tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34729914682224945612024-03-13T13:21:16.934+05:30Indian Art ReviewCollecting and Investing in Indian Contemporary ArtKapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-66600025759679858312013-12-04T23:21:00.001+05:302013-12-04T23:24:03.822+05:30The Elusive Buyer !<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Over the last few months, many people have asked me why no one is really buying art and each time I am reminded of a phrase a hotelier friend of mine uses quite frequently, that “we need to concentrate on building lifetime engagements rather than episodic engagement".</div>
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That is the problem with Indian art too. Whether it is artists who keep the values at ridiculous heights hoping that some gullible or aspiring collector would buy their works, or galleries who sometimes price new artists at prices that defy logic, everyone is just looking at the next deal. No one is looking at long term engagement and reassuring collectors that they will always be valued and taken care of. So finally, collectors lose confidence.</div>
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So, if the Indian art market is based on this foundation, the only way it can go is down. In the past few months, I have met many ardent collectors who have given up collecting Indian art. Some of the recent auctions are also a pointer in that direction with prominent collections being on sale.</div>
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How will this scenario, really change? What is the future of young artists who dream of being recognised for their passion not only in India but globally? How will Indian art get its ever elusive buyer? The need is for a major mindset change and new energy to take Indian art to a new level.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Santiago Sierra at Kochi Muziris Biennale 2012</span></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Let me share some thoughts on this new order with you...</span></div>
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<b>Logical artist pricing</b> - Artists need to lower their prices, period. Established artists, need to quote 30 % lower than what they quoted last month as buyers can acquire the same for 35% less from the secondary or auction market. The only established artist who I thought is smartly pricing his works is Atul Dodiya. His canvas works are priced very close to what they would sell for in an auction, so if you like a work and buy it, it may not appreciate but you won’t come out a pauper either.</div>
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Bharti Kher is another established artist who comes to mind, but she is maybe the only Indian artist who attracts enough demand to sustain her supply. Hence her pricing is logical as collectors do not lose money when they buy her works.</div>
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Just because a person loves art does not give anyone the license to take the him or her on a ride. Most artists need to take a reality check on their pricing before they stop selling completely. And that will happen. I predicted in 2009 that the Indian art market was on a shallow base and will crash completely; my blog is a testament to that.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘Leave your shoes here’ by Hossein Valamanesh</td></tr>
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<b>Gallery Loyalty</b> - Many artists would disagree with this truth that if a gallery is selling your works in Mumbai, a different gallery in Delhi and another in Bangalore, then you are simply encouraging all these galleries to look at you as a transaction instead of promoting you. So you deserve to have your work be oversupplied, collectors to lose money and finally people to stop buying you.</div>
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This is the worst thing an artist can do to his or her gallery which made their career and some of the established artists in this country have been very selfish on this count. I admire TV Santhosh and Thukral & Tagra to be standing by Guild and Nature Morte respectively.Through good times and bad times, they sold their art and not their loyalty.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mahabubur Rahman for India Art Fair 2013</td></tr>
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<b>Wake up or Perish</b> - Galleries who build on an old order, family and the story of “I have been around two decades”, need to wake up and smell the coffee. The game has always been to sell to a couple of museums, attend some art fairs and sell some art to old collectors. That won’t sustain them or their artists. They need to be work on their marketing, have a better online presence, engage with collectors and be active.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Works by Jitish Kallat</td></tr>
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When was the last time, you saw some good advertising by any gallery? They are full of creative people but there is no outreach program or an interest to build an art community. If you do not have an advertising or marketing budget, then you would rather be out of business. Posting your event photographs of the same 30 people who attend your art openings every month on Facebook is not marketing!</div>
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Also, often galleries ignore press calls and requests for interviews. How, then, will they ever build an art culture or an inclusive environment? All they are bothered about is protecting their near negligible turf.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bestcollegeart.com and Glenfiddich’s Emerging Artist of the Year Award, 2013</td></tr>
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<b>Events around the year</b> - It is important to have art events around the year like the art nights hosted by the Mumbai galleries and the Lado Sarai art district galleries. How about attracting new collectors? Do not sell anything, but align with a major bank and get their top customers on an educational platform on collecting art. Help them, guide them and build a new breed of collectors. This is hard work but as the collectors evolve there will be new people buying Indian art.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HFV Project by Ariel Hassan,Kochi Muziris Biennale 2012</td></tr>
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As some of us have done in the past, we will ensure people get art news, will ensure that there is transparency and if you do not want to be on the train to be changing the art world in this country, we will just request you to please step aside for the sake of hundreds of artists who wake up every morning with starry dreams in their eyes!</div>
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Yes, there is hope and there is optimism for a new tomorrow led by completely different people who will get Indian art the respect it deserves.<br />
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Warm wishes<br />
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Kapil</div>
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<b>Kapil Chopra is President of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He is also a mentor to India's leading art magazine, The Wall at www.thewallartmag.com and also Charitybeds.com which helps EWS patients get hospital beds in private hospitals free of cost.In addition to this he also the Founder of India's largest selling art gallery, Bestcollegeart.com.</b></div>
Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-2138445959563512262013-10-27T00:08:00.000+05:302013-10-27T00:08:39.908+05:30United Art Fair - A story of guts to glory!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Dear Friends,</i><br />
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<i>My post on United Art Fair published in the latest issue of The Wall, please do read it here or on www.thewallartmag.com. Your comments and feedback is much appreciated.</i><br />
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Art needed a new platform away from the gallery structure that characterises a typical art fair. Not that, the gallery structure is not important but it can then showcase only limited artists and hence an art fair which encompasses more artists than pretty much the entire gallery system, always make you curious.</div>
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I said it earlier and will say it again, to run an artist art fair in this environment is evangelical and maybe a bit suicidal ! Annurag Sharma did a bit of both, pulling off a very well laid art fair. In terms of design and execution, I have always admired India Art Fair because with every passing year, they have set the bench a bit higher. Annurag did not disappoint on that front and the layout was spacious and not cramped at all, in fact in terms of layout and the ease to move around, he even surpassed India Art Fair.</div>
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This is not to compare both the art fairs but to appreciate both of them as having a unique contribution to the art world. But then the credit of this layout and curation should definitely go to the genius of Peter Nagy and his curatorial team. Peter is an inspirational gallerist and curator, someone who has made an exceptional contribution to the Indian art world. Now. Some people would hate to admit this but then the art world is a bit like a tank full of crabs, no crab wants the other one to get out and do better, so they criticise everything that someone does.</div>
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For all his genius, Peter seems a lot bothered about what other people have to say in the art world, although he always denies it. So all this talk about his doing United Art Fair had a lot of negativity but I was happy to see that this negativity did not carry forward to the fair as I saw everyone who mattered in the Indian art world at the fair. For all the galleries and artists who decided to sit out, maybe it is time for them to slowly start moving out as the art world has moved on and most of them actually do not matter in the new equation.</div>
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The opening day was really good and it was good to meet a lot of people and I could see that the buzz was just coming back a bit. Did this translate into sales ? Definitely not, sales were less than robust and although I thought a sale figure around 2 crores was an honest number it could have been much better. I think, where the curators and the organisers could have done better were the prices, why do I say that ? All artists had to give a work free and got 50% on the second artwork, what that meant was, that in order to get their money back,the works were at least priced 50% higher in most cases. Now, this could have been avoided but the curators and the organisers needed to sit it out and actually ensure that pricing could have been more reasonable.</div>
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Like it happens in every art transaction, curators and artists say that they do not want to get involved with the price, but that is as false a statement as can be. If they were not involved, then important from them to be, so that a collector could get value and make an instant purchase, this is an affordable art fair.</div>
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But then, this is not criticism but just an area that could be improved upon, in my view, I would rate the fair a very good 8/10 on all parameters and a commendable effort. Human effort can conquer anything and both Annurag and Peter actually did that with a leap of faith. The right way to realise the expenses incurred and also keep the interest alive is to do a collateral event every month showing some of this art at attractive prices for collectors to collect. That is a commitment that I would always love to help with and I am sure that next year with sponsorship support and a year of marketing, this will be a fair to reckon with.</div>
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Till then, here are some of my personal picks from the United Art Fair!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Parag Sonarghare </span></b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">I perform therefore I am</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Acrylic on canvas and used clothes</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim4Oqift6BxPQpeKg4RVKQFNx3JWf19q-iui8d3WBiAIhHkU7JcrYsl4DkRc4GfemaPY6B5Swizn3B8iyA6Uuugm7GTKYjntSw9N8KuprQ7jG7DaKONQyWDc_gQkVnGmiuOf0xD1vdXKI/s1600/21445-Dhara-Malhotra_Silent-Hymns-I_acrylic-and-mixed-medium-on-canvas_36x36in_-2012-13_inr-160000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim4Oqift6BxPQpeKg4RVKQFNx3JWf19q-iui8d3WBiAIhHkU7JcrYsl4DkRc4GfemaPY6B5Swizn3B8iyA6Uuugm7GTKYjntSw9N8KuprQ7jG7DaKONQyWDc_gQkVnGmiuOf0xD1vdXKI/s320/21445-Dhara-Malhotra_Silent-Hymns-I_acrylic-and-mixed-medium-on-canvas_36x36in_-2012-13_inr-160000.jpg" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Dhara Malhotra</span></b><br />
<i>Silent Hymns - I</i><br />
Acrylic and mixed medium on canvas</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCfry3RwhNKpEwmjjAGqhny-VeB0yyJA3o8lxDWs-BUGysghPj1JJx8Cf9DVIzA02UbCWJXaPMANOpeseO9QAPibeGx9NnxLkMzNTaJ9RU3SfuaJYU6lmc1CzEWiNjJQ_IDbSQ_O__CrI/s1600/soni+jogi,red+bird+on+yellow,acrylic++on+canvas,31x36inch,2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCfry3RwhNKpEwmjjAGqhny-VeB0yyJA3o8lxDWs-BUGysghPj1JJx8Cf9DVIzA02UbCWJXaPMANOpeseO9QAPibeGx9NnxLkMzNTaJ9RU3SfuaJYU6lmc1CzEWiNjJQ_IDbSQ_O__CrI/s320/soni+jogi,red+bird+on+yellow,acrylic++on+canvas,31x36inch,2013.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Soni Jogi</span></b><br />
<i>Red bird on yellow</i><br />
Acrylic on canvas</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdO3yck1QMVty-M7Mh_2D7bcfvjIB6fE7Rz4iOUSBQxpV7jirMYSPPkyUv906lCmLsi2aKaK7mDYg2eRMK76c3DZcLwiweZya77fF54BW_Ncky0LK-lju3-v1a_opNtRuhVhqS70XMPf0/s1600/Yuvan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdO3yck1QMVty-M7Mh_2D7bcfvjIB6fE7Rz4iOUSBQxpV7jirMYSPPkyUv906lCmLsi2aKaK7mDYg2eRMK76c3DZcLwiweZya77fF54BW_Ncky0LK-lju3-v1a_opNtRuhVhqS70XMPf0/s320/Yuvan.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Yuvan Bothysathuvar</span></b><br />
<i>Dependent</i><br />
