Art Boom Surges Excesses

Uma Nair

Curating becomes a farce:
Investors,buyers,collectors,galleries and artists-of course not forgetting the n number of ad agencies who have swum into the media game to launch artists whether they belong to the good, the bad or the ugly. The art scenario in the capital city has become a case of excesses-in exhibitions, in buying and in selling. And the art of marketing and the marketing of art has brought in a series of art ventures that leave you confused, mixed up and wondering about where its going.
A recent invitation from a newly fashioned gallery space in a Mall in Delhi introduced a new name in the `art of curating'-the name in question, turned out to be a gallery hand who decided to join the high ranks of curators. What was shocking was not the attempt of throwing together a few names under the garb of curation; what mattered was that you had a gallery of repute and age that actually said yes to such an exercise. It reeked of the whole tamasha of time and essence and money. In the new art world where money is the primary concern `anything goes' and anyone can do anything.
Is running a gallery only a commercial practice to collect money because housewives have little else to do? Is running a gallery a monetary venture that is bringing quick gains because of the art boom? Surely art reputations and art practices are also important. Galleries like Vadehras, Chemould, Pundole and CIMA that have been around for decades, have been around and stayed on because they have professionalized the practice of art and gone beyond the nuances of a single show, they have kept track, kept pace with art developments and created a niche for themselves with the quality of their own functioning. New galleries like Bodhi Art have gone ahead and opened branches after doing serious work with collectors, critics and artists. Bodhi Art's in house exercise with Atul Dodiya at STPI in Singapore was an example of going beyond the mundane everyday practice of a simple solo showing. What emerged was the cerebral aesthetics of the genius of Atul Dodiya.

Abstraction's Sudden Popularity
Another excess is the sudden surge in abstraction. Two months ago I was shown some sub standard works in the name of abstraction and asked to write a catalogue. When I asked for the name I was told that the artist was from Bhopal. The tacky colour sweeps and the deliberate white dots that were carefully rendered in patterns proved that the artist had no clue what abstraction was. But of late over the past 3 years suddenly figurative artists have jumped onto the abstraction bandwagon and you wonder if its all a case of the art for the market.
Certainly there is a trend in abstraction. The rumour mills suggest that there are deeper intonations to the success of the Raza group. Rumours suggest that there will be a spate of Raza and disciple shows when his 85th birthday is celebrated on Feb:22nd.`There have been 2 Roopadhyatam shows last year, one at Bodhi Art and one at Palette Art Gallery,' says an abstract collector. Why have another show of the same names? Just to prove that they are catching the market? Too many abstract shows will bring down the substance of abstraction and that will be detrimental to the market,' says he. `Too many works by Raza have flooded the market and people are now asking questions. 
In India, other than the abstract masters, the real path of abstraction is yet to be defined. Ravi Kumar's Seven published years ago was the introduction to the abstract genre in India. Ravi Kumar also published a book on Raza which was written by a critic of repute, but it was Raza's book by Geeti Sen that has been till today the finest premise on the artist. `Should there be another book on Raza? How can it surpass Geeti Sen's work done over a decade? Surely knowing an artist does not make one a critic. But then the rules in the game have changed.
The reasons for this are varied, complex and buried in the psychic ruptures that take place in this century. The question, however, contains part of the answer. As artistic knowledge and money in the market has increased, multiplicity has replaced certainty, relativism grown, and our experience of the world has became more unknown and unstable, and the hierarchical way we pictured the world no longer seems adequate or accurate. Single-point perspective and realism were originally devised to present a kind of double-positive: Things were rendered realistically in order to be known. This worked visual wonders for several hundred years. However, by 2007  it has become evident that there was a latent negative lurking in the double-positive: Things are being named but they aren't being known. Like the hole formed in the ozone of representation. Technique was only leading to more technique, perspectival space unraveled and representation began to feel suppressive and deficient.
A visual analog for indefiniteness and instability has set into art practices . A space for intuition is needed. Abstraction years ago was one antidote. The wish was that abstraction would reverse the charge of the double-positive by presenting a double-negative: It would portray a world beyond naming. In this way a negative would be transformed into a positive. Although it led to astounding things, this premise has at least two glaring faults. First, understanding is an essentially useless measure for art. No one "understands" a Botticelli or any work of art. Second, there's ultimately no difference between abstraction and representation; both are simply depicting systems. Abstract space exists in representational art and vice versa. But in India abstraction has become a fad, a pastime amongst artists who want to set the money mills running. And therein lies the folly of a `a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.!'