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Version True - Uma Nair
Lessons for the Indian Art Mart
The Economist recently pronounced: `the era of bulk-buying big names is gone, and the rare and the beautiful are back in vogue.’
Two weeks ago, Manet and Rothko failed to sell. For so long, the booming art market seemed somewhat impervious to the dipping fortunes of the global economy. But experts now fear that the overgrown bubble may finally have burst .In the fall auctions, sales by Sotheby's and Christie's in New York achieved totals that were millions of dollars below even their lowest estimated prices. At Emami’s Auction too the sales were lackluster.
Has the market crunch and mayhem hit Indian art galleries? Most galleries wouldn’t want to acknowledge but there is a slump in sales. Huge investments in infrastructure, in the past year have brought galleries to the bottom of the barrel. Some have closed part of their expansions.
`No sales for the past 6 months and the future looks so bleak,’ says a gallery person who wished to remain anonymous. The sales over months are, traditionally, a crucial barometer of the art market, anxiously analyzed this year to see just how badly it has been hit by the global financial crisis, it is the art season now and the impending doom is just expenditure and no result in terms of payments. But a closer look at buyer identities reveal that a number of neo-riche buyers were Investment Bankers and the closing up of banks like Lehman and others brings down the curtain on the speculator buyers who were responsible for the art market bubble over the past 3 years.
The reason for contemporary art rubbing shoulders with great masters is all because of the hype and hoopla that was initiated by these buyers who were art hungry and cash rich. Of course it is indeed curious to know what something worth 10 million pounds looks like.` Something made from "crushed bottle caps" and the egg paintings of "oil and glitter on canvas"... lacks a certain je ne sais quoi’said a critic recently. But the Indian art market that had boomed and ballooned is now shrinking.
The Indian art market has seen a huge influx of participants over the last ten years. That’s a good thing. Art has become important to more people who devote more resources toward it allowing more artists, dealers, curators, advisors and, even, critics to make a living in the art economy. But the downside is that a lot of trash also sold as art, and fly by night curators spawned. A lot of artists/curators who should never have been tagged as artists/curators have also got into the stream. A by-product of that expanded art economy is the fact there are more buyers and sellers and gallery persons who wanted certain critics to launch certain artists .In reality there’s more than just a mere exchange of art and cash in the transaction; and more room for other areas of the arts rather than just mere speculation.
In a broader art market, there has to be room for fellow travelers and enthusiasts, buyers who like art but don’t worship at the altar of money. There is also room for integrity and transparency. A number of gallery sites will showcase works but the `Price on Request’. A number of galleries in the country have also been functioning on the principle of 50% share instead of the modest 33% in lieu of value added services. Of course there isn’t anything wrong with any transaction as long as artist and gallery have the understanding. But Indian galleries need to be more upfront, for instance Sakti Burman’s show in Delhi was touted as `Sakti Burman in the capital after 3 years,’ by the gallery concerned. Ignorant reporters swallowed it. But the truth of the matter was that Burman had a huge show at Habitat Centre last February hosted by Apparao Galleries.Burman also had a mini retrospective in 2005 in Delhi. Perhaps the final reality of the shrunk market will reduce the redundant nature of so many solos year after year.
One of the principal motors of the art market boom has been buyers from new economies such as India along with Indians living in US and Europe and Middle East, but the stock index has seen dramatic falls, slashing the fortunes of some of the richest investors all over the world. Indian buyers are likely to be “quieter” at all sales. And the ongoing financial turbulence has dramatically slowed buying by European and American collectors, as demonstrated at the recent Frieze and Fiac art fairs.
All in all this a great time for serious collectors to cash in-art will bring heavy discounts everywhere. And more importantly we can finally sift the chaff from the wheat. Only the really mighty will prevail. The pretentious will die the death of beggars in the winter of wants.
