Vadehra of Vadehra art gallery, which appeared in The ET, spelling out different directional shifts and some of the Key developments in the contemporary Indian art in 2010.

• India’s art market shrugged off the adverse effects of the slowdown, as the year saw the emergence of interesting trends.
  
  
• New auction records were set. A monumental work by SH Raza, entitled ‘Saurashtra’, fetched $3.5 million at the Christie’s action in London in June - a new record for modern Indian art. Arpita Singh’s ‘Wish Dream’ got $2.24 million at the Saffronart Winter Online Auction in December.
  
  
• Several landmark shows were held in the year gone by. Anish Kapoor show finally arrived in India. The world-renowned British sculptor of Indian origin displayed some of his large scale installations in Delhi and Mumbai. The exhibit provided an overview of his glorious oeuvre.
  
  
• The year was marked by a strong desire to collaborate between the art fraternity and the government. The Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA), the ministry of culture and the industry representatives to cultivate the infrastructure for art. The contemporary art show on eve of the Commonwealth Games was an outcome of this endeavor.
  
  
• Interactive technologies like digital art, computer graphics, robotics, animation etc are now a medium to express oneself. ‘New Media’ has firmly established itself as a choice of medium on contemporary Indian art scene.
  
  
• Many Indian artists like Nalini Malani and Shilpa Gupta garnered international recognition abroad with representation at important museums. Nasreen Mohamedi, Sheila Makhijani and A Balasubramaniam among others are part of a recent drawings show at the MoMA, New York.
  
  
• Another satisfying development in the Indian art market was rise of genuine collectors as compared to investors, a very healthy sign, indeed! In general, the collector base has widened. And the momentum should continue in 2011...

A quick look at the most recent art auction scene

According to ArtTactic, 2010 had been very good for the Indian art market. It saw a remarkable recovery.” Anders Peterson, who runs the London based analysis firm, opined that the current auction scene was much like a filtered version of the art market reality, adding that the works of proven provenance were more likely to sell.

Significant art auctions at the fag end of the year 2010 had some unusual works up for grabs. Bid and Hammer offered ‘Jatayu Vadha’ by Raja Ravi Varma and a rare Nicholas Roerich work in November. The auction house wanted to promote ‘unsung heroes’, such as Allah Bux and H Mazumdar. On their 10th anniversary, Asia Art Archive hosted an auction of internationally acclaimed artists like Anju Dodiya, Reena Saini Kallat and Jitish Kallat.

The strong auction results clearly suggest a consistent demand from seasoned collectors for top quality and rare works. Indeed recession, it looks like, is finally a thing of the past as far as the art market is concerned. Average auction prices and volumes for modern Indian art were back to the June 2008 peak levels.

Castlestone Management specializing in alternative assets foresees a 40 percent increase in 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. Collectors are feeling more confident in the art market and have switched to chasing crisp, primary-colored modernist works, a news report by Kelly Crow (The Wall Street Journal; November 6, 2010) states – a trend starkly evident in the Indian art market, as well.

The focus is back on established modern artists, such as Gaitonde, Husain, Souza and Akbar Padamsee with ‘proven historical value’. Clearly the preference is for the Moderns although select contemporaries like Subodh Gupta, Riyas Komu and others continue to hold their sway.

2010 auction recap - II

• The Modern Indian Art Online Auction by Asta Guru in August did exceedingly well. Anjolie Ela Menon’s ‘Man with Heart of Gold’ ($ 40,817, Rs. 1,836,780); Krishen Khanna’s work from ‘Bandwalla’ Series ($ 14,116, Rs. 635,220); Bhupen Khakhar’s Untitled watercolor on paper work ($ 11,952, Rs. 537,845); Laxma Gaud’s ‘Nude & Goat’ ($ 8,163, Rs. 367,356) and F N Souza Untitled Pen & Ink on paper work ($ 7,954, Rs. 357,936) fetched prices more than twice their estimates.
  
  
• SH Raza set a world auction record for modern Indian art with his 1983 painting ‘Saurashtra’ (acrylic on canvas) sold for $3,486,965 (Rs.16,23,87,474.7), breaking the earlier record held by him for his ‘La Terre’. His ‘Bharatiya Samaroh’ fetched Rs.4.07 crore at Saffronart's autumn online auction (September 2010). The auction offered an exquisite collection of 90 works by 43 modern & contemporary Indian artists. It registered 76 percent sales.
  