Canson paper on plywood</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizUNTUWWa5p1Wi_ruAabeZ7skMX83MnmMQANnEhzexA8Vxs0DyB7O4H11OcHwRTmRmNgCBkwnOBHKUS3sxLq8L8_ITwUoL43z0jnMEt0KIqkulUIkeuheT4PIIhdMwwoKNS7EuFvYEurg/s1600/21106-Rashmi-Kalkea_Austral-Visit_Mixed-Media-acrylic-on-canvasfeather-glue-plastic-bags_32x32in_2006_inr-90000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizUNTUWWa5p1Wi_ruAabeZ7skMX83MnmMQANnEhzexA8Vxs0DyB7O4H11OcHwRTmRmNgCBkwnOBHKUS3sxLq8L8_ITwUoL43z0jnMEt0KIqkulUIkeuheT4PIIhdMwwoKNS7EuFvYEurg/s320/21106-Rashmi-Kalkea_Austral-Visit_Mixed-Media-acrylic-on-canvasfeather-glue-plastic-bags_32x32in_2006_inr-90000.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Rashmi Kaleka</b></span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><i>Austral Visit<br />Mixed media acrylic on canvas feather glue plastic bags</i></span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSr36-mab1LxzPTQGWieE27MMi5Sgw-qlGgR5X3Y4mWUZ1Lx66qz4dl9JyuQcPAvqvk3p4BrlH6CPPGlH5gW9S3gHVYqLMxx6RvUAEw8ewlmCUZMJ8MvCM38gimGVEb9akii-30Mx1tlM/s1600/21618-Prathap-Modi_Unheard-voices_wood-cavingoil-on-wood_240x84in_2010_inr-650000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSr36-mab1LxzPTQGWieE27MMi5Sgw-qlGgR5X3Y4mWUZ1Lx66qz4dl9JyuQcPAvqvk3p4BrlH6CPPGlH5gW9S3gHVYqLMxx6RvUAEw8ewlmCUZMJ8MvCM38gimGVEb9akii-30Mx1tlM/s320/21618-Prathap-Modi_Unheard-voices_wood-cavingoil-on-wood_240x84in_2010_inr-650000.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Prathap Modi</span></b><br />
<i>Unheard Voices</i><br />
Wood carving and oil on wood</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ptbqCFEy0qQ5KzyVik9P_dMBBY7lxrB-VuyUHdZ1VVGsYSj7yIaDG5lzm3Iz5EllN3J_hqwz3QCxyjcRtx4-fEjQf8k5fFVzfQ4ZU6N0AYrJKbkUUvg7c4yMFZVEnOAY1D1JtVSK-7A/s1600/Kundan+Mondal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ptbqCFEy0qQ5KzyVik9P_dMBBY7lxrB-VuyUHdZ1VVGsYSj7yIaDG5lzm3Iz5EllN3J_hqwz3QCxyjcRtx4-fEjQf8k5fFVzfQ4ZU6N0AYrJKbkUUvg7c4yMFZVEnOAY1D1JtVSK-7A/s320/Kundan+Mondal.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Kundan Mondal </b></span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><i>Possibly Political - 2</i><br />Wood with digital print and acrylic on paper</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHdXPY5ZMK4UlD-Ijk4S2vvmG4H5AXTrlmnLy0qV_2_dziwi-6lb-Z3gZYTLZ3LCDvPrlZCI_0JhtW739q1kECzbciXnNo19N7ZwKW9N7_VbIAerpEVdbgO9IZGDmti-vvJgnJL7xMQFo/s1600/Prittam+Priyalochan_Performer+with+his+Pink+umbrella+at+IGNCA_ink,charcoal+&acrylic+on+paper_21x29in_2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHdXPY5ZMK4UlD-Ijk4S2vvmG4H5AXTrlmnLy0qV_2_dziwi-6lb-Z3gZYTLZ3LCDvPrlZCI_0JhtW739q1kECzbciXnNo19N7ZwKW9N7_VbIAerpEVdbgO9IZGDmti-vvJgnJL7xMQFo/s320/Prittam+Priyalochan_Performer+with+his+Pink+umbrella+at+IGNCA_ink,charcoal+&acrylic+on+paper_21x29in_2013.jpg" width="221" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Prittam Priyalochan</span></b><br />
<i>Performer with his pink umbrella at IGNCA</i><br />
Ink, charcoal and acrylic on paper</td></tr>
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<b>Kapil Chopra is President of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He is also a mentor to India's leading art magazine, The Wall at www.thewallartmag.com and also Charitybeds.com which helps EWS patients get hospital beds in private hospitals free of cost.In addition to this he also the Founder of India's largest selling art gallery, Bestcollegeart.com.</b></div>
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Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-38015156519716102842013-09-08T14:42:00.001+05:302013-09-08T14:42:20.761+05:30Hybrid e-com art startup BestCollegeArt.com wants to give a platform to budding artists, to launch high-end art portal ArtDistrict13<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dear Friends,<br />
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Please scroll down for a great coverage that Bestcollegeart.com, The Wall and Charitybeds.com have received on VCCicrle.com and Techcircle.in and get ready for ArtDistrict13.com, which will be Indian Arts most influential art gallery in the years to come !<br />
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Join us on this journey and see how we have contributed in our small way to the Indian art scene !<br />
<br />
Warm regards.......<br />
<br />
<b><u>Hybrid e-com art startup BestCollegeArt.com wants to give a platform to budding artists, to launch high-end art portal ArtDistrict13</u></b><br />
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Owned and operated by Gurgaon-based Insignia Art Collect Pvt Ltd, BestCollegeArt.com wants to give a voice to budding artists in India, as well as make art affordable to collectors in the country.<br />
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“I have been an art collector for a number of years now; whenever I was buying art, I observed that it was only the top 10-15 artists in the country were getting consumer eyeballs and making sales,” said Kapil Chopra, founder, BestCollegeArt, and group president (for India), The Oberoi Group. He started the venture in his personal capacity.<br />
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He said every year over 1,200-1,500 artists pass out from various colleges and art schools, but they eventually give up their hopes and dreams to take up small jobs because of lack of exposure, little or no sales, and because they do not have a platform to showcase their talent. “But while people lament the system and the government, they do not take any measures personally. It is with this thought that I started BestCollegeArt.”<br />
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<b>The BestCollegeArt.com site</b><br />
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Artists can upload up to five works (no minimum limit)—including photographs, paintings, sculpture, prints and works on paper—at a time on the site, which is displayed on it for four months. Post that, all designs are deleted and the artists can upload new ones (again the limit is five), ensuring that new art is always added on the site.<br />
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Uploading is free; however, for every art sold, the company takes a 40 per cent cut as operational expenses (for running the site, sales and marketing, paying salaries, etc.). “I have never drawn a salary from the company and we don’t take any profits; everything we make is invested back to fuel growth, apart from paying salaries of the seven-member team,” said Chopra.<br />
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For sales, the company follows a hybrid online + offline model, where collectors can buy directly from the site, or purchase artwork at one of its offline art shows (the company does around six in a year). As of now, online only constitutes of 25 per cent of the total sales, while the rest is a mix of people selecting products online and buying them offline and pure offline purchases.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8gR_TwxPSo5b3avLk0Ot-OFOrwYngIRqEcOL6SHAb1Wmu0wXlpLMxoCAHAujSt2GloclcZ-IJTx62hp3rXYX8f6Tnw9l5X4oG4UQzBGjGI-e6BCshoemnmpuEWJzqMNNydjv5CA6iw9M/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8gR_TwxPSo5b3avLk0Ot-OFOrwYngIRqEcOL6SHAb1Wmu0wXlpLMxoCAHAujSt2GloclcZ-IJTx62hp3rXYX8f6Tnw9l5X4oG4UQzBGjGI-e6BCshoemnmpuEWJzqMNNydjv5CA6iw9M/s400/1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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In addition, to give critical acclaim to artists who are better than the rest, the company has also introduced an ‘emerging artist of the year’ award in partnership with liquor brand Glenfiddich that provides a Rs 10 lakh cash award, a three-month stay in Scotland and a solo show at Nature Morte, a leading art gallery in Delhi-NCR owned by American artist and art curator Peter Nagy.<br />
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Artists have freedom in terms of pricing, but it has to lie in the range of Rs 1,000 to Rs 2 lakh. The company, however, does advice on pricing if a work is over-priced. It does not hold any inventory; it instead procures the artwork work from the artist once it is sold. Artists are paid within 30 days after the artwork is picked from them.<br />
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<b>Revenues and transactions</b><br />
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Started in September 2010 with an investment of only Rs 3 lakh, in its first year of operations, the company claimed to record revenues of Rs 82 lakh, increasing it to Rs 1.3 crore in the last financial year. It is now looking to grow 40 per cent this fiscal to Rs 1.8 crore in revenues. According to Chopra, the company has sold 800 artworks to date, and is currently selling a work a day. Apart from India, the company is seeing purchases from markets like Switzerland and Dubai (by non-Indians).<br />
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The site is getting around 80,000 visitors a month (a limited number since it is a niche e-commerce site), and at any given time, artwork from around 600-900 artists is displayed on the site. All artwork on the site is exclusive to it, since artists are not allowed to display the same anywhere else (for the duration of four months).<br />
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BestCollegeArt promises delivery within seven days, and for logistics, it has partnered with United Arts Logistics (for both India and abroad) instead of the regular ones, since art needs special handling. It also offers a buyback option for regular buyers (collectors making at least three purchases a year), according to which they can return any one of the artwork bought from the company and in return get the entire amount they paid for that particular work.<br />
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<b>Why the name BestCollegeArt?</b><br />
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“All of us are continuously learning in our lives and are always in the ‘college of life’. Hence artists, no matter when they passed out, are always welcome on the site. We are not a site for students in art colleges, on the contrary, most of our artists are much older and the median age is close to 30,” said Chopra.<br />
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<b>Other ventures</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-yTQmOE3SlCHrBYBSEBq7hcWaXbR2xhXOgzaMFepinq89uMo1kFaPwDpAp6tSGcdyBBkTYre7XHIceOg2_Z1-i5RtrixSxxHZD9daVdMT9hVY6aAnSjzV-z9JojVOHTqqWWX1mV5nf4/s1600/wall.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="57" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-yTQmOE3SlCHrBYBSEBq7hcWaXbR2xhXOgzaMFepinq89uMo1kFaPwDpAp6tSGcdyBBkTYre7XHIceOg2_Z1-i5RtrixSxxHZD9daVdMT9hVY6aAnSjzV-z9JojVOHTqqWWX1mV5nf4/s200/wall.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<b>The Wall</b>: The parent company has also launched an online monthly art magazine called Thewallartmag.com and claims to have a reader base of 10,000 for the same. While subscription to the magazine is free of cost for readers, for revenues, the company looks at advertisements. According to Chopra, the new venture has also achieved profitability.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZoCo3bZLqimlywVNDppVsDTjpA7kEF7vukezL_-h41YX7atBpqxUEuqLeS33qUeLegQoNyg44traIcbtiQDJdijHb2XmqXVDhpYwvDNztcl3vmjNeMYs5UNYGzXrUxceBZzzAyRfxBg/s1600/Beds.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="47" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZoCo3bZLqimlywVNDppVsDTjpA7kEF7vukezL_-h41YX7atBpqxUEuqLeS33qUeLegQoNyg44traIcbtiQDJdijHb2XmqXVDhpYwvDNztcl3vmjNeMYs5UNYGzXrUxceBZzzAyRfxBg/s200/Beds.png" width="200" /></a><b>Charitybeds</b>: The company also operates a not-for-profit website called Charitybeds.com that provides updated information on availability of medical facilities in the Delhi-NCR region. “According to a Supreme Court order, over 43 hospitals are supposed to provide free beds to poor patients in the country,” said Chopra.<br />
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The site offers information like names, addresses and contact details of hospitals in the region, along with an updated list of the number of beds currently available in those hospitals. Users can also search for hospitals according to area or specialty.<br />
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<b>What’s next?</b><br />
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The company is planning to launch a new high end art portal called ArtDistrict13.com- that would be more of an offline cum online venture, with offline primarily focused on the high end luxury space- in six months, which will help ‘select’ young artists in the country take their work to the next level. “If BestCollegeArt is an incubation portal, ArtDistrict13 will feature the cream of the artists that are chosen from it,” said Chopra.<br />
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It is also planning to completely revamp the BestCollegeArt website later this month, and going forward could also look at the art gifting sector. Also, while the company does not have any fundraising plans as of now, since it is profitable (with money in the bank and internal accruals), it could look to raise funding to expand into other markets like Dubai and Europe, in order to take Indian art to a global stage.</div>
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<i>Kapil Chopra is President of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He is also a mentor to India's leading art magazine, The Wall at www.thewallartmag.com and also Charitybeds.com which helps EWS patients get hospital beds in private hospitals free of cost.</i></div>
Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-71611178664912234052013-06-30T23:00:00.000+05:302013-06-30T23:00:17.690+05:30Indian Contemporary Art - The Road Ahead and being on The Wall !<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dear Friends,<br />
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My apologies for not being regular in updating this blog.<br />
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I guess with the downturn in the Indian art scene, you may think that even keen collectors like me had also lost all hope for any recovery. Contrary to that, I continue to believe in the Indian art scene.<br />
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The reason for not updating this blog was two fold, the key being more professional responsibilities in my job as a hotelier and the second being, that every month, we were bring art news to your computers and iPad's with The Wall.<br />
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The Wall, is today, India's most well read art magazine which I guess is an easy achievement, there are no monthly art magazines in India, so in most of the magazines, you read the summer show review, 6 months later in the winter.They do not come out more than 3-4 times a year, while The Wall comes out on the 1st of every month at www.thewallartmag.com.<br />
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The achievement though was that it was an official media partner to Art Basel, Hong Kong this year and also, withe very passing, the number of subscribers keep on going up.<br />
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So, I was being true to my mission of increasing the coverage of arts in the country with complete transparency as you all had witnessed in this blog.<br />
