N.S. Harsha – Nations 2007 (installation)

Collecting art and investment in art have always been regarded in India as the rich man’s hobby.  Through the second half of the twentieth century, the main collectors were old Indian business families, such as the Birlas, Tatas and Goenkas. There was also an occasional rare collector abroad – notably, the late Chester Herwitz in the US (many of his works are now at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts,) and Masanori Fukuoka, the Japanese food processing tycoon who is believed to own over 4,000 works, many housed in a three-story museum near Kobe, and who is still actively involved buying and supporting Indian art.

Much has changed in the past two decades, driven by new wealth, initially among NRIs, the non-resident Indians in the US and overseas, and then by Indians at home where the 1991 economic reforms led by Manmohan Singh, now Prime Minister, have resulted in a booming consumer economy. The era of greater entrepreneurial opportunity gave rise to a generation keen to strut its stuff and the number of collectors of Indian modern and contemporary art is growing – though gallery owners estimate there are “only” perhaps 500 serious collectors in India and internationally, out of an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 potential buyers.

Rameshwar Broota - Nature Tapestries (large scale photography)

One way to increase awareness and make art collecting more accessible is through art fairs and events.  Marking the growth of a ‘culture of art events’ centered on the display of new art, already two happenings took place this year:  the evermore important India Art Summit and Art Chennai 2011.

India Art Summit held in New Delhi is the largest and most diverse showcase of contemporary art in India and is viewed as a key player in the evolution of this dynamic young market.  Now in its third phase, with supporting partner Sotheby’s, it is helping to create a larger body of collectors and to introduce Indian artists on the global stage.  According to the organizers, India Art Summit 2011 this past January represented 500 artists, 84 galleries and had 128,000 visitors – which put it above Frieze and ArtBasel Miami Beach together.  This record attendance was proof that there is an audience, and not just a market, for art in India.

Alongside the fair, there were exciting collateral events around the city with twenty art exhibitions, the launch of a private museum, curated art projects, live performances, a sculpture park, a video lounge, Speakers’ Forum, and an art store.

Art Chennai 2011 in March was a city-wide festival of modern and contemporary art in Chennai, with 27 art shows in various galleries, anchored by informal discussions and talks by nationally and internationally known artists, collectors, critics, and curators.

Bose Krishnamachari - Stretched Bodies 2008 (acrylic on canvas)

Helpful, ground-breaking anthologies such as Amrita Jhaveri’s A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, and the comprehensive catalogues issued by the major auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, as well as the lavish publications of Saffronart Online Auctions, all became part of the essential infrastructure of a healthy market for contemporary Indian art.

For a select group of artists, the Indian art market experienced one of the most dramatic rises of all during the art boom of 2006 to 2008.  According to ArtTactic, a London-based analysis firm that monitors the progress of emerging markets, average prices for contemporary Indian art at auction rose by 140 per cent between March 2006 and September 2008.  However, between September 2008 and September 2009, they fell by 75 per cent.

ArtTactic, which measures the confidence its subscribers have in the future of particular markets, says that its confidence indicator for modern and contemporary Indian art has showed a respectable uplift in its last reading since it fell to its lowest point in May 2009.

Ranbir Kaleka video still from "Cul-de-sac in Taxila" 2010

The collecting expansion of contemporary Indian art could not have happened at such a speed and scale without the internet which has vastly widened the potential art-buying public, providing instant access to images and historical data.

A decade ago, when the world wide web surfaced as a just-a-click-away-mart, few thought that it could become a platform for selling art.  Today the web is finding its place in the art market spearheaded by Saffronart, the world’s largest fine-art online auction house with gallery spaces in Mumbai, Delhi and New York, and offices in London.

Launched in 2000 by Dinesh Vazirani, 44, and his wife Minal, 38, with funding from Sequoia Capital, the Silicon Valley firm that had also put money into Google, Saffronart rapidly elbowed its way onto the Indian art auction scene, alongside established veterans like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, and successfully cornered the market for online auctions of Indian contemporary art.  It repots a reach of 60 per cent of sales to buyers outside India, with the vast majority being overseas Indians, and an abundance of first-time buyers.

Years ago, as aspiring collectors, the ambitious and forward-thinking couple, both MBAs - he from Harvard and she from INSEAD, France – found it frustrating to try to obtain information about Indian art.  I mentioned their ages because it is impressive how so young they took their vision and turned it into a global reality.  They were first to introduce downloadable mobile applications for bidding in auction (including versions for the iPhone and BlackBerry) and coinciding with Saffronart’s March sales this year they announced a new mobile version of their website that allows for easy viewing of artworks, jewelry and prime properties from any internet-enabled mobile device.  They also publish the prices of the works on the site, an idea considered practically heretical in India 10 years ago. “It allows for a transparency that hadn’t existed in the Indian art market before” says Minal.

The Vaziranis captured the momentum of contemporary art in India as it was just emerging as a substantial public culture.

Sudarshan Shetty – Taj Mahal 2008 – detail (Mixed media and video)

Responding to the flourishing art scene in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore, Christie’s had a pioneering auction in London in 1995.  In 2001 Tate Modern had an exhibit focusing on Mumbai’s art scene, and independent curators Peter Nagy, Julie Evans, and Gordon Knox, organized an exhibition focusing on contemporary art from India for the 2005 Venice Biennale.  Last spring (February through April 2010) self described “artoholic” Charles Saatchi, one of Britain’s most influential art collectors, had an exhibition in his 70,000 sq ft Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea titled “The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today.”

This year will mark India’s debut at the 54th Venice Biennale as an official entrant sponsored by the Ministry of Culture.  The contemporary showcase “Everyone Agrees: It’s About to Explode” will feature mixed media artworks by four leading artists: India-born New York-based artist Zarina Hashmi, Gigi Scaria of Delhi, Guwahati-based Desire Machine Collective (DMC), a multi-media art intervention collaboration between Sonal Jain and Mriganka Madhukaillya; and Praneet Soi, who works out of Kolkata and Amsterdam.

”Indian art is an incredible force in the international art scene today.  There is good art coming out of all the big cities across India…  Like the sudden 16th-century shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, this is a similar big shift, and there is going to be ever-increasing dynamics in China, in India, and in the Middle East. I think collectively they will eventually change the art world” said Hans Ulbrich Obrist, renowned curator of the Serpentine Gallery in London, in an interview recently.

To be continued:
Art and culture tour of India- Part 7:
More on the contemporary art scene in India

Click here to post your comments.