  
• Christie’s ‘highest value Indian art sale’ as part of the South Asian Modern & Contemporary Art auction in September included exquisite works by SH Raza, Husain, Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya and Subodh Gupta. The event featured a remarkable selection of contemporary art from the region. On the other hand, its South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction in June sold all but 19 out of 223 lots, including a collection of over 150 works from the estate of late FN Souza (from the late 1930’s through to the 1990’s) that was almost a sell-out. The sale total of £7,013,400 (GBP) doubled the estimate, whereas Sotheby’s sale of South Asian Art brought an exceptional total of £5,465,550 - almost double the sum realized for the equivalent London sale last summer.
  
  
• The most keenly watched auction of Indian art this season, of 12 paintings by Rabindranath Tagore, fetched prices between £91,250 and £313,250. An impressive nude by FN Souza made – more than four times the pre-sale high estimate of £80,000. An Untitled Self Portrait by Manjit Bawa brought £193,250, nearly double the pre-sale estimate. A rare bronze sculpture by Somnath Hore got £157,250, a new auction record price for the artist.

2010 auction recap - I

• In March 2010, The Osian’s Masterpieces Series Auction had on offer a wide range of fine art by some of India’s Modern & Contemporary Art masters. The proportion of lots sold was close to 60%.
  
  
• Saffronart managed to sell 75% of the lots, totaling $ 4.6 million, in its Spring Online Auction. At its Summer Auction, a new record was made for Jehangir Sabavala with ‘The Casuarina Line I’ grossing Rs 1.7 crore ($ 374,900). Its Annual Winter Online Art Auction featured 100 works by 43 modern & contemporary artists that closed with an impressive total of $7.1 million, registering excellent prices for several modernists like Raza, FN Souza, KG Subramanyan and Husain, indicating that the modern masters still remain highly sought-after.
  
  
• Bharti Kher set a new auction record for a female contemporary Indian artist in June with her enigmatic elephant sculpture. The fibreglass and bindi work fetched Rs 6.94 crore ($1,493,947) at Sotheby’s auction in London. Her life-sized work, entitled ‘The Skin Speaks a Language Not its Own’, created history in an auction sale in June. ‘Wish Dream’, a monumental mural (16-piece; 24-by-13-ft) by Arpita Singh broke the record, fetching Rs 9.6 crore (close to $2.25 million) in December.
  
  In 'The skin speaks a language of its own', Kher used thousands of tiny white bindis to cover the surface of a full-sized fibreglass elephant, which appears to be on the brink of death. The elephant is revered across Asia as a symbol of dignity, intelligence and strength. The animal was used to carry royalty. Ironically, the term ‘white elephant’ is used to describe something very large and useless. The artist used the symbolism of the white elephant to question ideas of cultural value. The title of the work suggested that such values may be skin deep.

Art market: What lies ahead?

Most market participants expect a positive development in the first half of 2011, indicating the overall optimism that prevails in the Indian art market.

As has been generally observed, it's the Asian artists and buyers that are keeping the international art market afloat. Fueled by the strong economic parameters, the growth in this dynamic region has been accompanied by an increasing interest in more traditional Indian art forms, as well as the continual growth of modern and contemporary art, mentions a recent report in The Independent, UK.

In fact, 2010 proved to be an excellent year on the auction front for Indian art. Leading players focused on quality works, to target the more discerning buyers/ collectors. Highlighting a rising international attraction and appreciation for the quality works of Indian and South East Asian artists, Jonathan Stone, the regional managing director of Christie's Asia, states: "Demand from Asia continues to lead the global recovery of the auction market and to drive the growth in 2010.'' After becoming the second-largest category at Christie's worldwide in 2009, Asian art now represents more than 15 per cent of our sales.''

Seemingly listless at the beginning of the year, the auction scene gradually gathered momentum, and maintained its positive bias throughout 2010. Sotheby's and Christie's registered impressive first-half revenues - up a whopping 140% and 67% respectively versus their corresponding fine art revenue figures last year, indicating the upswing and the resultant revival of their fortunes.