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I will definitely try and keep this more active and share much more with you as we go through this journey in the world of Indian Contemporary art.<br />
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Warm wishes<br />
<br />
Kapil<br />
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<b><i>Kapil Chopra is President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts and Trident Hotels.He is mentor to India's most read art magazine published every month called "The Wall" which is available for a free download at www.thewallartmag.com. He also supports Bestcollegeart.com, India's largest selling art gallery and is a key force behind the "Glenfiddich and Bestcollegeart.com Emerging Artist of the Year award ".</i></b></div>
Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-34284645815865737092012-08-29T15:09:00.004+05:302012-08-29T15:09:49.805+05:30Master strokes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Dear Friends,</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>An older post written last year on an artist who impressed me a lot, Balaji Ponna ! I had forgotten to share it on my blog.</i><br />
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It has been a while since someone has impressed me on the Indian Contemporary Art scene. In July last year I curated a show of five young artists called “Collective Metamorphosis” for Bestcollegeart.com as all their works touched a chord in me. Besides that, last year, I also liked Paribartana Mohanty’s oil-on-canvas works and Deepjyoti Kalita with his kinetic installations.<br />
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This has been quite a downhill year overall for the Contemporary Art world in India, I look at auction catalogues and none of the established Contemporary artists are selling. I have also looked around for younger artists who’ve turned out exceptional work but have not seen too many on the horizon.<br />
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So this year, I’d come up empty-handed in my quest for an artist who would really make an impression on me. I had visited some of the younger galleries such as Latitude 28 and Project 88 that have over the years introduced me to some quite exceptional artists. But no-one caught my eye in a significant way.<br />
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I’ve been keeping an eye on the works of Balaji Ponna for over two years and was lucky to catch his solo show — Looking not is not seeing — at The Guild Art Gallery in Mumbai. Suddenly I had a feeling that I had found someone whose works I wanted to see more of.<br />
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Ponna’s art is witty, has a satirical edge and he uses the medium of painting to convey very profound messages.<br />
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His expert brush commands and the layers he painstakingly creates are amazing. He has a great hand and his use of colour is exquisite. His paintings are all finely finished and are accompanied by a line of text at the bottom — which adds to the work’s significance and the viewer’s experience.<br />
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I liked all of Ponna’s works in the show but one which stood out for me was Silence please... Smile please... Sincerity please...!!! depicting a photographer taking a group shot of a group of politicians. First he says: “Silence please,” and then “Smile”. Then comes the request “Sincerity please!!!” with three exclamation points asking the politicians not to merely to pose for the photograph for publicity but to also show some sincerity when doing so.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxlSPIsNjPi3KZUaC6uTkCx-d7M5v6GpbcMXXpMtJuS5zaTDz3NpCRfJECsZFw_LfF1hDXnbXsHpXtCgguyhuYrc6_jzmi7NBdgqqufsLER93IklpHuxlwQfd9aB5Ip6wTQWPxJbQuOW8/s1600/silence+please...smile+please...sincerity+please.lo+res.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713078226602692738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxlSPIsNjPi3KZUaC6uTkCx-d7M5v6GpbcMXXpMtJuS5zaTDz3NpCRfJECsZFw_LfF1hDXnbXsHpXtCgguyhuYrc6_jzmi7NBdgqqufsLER93IklpHuxlwQfd9aB5Ip6wTQWPxJbQuOW8/s320/silence+please...smile+please...sincerity+please.lo+res.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 247px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Silence Please...Smile please...Sincerity please..!!</span></span><br />
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Also, I was impressed with his work: “Birds express what people can’t!!! In this work, he depicts the statue of a political leader with bird droppings splattered all over it. It’s a satirical take on the feelings many people now harbour for politicians in the wake of the massive corruption cases that we hear about daily. Taking this forward, he also had a work of a politician on a sandalwood funeral pyre. The work is aptly titled “They are cremated on the bed of sandalwood...to avoid their stinking past”. Obviously, Balaji’s take here is that corrupt politicians and leaders have the money, so they can afford a sandalwood cremation.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCp-tkBmZoAv0K01kAiHrZeC9NTP19sOXEiZxDf4BqYUtteSOx2uQ20X3v7e4kjctzyM4GL8XMTDyAPpGk_Zcf0WTockcoWb0tDsTCBbrdDwaThA7qHI-QbRphRoWc0gBhl2Eckx-jg1M/s1600/Birds+express+lo+res.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713078735372765730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCp-tkBmZoAv0K01kAiHrZeC9NTP19sOXEiZxDf4BqYUtteSOx2uQ20X3v7e4kjctzyM4GL8XMTDyAPpGk_Zcf0WTockcoWb0tDsTCBbrdDwaThA7qHI-QbRphRoWc0gBhl2Eckx-jg1M/s320/Birds+express+lo+res.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 242px;" /></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Balaji Ponna's Birds express...What people can't!!!</span></span><br />
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The entire show is impressive with depth of thought and content on display. Ponna is able to infuse socio-economic commentary into all his paintings. A lot of artists want to convey one point but end up painting something that is quite different. Ponna succeeds where others have failed.<br />
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Then look at “We make a lot of ‘action painting’ daily..”. This is a comment of a different kind that compares art and less exalted workers like farmers in the fields. Jackson Pollock, one of the most influential artists of our time, threw tar on canvas and that became one of the important paintings of our time. This was called Action Painting and it refers to an artistic style in which the artist freely lets go and unleashes emotion — without too much thought or reflection. Ponna draws a comparison with farmers who spray seeds or manure like that every day on the fields without getting any financial rewards or being recognised for their work. Hence the title, “We make lot of ‘action painting’ daily..”.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0R7p6htyNOpp94oMXn26nrH8gUX6RMqSkF_WZHZrGTdDgkv1nanPetD7VjG9l6HCOE_OjHMVEWZOFDSmM9yu4CBYnZjtCYpcz9tSERhdl0OmWea2EU-H1zz_c91IA6w-Ry0fx7dIvsdU/s1600/we+make+lot+of+action+painting+daily+lo+res.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713079243597132802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0R7p6htyNOpp94oMXn26nrH8gUX6RMqSkF_WZHZrGTdDgkv1nanPetD7VjG9l6HCOE_OjHMVEWZOFDSmM9yu4CBYnZjtCYpcz9tSERhdl0OmWea2EU-H1zz_c91IA6w-Ry0fx7dIvsdU/s320/we+make+lot+of+action+painting+daily+lo+res.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 230px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ponna's We make lot of 'action painting' daily is an oil-and-soot on canvas</span><br />
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Ponna captures the current mindset and mood of people well with his satirical works. This is a commentary on the times we live in.<br />
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To my mind, he could be a new star in the making. His treatment of colours, the shaded hues and the picturisation is better than most of the artists who are today seen as leading lights on the art scene. And the best part is that the pricing of his works is sensible with most of the works priced between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 3 lakh. For this quality and size, the prices are not exorbitant. Watch out for Ponna. He offers a take on the world that we live in — painted with heart and soul.<br />
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<b>Kapil Chopra is Executive Vice President of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti". In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine. He is also the mentor to India's leading online art magazine, The Wall at www.thewallartmag.com.</b></div>
Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-43472453605212521712012-07-29T17:29:00.001+05:302012-07-29T17:29:58.659+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Dear Friends,<br />
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I have been not updating this blog for a long time.<br />
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The reason is that I have been busy doing my core job which is running hotels for The Oberoi Group and that left little time for me to indulge in my passion of writing about Indian art.<br />
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Also, the fact that just writing a blog about art news was not enough to contribute comprehensively to the art world, I needed to do much more.<br />
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Not much has changed over the last few months, except the fact that the Indian art market continues to grind lower with every passing day !<br />
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As the speculative buzz dies down in the Indian art space, we need to rebuild this space. The art collecting frenzy is now dead and actually it is a great time to start collecting art as values are still reasonable.<br />
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How do you build a culture of collecting and appreciating when Indian art does not even have basic news coverage. Most of the art magazines come out only once in 4 months, so the show in summer is being reviewed in the autumn !<br />
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With the private museums of Anupam Poddar and Kiran Nadar setting the tone for a larger non institutional support for the Arts, The Wall is a humble attempt to present art news without the jargon and bring in transparency for further growth of the Indian art space.<br />
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The Wall comes to you EVERY month on the 1st day of the month and also will always be FREE !<br />
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Enjoy being on The Wall or just download it and share with your friends. 50 pages of art news,lifestyle and some also good hotels to enjoy the art life.<br />
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The Ipad version of The Wall and even the blackberry version will be out soon and will enable to you read the magazine, anytime, anywhere !<br />
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As you read The Wall, do not forget to click the tab of "Back Issues " to read all the previous 5 issues.<br />
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Also, whenever there is a show that we like going to, watch it on The Wall Art TV, now you don't need to be in the city to watch all the at shows and openings, The Wall Art TV gets it closer to you within 24 hours of the show opening !<br />
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Missed being at Art Basel and Documenta in Kassel, no problem, read all about them with extra images only at www.thewallartmag.com, we are bringing the art world closer !<br />
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Cheers<br />
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Kapil<br />
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<b>Kapil Chopra is Executive Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper and in Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today" Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine. He is also the Founder and Mentor of The Wall Art Magazine, India's leading art magazine available at www.thewallartmag.com.</b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-66271231292693493032011-11-19T21:54:00.007+05:302011-11-22T22:33:22.806+05:30India Art Collective - India's Online Art Fair - A perspectiveDear Friends,<br /><br />I am posting on the blog after a long time !<br /><br />Well here is my frank take on The Indian Contemporary Art scene and more importantly on India Art Collective, India's first online art fair which opened to the public recently.<br /><br />I surfed the entire online fair and found it indeed a great initiative in the Indian art scene.We had the VIP online art fair in the US and although the VIP art fair had its share of technical glitches, it still has impressive galleries in its upcoming second edition.<br /><br />Coming back to the India Art Collective, Sapna Kar who has done some key charity auctions around the country and Swapnil who I know from her earlier days at The Oberoi, are the two people who introduced me to the concept. I liked the idea a lot because I firmly believe that the future is online. Speak to any important gallery with top end programming and most of the business gets conducted online.<br /><br />Dinesh and Minal changed the game of online art sales with maybe the only successful predominantly art auction website, Saffronart when others had failed internationally to sell art this way. The success of Saffronart inspired many and I have always used their auction archives to research price movements in the Indian art space.<br /><br />What Sapna and her team have done is brave by any standards, they have not only convinced the galleries to join in an online art fair but also tried to introduce price transparency in a market which has no clue on pricing to say the least. I see so many same pieces by artists, same sizes, nearly the same quality and the galleries have differential pricing !<br /><br />But that should not discourage you from surfing the art fair online.So, take out some time and travel through a journey of Indian Contemporary art as nowhere will you get a range as diverse as this in terms of genre or pricing points.<br /><br />All, I can say is that there are some great deals available from the galleries who have got it right and then there are some galleries who have just no clue and the works are priced incorrectly.<br /><br />I liked quite a lot of shows online, my favorites are Gallery Ske and Vadehra Art gallery, nice works and it made me go back again to have a look.<br /><br />It is important that galleries and artists learn that if they sell 2 works in a year, then that is not the true value of their work and in a transparent medium like this they maybe tempted to price higher until unless you are an established artist or gallery and completely secure about your price.