Art travels responsible road in India, markets look up (2010 in Retrospect)

NEW DELHI - Responsible art, caution in investment, a spurt in collaborations between Indian and foreign artists, art in public spaces and the return of the legendary Anish Kapoor defined the Indian art scene in 2010, with the market estimated at Rs.2,000 crore ($440 million).

In 2009-10, the volume of business in Indian art grew by at least 20 percent annually, picking up from the quarter beginning in April, experts say.

A culture pact, the first of its kind, between India and Britain opened the road to more artistic collaborations between the two countries with mega exhibitions of Indian heritage and textiles on the cards in Britain.

The agreement inked in July spurred the homecoming of Anish Kapoor, the world’s leading contemporary artist of Indian origin from Britain, with a retrospective exhibition covering 30 years of his work in Delhi and in Mumbai.

On May 9, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated a specially curated exhibition, “The Masterstroke: Art of Rabindranath Tagore” at the National Gallery of Modern Art in the capital as a curtainraiser to the Nobel Laureate’s 150th birth anniversary next year.

But a sense of responsibility and sensitivity towards the environs brought aesthetics out of the confines of wine-and-cheese dos and the investment sheets. “Artiger: Art For Tiger”, a public art initiative between 58 leading Indian artists, 56 corporate houses and three individual promoters sought to make the habitats a wee safer for the big cats under siege by a combination of factors.

The tiger installations, handed over to their corporate owners Dec 19, will be placed at vantage locations across capital for four months to open a dialogue between the common man, artists and the art works to raise awareness about the need to conserve tigers. There are only 1,400 tigers left in India.

“Art in public is more satisfying because it is more permanent. Art in public spaces also reaches out to more people unlike (my) paintings that are niche. Art needs to promote good causes,” artist Anjolie Ela Menon told IANS.

This year, the endangered Asian tiger has been the soul of India’s artistic philanthropy. In October, the Dastkar Nature Bazaar, the country’s largest indigenous arts and crafts showcase, used its tiger-themed wares presented by more than 200 rural artisans to promote awareness about conservation.

“The idea is that craftspeople should go back to nature as a source of inspiration,” said arts and crafts activist Layla Tyabji, the founder of the bazaar.

Beginning 2010, the art and related crafts market has been showing signs of recovery despite the fact that there is a certain amount of wariness among investors to park big-time finance in art.

“Only top artists are still in the reckoning. Throughout the year, we have seen a strong demand for works of art of the highest quality,” auctioneer Vikram Bachhawat of Kolkata-based Aakriti Art Gallery and Emami Chisel Art told IANS.

“The sale of Arpita Singh’s work, ‘Wish Dream’ for Rs 9.6 crore this month is a benchmark in this category. The price records show that the Indian art market is picking up.”

The economic downturn in the last two years has cleansed the market of mediocre art and corrected the price structure which had been inflated by galleries and auctioneers.

The sanitised market has impacted the auctions as well. In June, 12 art works by Rabindranath Tagore fetched 1.6 billion pounds at a Sotheby’s auction in London.

The year witnessed several innovative showcases of new media art - which combined responsibility, sustainability, re-use and digitisation as concepts promote art with messages. These exhibitions were mostly collaborations between foreign and Indian artists.

Ajay Rajgarhia, founder of Wonderwall, an online photo-art gallery and vendor, said “the rising price of conventional art created a demand for photographs as works of art in the buyers’ market”.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)