The leading market players focused on quality works in order to target the discerning buyers’ category. Incidentally, most top lots at prominent sales were dominated by traditional and modern art. Artists with strong international backing and visibility like Bharti Kher and Subodh Gupta seemed to have greater scope and speed of recovery. Progressive modernists, such as FN Souza, VS Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, Raza and Husain witnessed good demand.

A look at ‘West Heavens’ art project involving top Indian artists

Alongside the recent Shanghai Biennale, a significant project was organized, entitled ‘West Heavens’. It was one of those rare Chinese-Indian collaborations in the field of art.

• From Mumbai to Shanghai via Sardar Sarovar and The Three Gorges was a journey Tushar Joag embarked upon on a motorcycle. He named it ‘Rocinante’, after Don Quixote’s horse.
  
  
• Atul Bhalla opted to connect recent historical sites on the verge of being forgotten, within site of inner Shanghai, as a ‘Listener’: to water, to streams, harbors, rivers, canals, wells etc.
  
  
• Anant Joshi’s work was based on cultural icons and architectural monuments like the Gateway of India in Mumbai, or the Zhengyangmen in Beijing.
  
  
• Gigi Scaria’s installation included two parallel projections - selected archival images of Mahatma Gandhi’s life and the images from that of Mao Zedong’s life.
  
  
• Sonia Khurana’s ‘Trespass’ explored sites of subversion, juxtaposing fragments from two parallel projects.
  
  
• The 14 scrolls as part of ‘Over Land’, by Nilima Sheikh, were placed perfectly as the only one in the former consul’s spired Anglican chapel. The artist had painted and stenciled images onto flowing paper-and-silk strips. The long pieces hung delicately from the high ceiling. Softly lighted in the otherwise deserted and dim church, it carried the soothing feel of a sacred work.
  
  
• Among the other Indian participants, Hema Upadhyay portrays the pangs of migration, leading to loneliness, insecurity and isolation.
  
  
• Raqs Media Collective has been variously described as artists, media practitioners, curators, researchers, editors, and catalysts of cultural processes.
  
  
• ‘Railway from Lhasa to Kathmandu’ done by Qiu Zhijie, one among the Chinese participants, touched on many of the exhibit’s recurrent themes: faith, colonialism & the demarking/ crossing of national boundaries. Traditional artisans, who make thangka (a kind of Tibetan embroidered painting mostly employed for religious purposes) were commissioned. These modern pieces, hanging in an eerie old dorm, depicted the tale of an Indian spy. Disguised as a lama, Nain Singh Rawat was hired by a British captain to journey all the way to Lhasa, in order to map the area.

Indian touch to the Shanghai Biennale

The two Asian superpowers, India and China, are keen to enhance collaboration in the field of art. The brain behind ‘West Heavens’, professor Johnson Chang, hopes that the exhibition would make the people in China view India with a fresh eye and perspective. The intention is to reshape Chinese imagination about India. This now certainly seems to be happening…

The much awaited ‘India-China Summit on Social Thought’, arranged to coincide with the biennale, involved lecture-forums by renowned Indian scholars like Geeta Kapur, Sarat Maharaj, Homi K. Bhabha, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Prasenjit Duara, Tejaswini Niranjana, Partha Chatterjee, and Ashis Nandy. They were invited to Shanghai to engage in a dialogue with Chinese scholars. The event also included the publication of a series of books, to promote cultural exchanges within Asia.

Underlining the significance of this important initiative, The New York Times observed: “The two Asian superpowers have shared little thus far in the field of contemporary art. Paradoxically - given that the collaboration is between Shanghai, a city once dominated by foreign concessions and a former British colony - the two venues are distinctly European. Both were once part of the British consul’s residence, a space that the curator termed the heart of colonial ideological machinery.” (For record, ShanghART shifted to larger spaces in Moganshan and Taopu, areas barely part of the city just a decade ago.)

The 8th Shanghai Biennale defines itself as a ‘rehearsal’ and as a reflective space of performance. Here, ‘rehearsal’ is not a metaphor for a form of exhibition, but a way of thinking and operating strategy. At a broader level, what the event aims to reflect on the relations between art experimentation and the art system, between individual creativity and the public domain. The aim is to focus on the whole process of exhibition. Its mode of existence is not unlike that of the theatre. In the process, the elements of venue, narration and social participation become key concepts.