<br /><br />So do no hesitate to ask for a discount, send an email or make a call !<br /><br />Overall, very refreshing and a very nice initiative, so do log in NOW !<br /><br /><br />Cheers<br /><br /><br />Kapil<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine.</span>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-86147596115576314192011-07-24T20:32:00.019+05:302011-07-24T22:42:47.676+05:30Collective Metamorphosis curated by Kapil Chopra at Nature Morte,New Delhi<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Dear Friends,</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Well, after a successful opening of The Oberoi, Gurgaon which opened in April and kept me busy for the last 6-8 months, I am back on the art scene with even more enthusiasm.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The hotel has already made into the the nominations for "Hotels to watch out for" for the World's best new hotel awards to be announced in Las Vegas in August.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">In these 6 months absence from the art scene, bestcollegeart.com an art initiative supported by me has grown from strength to strength and now sold over 200 works in 10 months.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The aim for the initiative was to remove two key bottlenecks in collecting contemporary art which was price and access, so price was a key point and access was that you look at the work in high resolution from over 700 artists and have the work shipped to your home.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The idea was to have people collect art and even gift it to each other, anything that increases the collector base in this country!</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">So here we are, celebrating the first anniversary of Bestcollegeart.com with my first show as a curator and opening at one of India's most prominent art galleries "Nature Morte" called Collective Metamorphosis which opened on the 23rd of July at 7 PM.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Some details of the show and my opening notes for all the readers of this blog, please do visit the show as the show is on till 1st of August, everyday from 11 AM to 6 PM except Sundays.......</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><b><i>I am a collector but not a curator!</i></b></div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">I start with this line as it reflects the philosophy behind this show. I am a collector, I love Indian Contemporary Art and believe it has enriched me in more ways than one. I am not a curator but deeply concerned with what is happening in the world of Indian Contemporary Art.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">I believe we need to make art more accessible both in terms of price and ease of access. This will not only encourage artists but also attract many more individuals to engage and collect art.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This was one of the key reasons for establishing Bestcollegeart.com, an art initiative in which we gave an opportunity to every artist to load his best 5 works and sell to collectors. Today with over 700 works loaded and over 180 artists, Best collegeart.com is India's largest art initiative and has sold over 200 works in its 10 months since inception. All works expire in 6 months so the content is always fresh and you can buy online to have it delivered to your home.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><b>Peter Nagy</b> gave the initiative a head start last year when he curated the opening exhibition "The Present is Now" which opened to rave reviews.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><b>"Collective Metamorphosis"</b> was a title which took a long time for me to decide. Finally, I titled it so because I knew all the artists displaying in this show for over a year. We had spoken to each other, discussed the inspiration behind the works, their personal motivation, agreed and disagreed on many points in this journey. In this entire interaction, we contributed to each other's learning and enriched ourselves as artists and a collector. Collective Metamorphosis is our journey through the trials and tribulations of Indian Contemporary Art and our take on the art that you will see.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">My only brief to all the artists was to do what they do best and not confine them with a theme, as a theme can sometimes restrict. I believe that when 5 distinct individuals with their own unique approach to art will present the works of passion that they have created, there will be a linkage which will then come through on its own.</div><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><b>Paribartana Mohanty </b>was first seen in a major show at Bestcollegeart.com where his Oil on canvas works were picked up by collectors even before the show started. Paribartana picks up his characters from people around us and then presents his own interpretation of them. The characters come out from the canvas with hues of black and dark shades in the background. The oil on canvas works are powerful, well executed and haunting in their own way, never fading from your memory.</div><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhheqHos-CzfAOr1eXKG0XQQ_sFbAUplZXWw7umqPwcVXa_m673-q9k4KRGUJcVS4nNTlaA-X53xZWYBzvn3oeiTsA6tY44gY8OesuakdvowrBTuYflFKADALS_coyxmGosS6dfp2hS450/s1600/based+on+the+proverb+-+2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 264px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632951537111108226" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhheqHos-CzfAOr1eXKG0XQQ_sFbAUplZXWw7umqPwcVXa_m673-q9k4KRGUJcVS4nNTlaA-X53xZWYBzvn3oeiTsA6tY44gY8OesuakdvowrBTuYflFKADALS_coyxmGosS6dfp2hS450/s400/based+on+the+proverb+-+2.jpg" /></a></p><br /><p align="justify"><b>Deepjyoti Kalita</b> epitomises the influence of Baroda school of art to me, challenging the boundaries and pushing the envelope with each work. He does wall mounted installations and kinetic works, so each work has significant movement and the effect on the viewer is much more than a static painting. His characters are generally caught up with a choice that they need to make in life. The works always create a disbelief when they are viewed by collectors as he tends to surprise with lighting and kinetics.<br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69lB2C2pnCivVRBHKZKVpu9nvSveqc9mQb-ivZHxBSz7sRrUhjCXWKNuu3dI0BZ-vRGpTawcV1LYqd69b1k3vAwy3glO7AcEzqVx3naogOCtUJk2BxOZqs1kh2QJMop8nI1LmfC-hP6Q/s1600/B_1.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632952216300676226" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69lB2C2pnCivVRBHKZKVpu9nvSveqc9mQb-ivZHxBSz7sRrUhjCXWKNuu3dI0BZ-vRGpTawcV1LYqd69b1k3vAwy3glO7AcEzqVx3naogOCtUJk2BxOZqs1kh2QJMop8nI1LmfC-hP6Q/s400/B_1.jpg" /><br /><p align="justify"></a><br /><b>Kumar Kanti Sen</b> quit a lucrative job heading the design function for a top company and followed his passion for art. He is one of the most passionate and committed artists I have seen and someone who experiments continuously with all the mediums. His paper works are vibrant, have a flaming intensity and draw you towards them. I have always felt a certain energy in his works and in parts I feel like the characters he draws so meticulously are on fire.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKgFewN9bgG_N8GCnM33E9FPUztuKxOiYj7p7bTFns84Vraihcr1KDcR7YSKFxgpu2mPJAA4n3_QkhnuhMpeL-jp788FXLWax-4iG0dyVxbDzJkcyQ2ZNk6ZL__G0TT93b9KzeSniEI8o/s1600/KKS_-_1.jpg"></p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 283px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632951813956235106" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKgFewN9bgG_N8GCnM33E9FPUztuKxOiYj7p7bTFns84Vraihcr1KDcR7YSKFxgpu2mPJAA4n3_QkhnuhMpeL-jp788FXLWax-4iG0dyVxbDzJkcyQ2ZNk6ZL__G0TT93b9KzeSniEI8o/s400/KKS_-_1.jpg" /><br /><p align="justify"></a><b>Gopal Samantray</b> has a take on the rapid urbanisation where cities are now expanding beyond the boundaries and infringing on forests and living spaces of animals. In his works, the animals come into urban spaces as their natural habitats are eroded by urban spaces. He paints a satirical image of leopards and tigers coming out of the forests and into our homes for no fault of theirs.<br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0aDiI9ZQXUkLUAA5CwuaPxQL0Eoti1WtfMNWloqtVqOe7QPW6BjWS1gOInDQoG2mMq2TccfzcNEYPStloQX5O37yFejTiOR9Ok1se0Fmu5Ey_E0ohxUtyyskYehd9qQPWgp4kcIMcAk8/s1600/MN1a.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 398px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632952497499134178" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0aDiI9ZQXUkLUAA5CwuaPxQL0Eoti1WtfMNWloqtVqOe7QPW6BjWS1gOInDQoG2mMq2TccfzcNEYPStloQX5O37yFejTiOR9Ok1se0Fmu5Ey_E0ohxUtyyskYehd9qQPWgp4kcIMcAk8/s400/MN1a.jpg" /><br /><p align="justify"></a><br /><b>Tauseef Khan</b> has worked his way up, installing some of the best shows for some of the biggest names in the world of Indian Contemporary art and still not losing that fire within to paint a new landscape. He paints images of Delhi's monuments and gardens seen through a wine glass, a comment on how we view our culture and heritage. The approach to his works is refreshing and the paintings are distinctive.<br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYI7GNKsmJJSY0fXY9sfEeV0nnd-LkZsEefdo4-ckCXHByjp2KTJSHU2g03BA9g2E212YAf-yPvlJicUTAHwgeszVkdIzSjw1qdmgZCXBYodMyxrInVC9ecvE1mvO5m1cOFkjq6LHyj0/s1600/Lodhi+Ladyrinth.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 306px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632948836699568322" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYI7GNKsmJJSY0fXY9sfEeV0nnd-LkZsEefdo4-ckCXHByjp2KTJSHU2g03BA9g2E212YAf-yPvlJicUTAHwgeszVkdIzSjw1qdmgZCXBYodMyxrInVC9ecvE1mvO5m1cOFkjq6LHyj0/s400/Lodhi+Ladyrinth.jpg" /><br /><p align="justify"></a><br />I am just a collector and someone who appreciates the finer things in life which includes working for The Oberoi Group. I have learnt a lot in my journey through the world of Indian Contemporary Art and enjoyed putting this together.<br /><br />I hope you enjoy viewing this show at Nature Morte till 1st August or online at bestcollegeart.com.</p><br /><br /><p align="justify">Cheers</p><br /><br /><p align="justify"><b>Kapil</b><br /><br /><b><i>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine. </i></b></p>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-51997017109179468492011-01-02T23:28:00.009+05:302011-01-09T20:51:32.954+05:30Lasting Art Impressions of 2010 !<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dear Friends,</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Here are the 3 artists who impressed me the most in 2010, they are unique and distinctive in their own way and at values which are reasonable. Do check them out as they make it to my top picks for 2010. This is a copy of the article published in The Telegraph newspaper's Sunday magazine "Graphiti" and reaching close to a million readers.Comments are welcome !</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As another year draws to a close, I sit back and reflect on the artists who impressed me the most in the last 12 months.<br /><br />They all come from different backgrounds and different cities but they have one thing in common; the intensity and drive to do something different. They’re all unique and distinctive in their approach.<br /><br />The first time I saw the works of Deepjyoti Kalita was at Latitude 28 run by Bhavna Kakar, who still holds the record for showing at least one artist every year who impresses me with his work and style. Kalita obtained his Bachelor’s in 2008 from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, and followed it with a Master’s in Sculpture from the institution two years later and won several awards when in college.<br /><br />Kalita, who was part of First Look 2010, does what I call wall mounted installations — the works hang on a wall like a normal painting but have moving images. And he works with an electronic engineer to complete them.<br /><br />I was most impressed with the image of a man on a bench moving between a gas mask and a man with a typewriter in a glass jar. At the click of a button, the man moves as does the light behind him. The work is stunning in its visual appeal and yet its message of being caught in a situation and unable to decide is haunting. I also like his other works, the key being his use of technology to convey a message and at the same time working with traditional watercolours and outlines. I was most impressed by the amalgamation. Large scale works from him, sized at a minimum of 3ft by 5ft with all the circuitry, were priced between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 1.8 lakh.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcfikNhAETPqXKriU_doGyfCa61WfNwlnvMYfc1eDBM0YxPUZcuUA62-7bLrlZ1A8rniMAE6EUANJt-T4Te9dzW_KaK3n_6QaZS0qFBfNUZMvoPoFiypQNGrdCfpppFXk_l2yCPG2APDY/s1600/Deepjyoti.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcfikNhAETPqXKriU_doGyfCa61WfNwlnvMYfc1eDBM0YxPUZcuUA62-7bLrlZ1A8rniMAE6EUANJt-T4Te9dzW_KaK3n_6QaZS0qFBfNUZMvoPoFiypQNGrdCfpppFXk_l2yCPG2APDY/s400/Deepjyoti.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557650753937973378" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Incompetence Of Being Complete by Deepjyoti Kalita </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Another artist who caught my eye was Paribartana Mohanty. I was told about his works by Peter Nagy from Nature Morte who was curating a show for Bestcollegeart.com and scouting for some great fresh talent. He ended up with seven top picks and they all made it to his record-selling show The Present is Now on Bestcollegeart.com, an online initiative for great art at reasonable prices.<br /></div><br />When I first saw the works I was impressed by the fact that they were all very intense and oil on canvas which is rare nowadays as you’ve to paint layer by layer and wait for the paint to dry. All six works in the show sold before the show opened, taking me back to the 2007 days when works would sell before the exhibition formally opened. The difference here was it was happening for someone who was virtually unknown and only due to the brilliance of his work which was spotted by a top curator.<br /><br />Mohanty was then featured as an artist to watch out for by art critic Johny ML in his Sandarbh residency. While he was there, he was declared the artist of the year by FICA and won India’s top art prize. That award gave him a three-month residency to hone up his skills in Switzerland and a solo show at Vadehra Art gallery. Watch out for him — he’s one of the most impressive artists that I have seen in recent times.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB_kyvOhLtRA7XSoSHzu9ytHQi8zJddYnunEhCMcYLeN1QDQwiksr9Fr7K3ofVs3K01SwxQ92bCfRfQC86nPdJ2GNClhSdL7-vfwuvDqcrh8rN3nsso5dlzedeJ95CddU4K9o1O5HGw0I/s1600/Bandwala%252C_then_and_Disco.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 269px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB_kyvOhLtRA7XSoSHzu9ytHQi8zJddYnunEhCMcYLeN1QDQwiksr9Fr7K3ofVs3K01SwxQ92bCfRfQC86nPdJ2GNClhSdL7-vfwuvDqcrh8rN3nsso5dlzedeJ95CddU4K9o1O5HGw0I/s400/Bandwala%252C_then_and_Disco.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557650425484215890" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Paribartana Mohanty’s work Bandwala, Then And Disco</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Another artist to look out for is Saad Qureshi, based in London. He finished from The Slade School of Fine Art with a Master’s in painting. Qureshi shot to fame as he was among the six finalists for the reality TV show by Charles Saatchi, chosen from thousands of applicants. London’s Aicon Art Gallery, managed by the very experienced Jag Mehta, spotted Qureshi’s talent before he became well known and he had a solo again with Aicon post his reality TV success in London called Disappearing in Yesterday.<br /></div><br />Saad is exceptional in his treatment but the painting which impressed me the most from his solo show was Via Dolorosa which shows railway tracks set in a barren landscape that disappear into the distance. They fade away and the imagery used with Urdu inscriptions between the railway tracks gives quite a contrasting feel — soft dialect in a hard landscape. He also uses texture to great effect and the subtlety of his work is breathtaking. Again a body of work which makes you ponder as there are no answers — but you see what you perceive.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWKpLE3d74r6Xs45OscclWgef1ICesTeXcD0RP1SHDS6yiPNmbFqVFLI9oyeGyHUmQ_-mW6reEvvMhCPSaAZWc6HXeafxuujthj6REx0CHqCij8eU22LNFBAS5Rfj8O8OZLbtYwy80vS0/s1600/Qureshi_Via_Doloroso_diptych.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 284px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWKpLE3d74r6Xs45OscclWgef1ICesTeXcD0RP1SHDS6yiPNmbFqVFLI9oyeGyHUmQ_-mW6reEvvMhCPSaAZWc6HXeafxuujthj6REx0CHqCij8eU22LNFBAS5Rfj8O8OZLbtYwy80vS0/s400/Qureshi_Via_Doloroso_diptych.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557649848865963570" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Via Dolorosa by artist Saad Qureshi</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">So these are the three artists to keep in mind all working in different mediums — from wall mounted kinetics to deep oil on canvas — all ending with subtle touches and taking you on a journey which promises more but can’t be seen!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine.</b></span></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-17828781320929034622010-10-17T17:42:00.007+05:302011-01-02T21:30:49.440+05:30NDTV Interview on " The Indian Art Scene "<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:'MS Shell Dlg';font-size:12px;"><div style="width:432px;height:402px;"><iframe src="http://www.tubaah.com/embed.php?video_id=164974&category=embed&pWidth=418&pHeight=385" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" frameborder="0" height="402" width="432"></iframe></div></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Dear Friends,</div><div><br /></div><div>This is the link of a discussion on The Indian Art Scene on NDTV. It was a great discussing the intricacies of the Indian art scene with Pankaj Pachauri- Anhor for Money Matters on NDTV, Amit Sarup - President- Religare Art, Swapan Seth-Collector,Roshni Vadehra- Vadehra Art Gallery.</div><div><br /></div><div>This discussion happened a couple of months back and is a 45 minutes show, so do have time on your side when you are viewing this !</div><div><br /></div><div>Cheers</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti". In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine.</b></span></div></b>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-14033522817407260372010-10-17T17:29:00.011+05:302010-10-18T22:34:45.385+05:30Greed Factor !<div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dear Friends,</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Well, my day job of running hotels is keeping me busy from posting more often on the blog, but here is my latest article in The Telegraph newspaper reaching over a million readers. It is critical to be careful lest you make a wrong decision in buying contemporary art at ridiculous valuations.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i> Also, it is quite disappointing to see this attitude from leading artists where works are being churned out like a factory, reminds me of real estate companies launching a new apartment complex every month. Such short term approaches are not healthy for the overall state of an already fragile market. So enjoy your art but be careful !</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As autumn comes and brings cooler temperatures with it the activity in the art world picks up and it’s now time to take stock. We’ve just had the September autumn auctions by all three major auction houses — Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Saffronart.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With all asset classes, including real estate and stock markets, being close to all time highs, a lot was expected in the art market considering the excess liquidity sloshing around and the renewed interest in the modern masters like Raza, Souza and Husain seen in the past six months. However, the results were tepid for both the Modern and the Contemporary Art market categories.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For me, that was not surprising at all. In fact I was amazed that the party in the Modern Art market lasted as long as it did. If one was to combine all the Souza works in the three auctions, over 23 per cent did not sell and 28 per cent just managed to sell at the lower end of the estimates. So 51 per cent of all Souza works were not really attracting attention, signalling that the large supply in the last few months had finally taken a toll.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEceWy0_XT5DuqhVXGHKiMNibUODxL5t3L2QxVrQpmOUNi3RVgGZwb10dgvrGBQ9sJaY8n-LzKe-Jxr5qyJd51vBzcLApgYeJOFqDKjdoneo74wAIuFtL8DGNqkd1yDyvZWrAd_nGhkXY/s1600/fnsouza_10sm6142lh_HiRes.jpg"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 272px; height: 400px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEceWy0_XT5DuqhVXGHKiMNibUODxL5t3L2QxVrQpmOUNi3RVgGZwb10dgvrGBQ9sJaY8n-LzKe-Jxr5qyJd51vBzcLApgYeJOFqDKjdoneo74wAIuFtL8DGNqkd1yDyvZWrAd_nGhkXY/s400/fnsouza_10sm6142lh_HiRes.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528985090041572930" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Last Howl from the Cross by F.N. Souza (1963)</i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The speculators in the Modern Art market are exiting and the private art museums bought what they had to buy so the market slowed due to buyer fatigue. You will still get an auction record when an exceptional work by a modern master hits the market but for more mediocre works, it will be a tough climb from here.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The common thread visible in all the auctions was the fact that most of the works were selling at the lower end of the price band given by the auction houses, so either the estimates were too aggressive or the buyers were just not keen on picking up mediocre works.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The contemporary art market was up 32 per cent in volume as compared to June 2010 but that was helped by the fact that six Subodh Gupta lots were up for auction and they contributed 50 per cent of the entire value of all auction lots. In terms of total value, the sale value was still lower by a whopping 73 per cent compared to the record values of autumn 2008.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYFJjjSkeEx1Ga678hr3yMEKThao9iAM2hAualhBTDcL_ODY8yEXqbJsrynNizElVYuEEGfGjzWr9aaDJbXVk_iie5ncxwZQHyOhBbmkhqDnw0i6FBqs0FBf_y-r4aIKWD_qWsFnGmpDI/s1600/subodhg_10at3050bt_HiRes.jpg"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 293px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYFJjjSkeEx1Ga678hr3yMEKThao9iAM2hAualhBTDcL_ODY8yEXqbJsrynNizElVYuEEGfGjzWr9aaDJbXVk_iie5ncxwZQHyOhBbmkhqDnw0i6FBqs0FBf_y-r4aIKWD_qWsFnGmpDI/s400/subodhg_10at3050bt_HiRes.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528985076477022226" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>an untitled work by Subodh Gupta (2005)</span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></i></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Frankly, I don’t see any recovery in the auction market for the top ten Indian Contemporary artists looking ahead. The reasons are simple. Most of the top Indian Contemporary artists that feature in the auctions with exception of one or two artists have no clue about art valuations and are pricing on the higher side driven by that old enemy of value — greed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also the contemporary art market for the so-called top artists is functioning like the real estate market that I see in the Delhi suburbs of Gurgaon and Noida. There is a new launch every week by the same developer who wants to milk the cow before it gets too late and the tide turns.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why I make this comparison is simple. If you are a passionate artist, driven by quality, how can you possibly churn out three solo shows in three months in different countries, flood the market with supply, keep your prices high and still expect to sell? What you’re creating is just a factory which with the help of studio assistants is churning out art without any soul and trying to rake in the bucks. Most of our top artists are now doing exactly this, so there is a solo show every month and a couple of group shows in the middle.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The artist may benefit by selling more in the short term and so does the gallery owner who is happy with his commission on selling the work. Both of them have forgotten the collector who has everything to lose even if he buys one work from the exhibition as the prices coupled with so much supply will ensure that he loses money on every purchase.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only T.V. Santhosh and N.S. Harsha in my top ten artists list have current values that are still below auction prices which means that if you buy a T.V. Santhosh work at Rs 40 lakh for a 6ft by 4ft canvas you are assured of a better price in the auction. In the other cases, except for these two artists, you would most likely end up a financial loser if you ever have to sell the work and that too by a good 30 per cent to 40 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcDeAKc_ypc2ZfRSK_pULku2DCYZCJ33xwcG0LIMQ9Mb9klT0rDbx_rJSmXfGYU6KaYIEtEHFRwvHqSOvtES0Jo7J1cr1sU1pgpnuv5fCIPGsP3tb1BWYAueFLYpaaJFVyDny3rOmya8k/s1600/santhosh_8aw5470s_HiRes.jpg"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 309px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcDeAKc_ypc2ZfRSK_pULku2DCYZCJ33xwcG0LIMQ9Mb9klT0rDbx_rJSmXfGYU6KaYIEtEHFRwvHqSOvtES0Jo7J1cr1sU1pgpnuv5fCIPGsP3tb1BWYAueFLYpaaJFVyDny3rOmya8k/s400/santhosh_8aw5470s_HiRes.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528985083692053426" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>T.V. Santhosh’s Scars of an Ancient Error-I (2006)</i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Someone needs to correct this and knock some sense into artists’ pricing. Otherwise my advice is to just save your money for some cutting-edge art by some very talented young artists instead of buying factory-made art with just a name and a fancy signature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So in the coming months, go around some galleries or browse the net for some great quality art. You want art that is reasonably priced and will give you aesthetic pleasure besides appreciating over time.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine.</b></span></div></b>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-2145733520465801882010-08-14T23:24:00.010+05:302010-08-15T22:24:00.945+05:30Paradise Lost<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dear Readers,</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>My latest article in The Telegraph, Sunday edition reaching over a million readers, comments as always are welcome. Do log on to <b>www.bestcollegeart.com</b>, an initiative supported by me among others. We believe it gives the power to every artist to reach out to an aspiring collector and it is not for profit ! More on that in the next post ! I love Veer Munshi's latest show on Kashmir, maybe a bit too apt for the current developments in Kashmir !</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When it comes to the creativity, I believe no place in India is as synonymous with art as Calcutta — the history, heritage and culture of the city are all redolent of art. Some of the most important galleries which started supporting Indian art long before people really began buying it, like CIMA, have been based here. But for the last few years, a lot of Contemporary Art events and also some of the most important shows have not been happening in the city. However, that looks set to change — especially with significant art initiatives like the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art (KMOMA) coming up in the city.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxsoefNSx9OKJ1WF6x1K7d6EqT66gKZPJxGBGV9mVtPjTjyX5C8Z7EKEvZZQhIuc07m4vYJyICWqJTJ4-eZefBFe10FeATEO8q77uW8SGPD2U7njbPzpmHd_yxcq77qMgoVfpsti9AZTY/s1600/1art3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 157px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxsoefNSx9OKJ1WF6x1K7d6EqT66gKZPJxGBGV9mVtPjTjyX5C8Z7EKEvZZQhIuc07m4vYJyICWqJTJ4-eZefBFe10FeATEO8q77uW8SGPD2U7njbPzpmHd_yxcq77qMgoVfpsti9AZTY/s400/1art3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505326361290383554" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Shrapnel-Detail from Chamber, an acrylic on hand made paper pasted on board, by Veer Munshi</span><br /></div><p><br /></p><p>Other harbingers of a pick-up in activity are that India’s only gallery selected for the prestigious Frieze Art Fair in London, Experimenter, is from Calcutta. And I take heart about the art scene in the city from looking at the programming of key galleries like CIMA, Akar Prakar, Aakriti and see how everything is changing.<br /></p><p>Also, what intrigues me is that a senior artist who has spent nearly all his painting career in Delhi and is originally from Kashmir, should go to Calcutta for his monumental solo show. But then, that’s the intrigue and mysticism of Calcutta in the art world. Veer Munshi, opens his show on August 3 at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, curated by Ranjit Hoskote.</p>I had the opportunity to preview Veer’s show and you can see that the slightly older school in the Contemporary Art space follows the rules in what goes into making great art. The works are a reflection of the current times in Kashmir and Veer’s journey over the years in a place that he loves so much, where he grew up and that are all about breathtaking scenic beauty and “paradise on earth”.<br /><p>His photographic series on “Pandit Houses” is reminiscent of the Hindu Brahmin architecture, but the desolate and dilapidated houses also point to the stark reality of the migration of Kashmiri Pandits who had to leave these magnificent homes behind due to terror threats. Veer travels around Kashmir to capture these haunting images of majestic houses just left as ruins in the beautiful landscape.<br /></p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFhtwHdbSfgETh66VodSf6RNqwDPoDcnpkZyO-V7u6H5y9Ruiju0HtoZIEfqFP4oed2AmSxsqZ4OS7W7ogc9R6xmYGbUPqVyl6qGXEd-L2H_1LrsKPDbU-audVNgIL_sNW_2wy5tStn0Y/s1600/1art2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 209px; height: 138px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFhtwHdbSfgETh66VodSf6RNqwDPoDcnpkZyO-V7u6H5y9Ruiju0HtoZIEfqFP4oed2AmSxsqZ4OS7W7ogc9R6xmYGbUPqVyl6qGXEd-L2H_1LrsKPDbU-audVNgIL_sNW_2wy5tStn0Y/s400/1art2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505327517981953138" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Pandit House, a photograph on archival paper, by Veer Munshi </span></span></div><p><br /></p><p>Veer also draws your attention to works like Shrapnel that reflect the pain and angst of a generation caught between terrorist organisations and the government. That’s a sad reflection on what is happening in Kashmir today from someone who has lived half his life there. The works will strike a chord as it is art that reflects on the political and social equation and emotional trauma in Kashmir — all captured in Veer’s works and through his lens.</p><p>Turning away for a moment from Calcutta, another interesting initiative which has just been launched online is Bestcollegeart.com. Every year over 1,200 artists graduate from art colleges and only a handful of them make it to top galleries. Most abandon their dreams and due to financial constraints their talent comes to naught.</p><p>But now they are getting a new platform. Bestcollegeart.com is a collective initiative by some of India’s top art collectors, curators and gallerists to give everyone an equal opportunity platform to display and sell their art. (I must state a vested interest here as I am involved in supporting this initiative).</p><p>It’s not for profit and it allows any artist while in college or even someone who has graduated as long as a decade ago to load up to five works at prices decided by the artists. The quality of the art and the prices are reviewed by a curatorial board which urges the artists to price the works right so that collectors can buy.</p><p>We see excellent quality work uploaded by artists like Ashis Mondal, who paints a shirt which has been spoilt by ink leakage. This is actually a satire on the fact that a careless leakage without protection can also lead to AIDS.<br /></p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUk_QCPiEazOIkSB8vmFxfpRgKCTbJoyi24fzHXnsinNRwIoiJA4efLDGCQmTqmMkOngTzAz2vkM4n5qeo-G7UJAzYR4c2cGq-oSdUHErQ4QXArouYx3OHZ3BzG9g5V9HPZQ4Rooj31dk/s1600/1art1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 170px; height: 206px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUk_QCPiEazOIkSB8vmFxfpRgKCTbJoyi24fzHXnsinNRwIoiJA4efLDGCQmTqmMkOngTzAz2vkM4n5qeo-G7UJAzYR4c2cGq-oSdUHErQ4QXArouYx3OHZ3BzG9g5V9HPZQ4Rooj31dk/s400/1art1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505328024348134834" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">A Little Negligence by Ashis Mondal </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></div><p>I always hear ‘we love art but can’t afford the prices’ and ‘how do we know that what we buy is authentic’. Well, the average prices on this site are below Rs 20,000 and no work can be priced over Rs 99,000. There are even works for as low as Rs 1,800.</p><p>The key is for all of us to support art in our country — either by visiting events or by acquiring art which is within our individual budgets. So whether it’s attending a heart-stopping show by Veer Munshi or supporting an online art initiative that could give you something very affordable to brighten your walls, this monsoon season is all about living with art! </p><p><br /></p></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine.</b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-3091062093381193042010-07-30T22:50:00.008+05:302010-07-31T21:57:51.537+05:30Hype and Reality !<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dear Friends,</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>My latest article in "The Telegraph" Newspaper reaching over a million readers for your reading pleasure, comments are welcome !</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you have picked up any newspaper in the past month, no doubt you’ve read stories announcing new record values for works of some Indian masters. But as they say, the devil lies in the detail and that is where a sensational headline can give people the wrong idea about the art market being on a new roll.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Let me make this easy for you so that you get a clear understanding of what’s going on in the art market. Take a look at the summer auctions at the major auction houses.<br /></div><br />Starting with the modern art market, yes prices and volumes for some of the works by key artists — Hussain, Raza, Gaitonde, Souza and Tyeb Mehta — are back up at the peak levels witnessed in June 2008. This marks a significant recovery if you recollect that volumes in the modern art market had tumbled 63 per cent and prices fell 46 per cent between September 2008 and March 2009.<br /><br />The key highlight in the summer sales was the auction of 152 works from the Souza estate through Christie’s which went at double their high price estimate. There were some very good works and it was an opportunity for people who had missed acquiring Souza works to buy them.<br /><br />But is the excitement triggered by news reports of the record price of Rs 16 crore fetched by Raza’s Saurashtra justified? Well yes and no. Yes, because it was an exceptional work and no because what has sold in the auctions at higher prices are works which have been exceptional in terms of high quality, rarity and provenance, so it deserved the price but not the hype.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5667hnG1bFLddh4Si0UtYiduH4GZhvqZwAZWcaqSiOuki7uWMDgSeDuSCKYQWGNuEzTJZtoGRoL4KObxF2bfApzzej6tXTUjU_ZbkMWxYkZKHhrZIeupvebMebNdlFmBnD92mdn13wU/s1600/raza1+%282%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 271px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5667hnG1bFLddh4Si0UtYiduH4GZhvqZwAZWcaqSiOuki7uWMDgSeDuSCKYQWGNuEzTJZtoGRoL4KObxF2bfApzzej6tXTUjU_ZbkMWxYkZKHhrZIeupvebMebNdlFmBnD92mdn13wU/s400/raza1+%282%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499755950364242978" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Artist S.H. Raza<br /></span></span></div>Works which do not meet these criteria are still not selling or selling at much discounted valuations.<br /><br />So be careful in this new market. I have started getting a lot of calls from my friends who say they would now like to acquire a work by one of the modern masters as the prices are expected to go even higher and their budget range of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh will get them nothing that is even close to outstanding.<br /><br />Jumping into the market now — unless you are very certain about the quality of what you are buying will only make the make a gallery richer and the collector or buyer poorer — saddled with a work that is tough to sell. I already know of someone who has bought a very ordinary Raza work at a valuation which should have been 50 per cent below what he has paid. Remember the “golden rule of significance” whenever you collect art — namely buy significant and defining works.<br /><br />Now to the Contemporary Art market or younger artists as we know them. They had a 93 per cent correction in volume, as per Art Tactic, an independent art research firm, which means auction houses had very few people consigning Contemporary Art and the prices slid a massive 85 per cent between September 2008 and March 2009. Well, they are still down by 35 per cent from their peak. Volumes are better but not even close to what you saw in the boom times.<br /><br />But you may have noticed that Bharti Kher set a new record of close to Rs 7 crore for her work "The Skin speaks a Language not its own" at Sotheby’s evening sale. The work was sold in 2007 at Art Basel and is her most defining work till date. The work according to international sources was sold again in 2008 at the peak of the art market at close to this current valuation. This means that the person who consigned this work having bought it when prices were at their peak in 2008 really has not gained much. Lesson: it never does pay to buy into the hype.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCjg8w82X5CTH-YyhY4NY1Q47R3k7lLSw0Kg83WlAwhS_C4Xr8OylyBExbEDTFlvyra-X8znJ55lXX3Fbos6HR0mG9tyI2_i-cwGNdDDe1BsNUxanyjsIXnn_S7bmoOJ2m9zP8fH6UgDw/s1600/IABhartiKherTheSkinspeaks.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCjg8w82X5CTH-YyhY4NY1Q47R3k7lLSw0Kg83WlAwhS_C4Xr8OylyBExbEDTFlvyra-X8znJ55lXX3Fbos6HR0mG9tyI2_i-cwGNdDDe1BsNUxanyjsIXnn_S7bmoOJ2m9zP8fH6UgDw/s400/IABhartiKherTheSkinspeaks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499754719860665314" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Bharti Kher’s work titled The Skin speaks a Language not its own</span></span><br /><br /></div>Interestingly Subodh Gupta has slowly been creeping up the charts again. I always get surprised when his paintings sell well because, according to me, Subodh is one of the most brilliant installation artists of our times, but when his paintings sell at higher prices it’s always a sign that people are again not buying significant works from his stable.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2e45WBHjFr4dUgIau7v25zvkDMGXLRmEKUDf_J9q52Pu_NifvxFrIWei2iOPZohc1iGZMvUXR0YIlmziQmSu32FtpAXO1udcOBvQIbSMMEzL0roUbO3ldkegMiqCjoP4d6z1poJPk54c/s1600/subodh_10sm6590bm_HiRes.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 291px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2e45WBHjFr4dUgIau7v25zvkDMGXLRmEKUDf_J9q52Pu_NifvxFrIWei2iOPZohc1iGZMvUXR0YIlmziQmSu32FtpAXO1udcOBvQIbSMMEzL0roUbO3ldkegMiqCjoP4d6z1poJPk54c/s400/subodh_10sm6590bm_HiRes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499755047021221858" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">An untitled work by Subodh Gupta</span></span><br /><br /></div>His famous installation The Hungry God is a case in point and when it comes on the auction market it will set a new record for contemporary art in India. Again, though as some collectors get smarter, Bharti’s significant work sold at Sotheby’s and Subodh’s work — which was estimated to fetch Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 3.5 crore — did not sell.<br /><br />The lessons from the summer auction are very clear, whether it is in the modern space or the Contemporary space, buy exceptional works, buy works that are significant of their times and have a good provenance. Do not be carried away and end up collecting or investing in high value art without research.<br /><br />Also remember to analyse price patterns if you’re investing rather than collecting. One of the reasons for new records being established is also the fact that private museums being set up in India are buying. This is further adding fuel to the fire and prices for exceptional works from the modern masters are touching lifetime highs. Also I fear that market speculative forces are again back at work and it pays to be cautious. There is definitely some level of insider trading again visible in the auctions.<br /><br />And of course, the final message to collectors, the most important golden rule —buy only what you love!<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine.</b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-14956363954900401832010-06-27T22:12:00.009+05:302010-07-01T00:06:53.575+05:30San Francisco Musings !<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dear Friends,</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This is my latest article published in "Graphiti" magazine in The Telegraph newspaper reaching over a million readers. Enjoy !</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The escape from scorching temperatures in New Delhi took me to San Francisco this summer for a holiday and my trip was perfectly timed. It was impossible to miss the hoardings everywhere for the 75th Anniversary celebration of the renowned San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, or SFMOMA as it’s widely known.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />San Francisco can be quite chilly with cold winds in the summer and I set off to the museum in nice cool weather. The great thing about museums in the US is the way they make it interesting with architecture, sense of arrival and also the ambience created. The museum shops are so attractive that you want to browse through them for ages. At SFMOMA the shop was well stocked and really huge and it was, in fact, one of the largest and best collections that I have ever seen in a museum shop.<br /><br />Finally, on the second floor what awaited me was a visual treat and an art lover’s dream come true. Celebrating SFMOMA’s impact on modern and Contemporary art, the exhibition “The Anniversary Show” traces the individuals and the art that have made SFMOMA the institution it is today. Throughout the year, they will continue this effort of presenting a series of exhibitions illustrating the story of artists, collectors, cultural mavericks and San Francisco leaders who founded, built and have animated the museum.<br /><br />The show was co-organised by Janet Bishop, SFMOMA curator of painting and sculpture, Corey Keller, SFMOMA associate curator of photography and Sarah Roberts, SFMOMA associate curator of collections and research who put together this collection of 400 works of art.<br /><br />The show began with an introductory selection titled “San Francisco Views,1935 to Now”. It had images of San Francisco from 1935 to a poster by famous artist Martin Venezky titled San Francisco Prize Poster: Harvey Milk Plaza 2000. These works revealed the many ways the city has inspired artists over the last 75 years.<br /><br />The other thing I admired was how top collectors and industrialists had donated their priceless personal collections to the SFMOMA. Industrialist and art collector Albert Bender’s gifts to the museums were in the next room and these included works by both Diego Rivera who has painted the magnificent murals at the National Palace in Mexico and also the work of his wife Frida Kahlo.<br /><br />The next room was even more stunning with works by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall. I have never seen such works by such exceptional artists under one roof and barely metres away from each other. Also, there were bronze works by Alberto Giacometti whose sculpture held the $105 million record as the most expensive piece of art ever sold till it was beaten by a Pablo Picasso work which sold for $106 million recently.<br /><br />Going through the exhibition I was once again struck by the fact that art is reflection of the times we live in. The period from 1935 to 1945 also was a commentary on World War II with some haunting works.<br /><br />Apart from the masters, I was most impressed by artists who deliberately disregarded traditional boundaries between media like Robert Rauschenberg who died in 2008. As early as 1954 he did an untitled stunning work which in which he used oil, newsprint, fabric and 3D wooden and metal objects on canvas!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLQlk10-FhNEv_TgaC-FLkhM7KEnWe75bCwSgbRXTI5jHdGdfUyoDjTcEUjDmJ4OwBZ-OKhOmG2RcyqSRUxNe59DmVTFYM-d6QAn2vnA1GGbSk0yzwna4o6a_oMlxkn4GrIX0gtuHIK5Q/s1600/Robert+Rauschenberg.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 281px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLQlk10-FhNEv_TgaC-FLkhM7KEnWe75bCwSgbRXTI5jHdGdfUyoDjTcEUjDmJ4OwBZ-OKhOmG2RcyqSRUxNe59DmVTFYM-d6QAn2vnA1GGbSk0yzwna4o6a_oMlxkn4GrIX0gtuHIK5Q/s320/Robert+Rauschenberg.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487500900699464354" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">An untitled mixed media work by Robert Rauschenberg</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br />Such creative use of mixed media took place more than 50 years back — and it’s still not very prevalent in the Indian contemporary space and that for me is the mark of a genius. The section was very aptly called “Pushing Boundaries”. Rauschenberg and the others featured in this section dared to engage in a new medium and move in their own direction when it was not conceivable. I was also attracted to an artist who redefined the contemporary art space with his works. On show by Andy Warhol was a unique work that was very different from his usual celebrity portraits. This was Self Portrait done in 1967 and was an acrylic and silkscreen enamel on canvas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9hvHrdAU3XWPGTOab0wWDyr7PACjOLbnO7ZiTJQgYcasApexE9scgeQamFt4oMmVuMk9raXvfNOsqwxGSoaLs0srkvzWgbQqyhOClwdSCkoZXb1AXazCP6PKzVK221nW5JMk1XmAHIOo/s1600/Andy+Warhol%E2%80%99s+Self+Portrait.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 295px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9hvHrdAU3XWPGTOab0wWDyr7PACjOLbnO7ZiTJQgYcasApexE9scgeQamFt4oMmVuMk9raXvfNOsqwxGSoaLs0srkvzWgbQqyhOClwdSCkoZXb1AXazCP6PKzVK221nW5JMk1XmAHIOo/s320/Andy+Warhol%E2%80%99s+Self+Portrait.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487500902378855474" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Andy Warhol’s Self Portrait</span></span><br /><br /></div>The most photographed piece in the entire exhibition because of its stunning visual appeal was a sculpture of Michael Jackson with his monkey Bubbles and it looked amazing in the centre of the hall. It was a ceramic work in life-size dimensions and with glaze and paint which made it shine, giving it a very nice finish. In the background of this work, was an untitled piece by Christopher Wool with just the words ‘adversary’ written in three lines. The combination effect of viewing these two works together really made you think about the life and times of Michael Jackson.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiazcgnhOYZRtjHngx7qjRfyRfiCjXDyzyoeKg6elR2GDSfbxeI77OeNSfZha0Cst5eTg_R9F2vmVMtqLsooOB0E3z2qg4pRY3SWGxzQ8IUqUKg1jXb4eVgUfiJSIxWs9EDPlQavhT5vnQ/s1600/Michael+Jackson+%26+Bubbles+by+Jeff+Koons.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiazcgnhOYZRtjHngx7qjRfyRfiCjXDyzyoeKg6elR2GDSfbxeI77OeNSfZha0Cst5eTg_R9F2vmVMtqLsooOB0E3z2qg4pRY3SWGxzQ8IUqUKg1jXb4eVgUfiJSIxWs9EDPlQavhT5vnQ/s320/Michael+Jackson+%26+Bubbles+by+Jeff+Koons.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487500916459440754" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;">Michael Jackson & Bubbles by Jeff Koons</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Overall, as I walked out after viewing the best in modern masters and the best of International Contemporary art, I was humbled by how everyone in society had come together to do their bit to share their collections and create such a magnificent institution in a great city.<br /><br />I wait with a lot of anticipation to welcome something as magnificent in India so that we can pass on great art in our country to the next generation !<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine.</b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-49446718171210904382010-05-22T06:31:00.010+05:302010-06-03T23:00:12.976+05:30Art from the Heart !<div style="text-align: justify;">Dear Readers,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My latest article in The Telegraph newspaper reaching over a million readers, for your reading pleasure. Now get instant updates every time a new blog post is written by either becoming a follower of this blog or putting in your email address on the top right hand side of this blog. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I love watching children drawing what they see around them. The doodles and pencil lines come from the heart and have a lot of passion in every stroke.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />The opposite is often true in the Contemporary Art space nowadays. The joy of drawing and painting seem to have almost vanished. So the artist comes up with a concept and then using a computer — and perhaps Photoshop — produces an image which is then painted and churned out. What you get is art that looks nice but is without heart and soul. Some of the top Indian contemporary artists have fallen into this trap and this is a fact that often worries me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />So the moment an artist starts to sell for over Rs 3 lakh or so, you hear that he or she has hired a couple of studio assistants to help prepare the base of the canvas. In scores of cases these assistants actually paint the computer-generated image. This style of working, I believe, is one of the reasons for similar looking work being churned out all the time. Also, don’t forget that studio assistants come cheap in this country. Many of them finish from art colleges and then survive living someone else’s dream.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />Let me turn to an interesting show I went to recently by an artist who paints from her heart. Ranjeeta Kant, who trained under the eminent artist Rameshwar Broota, has painted for years for the love of art and not for money. Her latest exhibition at Delhi’s Gallerie Alternatives called The Dance of the Rainbow was inspired by a trip to Bali.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3pB4ASpWfavYtSMIdzLIe5762DiQANKDtT9ObEZL519THN7VJCQuS9Cuik8SNb_5_p-iVcwm9QskU26CALaY6DKMBEuhgbLxndz7YJ1u9R4QkzT-Dk9hywSMyKShOnOHtDRHsAmUWss/s1600/The+Kachak+dancers-Acrylic+on+canvas-48X+60.JPG"><img style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; display: block; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 255px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3pB4ASpWfavYtSMIdzLIe5762DiQANKDtT9ObEZL519THN7VJCQuS9Cuik8SNb_5_p-iVcwm9QskU26CALaY6DKMBEuhgbLxndz7YJ1u9R4QkzT-Dk9hywSMyKShOnOHtDRHsAmUWss/s320/The+Kachak+dancers-Acrylic+on+canvas-48X+60.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473895062906349106" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyZYKc5TznQQm8R2lPiWlWOwteREeKJbKHMZ_c_7XZFaRnuYQUgrtQaWLJa2qy2dT3ODd8I4TRTRC0_ugVBPr1E7dGgETSNzjf132sisnXN8WQYx3Fbx16Zlvs8CUlYpJXHqz5QQihy4/s1600/The+abode-Acrylic+on+canvas-48X+60.JPG"><img style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; display: block; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 252px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyZYKc5TznQQm8R2lPiWlWOwteREeKJbKHMZ_c_7XZFaRnuYQUgrtQaWLJa2qy2dT3ODd8I4TRTRC0_ugVBPr1E7dGgETSNzjf132sisnXN8WQYx3Fbx16Zlvs8CUlYpJXHqz5QQihy4/s320/The+abode-Acrylic+on+canvas-48X+60.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473895053842707170" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><div style="text-align: justify;">The Kachak Dancers and The Abode (above) by Ranjeeta Kant</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div>She was deeply affected by the lush green tropical island — everything from the green paddy fields and the exquisite lotus ponds and lovely flowers to the deep blue ocean and the tranquil images of Buddha everywhere. The myriad hues of nature and this entire experience have been captured in rich greens, magical blues and the striking hints of red that together result in stunning canvas works.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />One is immediately drawn to the works as it’s clear that Ranjeeta has worked on the canvas and the resulting art is a work of passion. In spite of the detailed canvas work, the prices are reasonable and most of the works are under Rs 2 lakh for a 3ft by 4ft canvas. Smaller works sell for close to a lakh. It was one of those shows where you’d feel inspired to instantly reach for your chequebook.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />Another show which impressed me recently was On the Darkest Night I Can See the Light at Delhi’s Gallery Seven Art run by Aparajita Jain. This was the first of six exhibitions being planned by Aparajita under the collective name First Showings. Helping her to put this clutch of exhibitions together is curator Deeksha Nath. Together, they’ll attempt to spot talent fresh out from the art colleges.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />On display at the first show were three Chennai-based artists, Kumaresan Selvaraj, Aneesh Kalode Rajan and Sarvanan Parasuraman. Selvaraj works with surfaces and textures. So you had works with a number of layers on every surface — some were plain but stunning and you could feel the textures.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNvDnGsIhZCO8X02aec-8vEuTxJM8acj42RXErWBvhaD3ONbs3CGt4qDvaKrctQbhK7oZ81Up1kMNzVOLyMj1VjEfUODR-tGp5Nl-oQwx4ZV5IiWjhS_igKxIQIQI0M21zhNo4qefRPw/s1600/What+we+see+conceals+a+lot+behind+it+hi+res.jpg"><img style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; display: block; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 234px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNvDnGsIhZCO8X02aec-8vEuTxJM8acj42RXErWBvhaD3ONbs3CGt4qDvaKrctQbhK7oZ81Up1kMNzVOLyMj1VjEfUODR-tGp5Nl-oQwx4ZV5IiWjhS_igKxIQIQI0M21zhNo4qefRPw/s320/What+we+see+conceals+a+lot+behind+it+hi+res.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473895978640474706" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">What we see conceals a lot behind it by Kumaresan Selvaraj</span></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br />Rajan had interesting works called Perspectives. In these he imagines what he, his cousins and Michelangelo see in a group of clouds and how these images are dependent on their present preoccupations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />I was also impressed by Parasuraman who uses a variety of mediums like vinyl stickers, ball bearings, sand, silicon and fibreglass. He had done a rope sculpture using sand and silica and from a distance it looked exactly like a rope. Also, he had done a work made by ball bearings forming a pattern.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The good thing about the show was the freshness of the ideas behind all the works which was very stimulating. Also, there was the crucial fact that the costliest work was for Rs 95,000 and most works were in the Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000 range.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />It was art that I enjoyed!<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;">Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts. He writes for the "The Telegraph" newspaper and specifically for the Sunday magazine "Graphiti" which has a readership of over a million readers. In Delhi, he writes a column on the art market in "The Mail Today" newspaper and also has written for the "First City" magazine.</div></b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-17627892447883713582010-04-25T18:03:00.010+05:302010-04-30T23:37:42.583+05:30The Berlin Canvas !<div style="text-align: justify;">Dear Readers,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here is my latest article published in The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday edition reaching over 1 million readers......</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Europe has been really cold this winter with a lot of freak storms and a chilly winter. In Berlin, though the art scene has been hot and vibrant. Due to the lovely confluence of cultures, Berlin attracts the best artists and with rental spaces still reasonable as compared to the rest of Europe, it has some of the most stunning gallery spaces.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Both Bodhi and Nature Morte, India’s top contemporary art galleries were present in Berlin at one time (Nature Morte is still around here) and there are also galleries like Christian Hosp which have been showing a lot of Indian and Pakistan contemporary art. Then came the recession and running a gallery with declining sales became a losing proposition and Bodhi had to shut shop.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I was fortunate that there was an important show at the architecturally inspirational “Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt”, the house of world cultures. The building looks like a flying saucer and is brilliantly conceptualised. The curators called the show “Why all the rage?”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />We had three important curators — Valerie Smith, Sussane Stemmler and Cordula Hamschmidt. They explored instances of rage and how it plays a role in people’s life — how rage gets manifested in communities and the effect that it has on people’s minds and bodies. The idea of rage as transformative energy is a key concept to the development of “On Rage” a vehicle from the negative to the positive, from status quo to revolution, from hopelessness to control.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Two artists who really stood out for me in the entire show were Shoja Ajari, an Iranian artist who now lives in New York. He was the co-winner of a Silver Lion award at Venice Film festival and he does photographs and video installations. Final Judgment, his work, was a video projection on canvas and projects the moral tales of Shiite Islam concerning the judgment day. Then inside this intricate work there was recent news footage of Muslim global political activity. It was stunning to see a canvas with flitting moving images — a very strong representation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL66scdqFgV0wDB2Qvpij-B-KWTlOWDkfP_8thm8fco0Qa10bO1PShEJTu2eT_NoHKJ1LtYjFX5px98b7gKh5k46QWTG-PB2G1qCTlL66SfDetFkr4bWUYgu6cdSzN5HCOs8imQihPgrg/s1600/Shoja_Azari_300dpi.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL66scdqFgV0wDB2Qvpij-B-KWTlOWDkfP_8thm8fco0Qa10bO1PShEJTu2eT_NoHKJ1LtYjFX5px98b7gKh5k46QWTG-PB2G1qCTlL66SfDetFkr4bWUYgu6cdSzN5HCOs8imQihPgrg/s320/Shoja_Azari_300dpi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464052572183778274" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Shoja Azari‘s Final Judgement</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br />Seher Shah was at her best with large scale drawings from her solo show “Paper to Monument 2”. These drawings dwelled on the complexities of urban excavation through public memory. Her three works were in the centre of the display and the black-and-white contrast of her drawings again reinforced my belief that she is one of the most important young artists of our times.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyO0Gupz2BAkirqM7nc7cm8VZARAYc1gazLb3fa3YN_I0etbeNnKx9uWPlje1sbWikAzC7yqC8xpO-hOq2yN94hxl_tJA8r_JvjK7-znia_77VdojNiHjcip799D_hlx0bHJmgwJKnVCo/s1600/Paper+to+Monument+II-300dpi.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 235px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyO0Gupz2BAkirqM7nc7cm8VZARAYc1gazLb3fa3YN_I0etbeNnKx9uWPlje1sbWikAzC7yqC8xpO-hOq2yN94hxl_tJA8r_JvjK7-znia_77VdojNiHjcip799D_hlx0bHJmgwJKnVCo/s320/Paper+to+Monument+II-300dpi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464053421742268962" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Paper to Monument II by Seher Shah</span> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br />I also went to Probir Gupta’s show at Nature Morte Berlin. Probir’s work touches upon issues of war, religion, development, globalisation and genocide. He uses shrapnel in his work that he sources from abandoned military waste. Using this debris as his “clay,” he models mutant and macabre bodies and landscapes. The resulting paintings, fascinatingly complex with unexpected shots of colour, are chaotic to look at. Technically, he employs a thick, almost violent, use of impasto and brush strokes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_IHnieVF-FvEV9JoFDUnQRyjsV9gUPc0weH1mdY7SN57SVZPCHttvI3WP4PLrzygX-n_jDiGv-irf8IjUlxqDUmX2ksclcJzsu_ABh2nSZWk1lUrBZ8Z_IBAyoTQrQtYEb6U6BaPZDrs/s1600/Assembled+Identities.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_IHnieVF-FvEV9JoFDUnQRyjsV9gUPc0weH1mdY7SN57SVZPCHttvI3WP4PLrzygX-n_jDiGv-irf8IjUlxqDUmX2ksclcJzsu_ABh2nSZWk1lUrBZ8Z_IBAyoTQrQtYEb6U6BaPZDrs/s320/Assembled+Identities.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464052581140573138" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Assembled Identities by Probir Gupta</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br />I liked the works which are not new but are the works that did not sell in the Philips de Pury auction house exhibition in January 2009. The works were beautiful but you could see that the pricing could have been better and hence even when I went, only one had sold. Large canvas works were priced at Rs 25 lakh. Now with the top names in Indian contemporary art down by 80 per cent from the peaks, Probir has still not understood the reality on pricing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />Artists need to understand that just because they sold a few works some years back at the height of the Indian contemporary art boom that does not become a pricing platform for years to come. I would have ideally liked the works to be priced drastically lower.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />But in the art world, egos are bigger than usual and logic dies a slow death. That also shrinks the small collector base as people don’t like being taken for a ride. It’s high time that artists understood that collectors will not buy without logic and the fact that only one work has virtually sold in the last 15-18 months is a testimony to the new and informed collector !</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />Well, the journey was not complete in the art city of the world without staying in the art’otel at Berlin City Centre West. What attracted me to the hotel was the collection of Andy Warhol works they had. I enjoyed staying a in a hotel surrounded by the pop art works of Warhol and the rooms in bright orange, purple and green. Let us see when we get our first art hotel in the country!<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine.</b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-43131445425859192472010-04-25T16:50:00.016+05:302010-04-25T17:46:42.186+05:30Painting with Passion !<div style="text-align: justify;">Dear Readers,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here is the electronic version of the latest article published in the Sunday magazine of The Telegraph Newspaper reaching over a million readers !</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I meet a lot of people who look askance at the new wave of Contemporary Art and would rather have pretty paintings which resonate in their living spaces. My take on this has been that art is not about only paintings but the entire gamut of expression from sculpture, installations and photograph to video art. This week I want to focus on an artist who is more in the original genre of painting and creates stunning pieces with a background and experience that actually makes you calmer when you view his work.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s interesting to meet Sidharth, who was born in a Sikh family and later in life, moved away from the worldly pleasures of life to join a monastery and become a monk. In the monastery he was named Sidharth — the name he still bears today. But after some time in the monastery he left and using all his accumulated learning started painting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Sidharth is an artist with a difference in the Contemporary Art landscape of artists in the country. I have always been amazed by his connect with nature and the meticulous research that goes into every work. In the era of computer- generated art and studio assistants, Sidharth stands out as he does not even use commercially available colours. The other thing that he uses a lot is thin gold foil. That gold work is clearly visible on the canvas. In each of the canvases he usually narrates a story using the images.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The skills that he learnt at the Namgyal Monastery help him derive his colours and shades from Mother Nature. He uses natural pigments, vegetable dyes and his intrinsic knowledge of the topography to make his own colours in various hues. Always, very curious to learn and imbibe more, I have in my association of many years with him seen him use and implement the best techniques from Chinese, Japanese and now Russian schools of art.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />He also makes his own handmade paper and thanks to his use of natural colours, you find a rarely seen luminosity in his works. The other thing which is very noticeable in his works is that most of the background colours are very bright, which is a result of the natural pigments and dyes that he uses. Crucially, the people shown in his work have faces without a predominant nose. That’s because Sidharth believes that the nose represents ego in our world. He tries to paint people when they are devoid of ego or rather to depict them in a utopian world where there is no ego!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaP8t0lbh0BA9GzSAd7neX-0RKrd9admSW6bdSOOmxg9dNx3rY4hvt1ZBJU7dMhJijDjjGGT9ZPNwwP4JEUE0ifnwxpxKSGayyfZN03Jph_7MfHvawmUvskvFLRZoCwgAcYgId_2eCmqk/s1600/Sidharth-The+Laughing+Cow.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 202px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaP8t0lbh0BA9GzSAd7neX-0RKrd9admSW6bdSOOmxg9dNx3rY4hvt1ZBJU7dMhJijDjjGGT9ZPNwwP4JEUE0ifnwxpxKSGayyfZN03Jph_7MfHvawmUvskvFLRZoCwgAcYgId_2eCmqk/s320/Sidharth-The+Laughing+Cow.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464034662348283810" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Laughing Cow<br /><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>His link with Mother Nature was an influence at his latest solo show at Religare Art Gallery in New Delhi. The connect is clearly visible in his series of paintings on the “Cow” — worshipped as a mother figure in India. He focuses on the worshipped Kamadhenu to the cow in the industrialised urban environment today, eating all the garbage and then producing milk which has pollutants causing disease.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3eWDEZ_Wmh0ARYoCJ07OWON3ZLH0XTSrwppfj1RZQ2KeqBASZ-sv6XCL3W490eQKcMa9HZXqYFrR4l49UpGxydWnXwI-3iiu9v3Y1JyHt3le5OxGk685gwYCzOLTY93UDM9AXdrqjpMg/s1600/Sidharth-Kartarpur.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3eWDEZ_Wmh0ARYoCJ07OWON3ZLH0XTSrwppfj1RZQ2KeqBASZ-sv6XCL3W490eQKcMa9HZXqYFrR4l49UpGxydWnXwI-3iiu9v3Y1JyHt3le5OxGk685gwYCzOLTY93UDM9AXdrqjpMg/s320/Sidharth-Kartarpur.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464034655674916242" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Kartar Pur</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixNe8-bY_8WN6_7eswPkqQ5U34SgWveNg5KuLG7kPcQdVlxIqMADk08pytTIPG9leaVLN-eBZ9VGEepzVhEyigDeeq_gDJacqSe7NgsSoGcHi-xAxPLajRN0G_Jm03Kkr1bfSydRTjykk/s1600/Sidharth-1DS32239.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixNe8-bY_8WN6_7eswPkqQ5U34SgWveNg5KuLG7kPcQdVlxIqMADk08pytTIPG9leaVLN-eBZ9VGEepzVhEyigDeeq_gDJacqSe7NgsSoGcHi-xAxPLajRN0G_Jm03Kkr1bfSydRTjykk/s320/Sidharth-1DS32239.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464034645079919394" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Poster Cow</span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br />His canvases tell a complete story that focuses on the worshipped Kamadhenu and a satirical comparison to a woman who is running her house with all products derived from milk. The ritual dismembering of the sacrifice is evoked in the dehumanisation of the perception of the cow reduced to its parts as against the various deities residing in Kamadhenu. He calls this work Laughing Cow, and it is his satirical take on the evolution and journey of a cow from ancient times to the urbanised modern world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Sidharth is an expensive artist and although he did sell at Sotheby’s once, he generally doesn’t feature on auction circuits and the recession actually did not hit him much. He has a stream of steady collectors and fans — actress Dimple Kapadia being one of his biggest admirers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The smaller canvas works are around Rs 2.4 lakh and larger sizes which are 4ft by 5ft can fetch up to Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12 lakh, although there are smaller works starting from Rs 70,000.The prices are steep. But the originality of his paintings and the sheer radiance emanating from what are clearly works of love painted with passion makes him an artist well worth considering for one’s collection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph Newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " Newspaper and the "First City" Magazine. </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i>To subscribe for instant updates,log onto www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com and enter your email address on the right hand top corner.</i></b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-5453208873934738612010-03-27T21:33:00.009+05:302010-03-28T20:49:31.378+05:30The Art Market - Games People Play !<div align="justify">Here is my latest article published in "Mail Today" newspaper in New Delhi for your reading pleasure. The Article was published on 26th March.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">I see a lot of contemporary art shows opening every week, but there’s one that caught my eye recently, that too at a new space — Rasika Kajaria’s Exhibit 320 at Lado Sarai. What struck me was the cutting- edge work on display, especially that of Kundo Yumnam and Sandip Pisalkar, who made a scooter with a gas pipe that is also good for killing mosquitoes! Pisalkar first tried it out in a slum before putting it up at the show — well, the artists are getting bolder by the day. </div><p align="justify"></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLw-C7ykhhEK93QcHLWSFM-w7ChRboZyt6zWkZM6evlT_pNx8OHeAfmrlkAmqHF9ABoZDoZ6RhsuwkAXFIkyIkmbk5NVFsh7cOt0PxoI6Iv-fcQE0g-bRduSShkoA0bqo9WA3kaTTvJSM/s1600/fear+of+the+prophecy.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5453349653668741026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 290px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLw-C7ykhhEK93QcHLWSFM-w7ChRboZyt6zWkZM6evlT_pNx8OHeAfmrlkAmqHF9ABoZDoZ6RhsuwkAXFIkyIkmbk5NVFsh7cOt0PxoI6Iv-fcQE0g-bRduSShkoA0bqo9WA3kaTTvJSM/s320/fear+of+the+prophecy.jpg" border="0" /></a><p></p><div align="justify">On the art market, meanwhile, first sale of the spring season by Saffronart was being watched closely for pointers to the shape of things to come. The sale went by smoothly. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">In the contemporary art space, there were no surprises and it was pretty much on predictable lines, except a work by Subodh Gupta that went for Rs 1.7 crore — it was a happy departure from the rates commanded by the artist in last year’s recession- hit market. Auctions in 2009 had seen his work go for Rs 80 lakh to Rs 1.1 crore.</div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">A lot of galleries, collectors and investors ( including art funds) treat auction results as gospel truths and that is why data gets manipulated. The Indian contemporary art market does not have depth and is susceptible to manipulations. Already, Osian’s Art Fund has not been able to pay its investors. And I keep hearing complaints from people who are stuck with wrong valuations by the Copal Art Fund. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">Let me give you some real- life examples of how easy it is to manipulate prices if an investor is keen on making a quick buck. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">There is a prominent artist from Orissa who has also been shown in the country by the best Indian art galleries. When he started out around five years back, a group of art investors with a manipulative mindset picked him up at a standard rate of Rs 5,000 per square foot and bound him to a contract that required him to give all his work to his paymasters. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">The investors then slowly started raising the prices in auctions. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">The quality of the work was good and the investors had ample stock. The work was put up in an auction house, the bidding was taken to unrealistic heights by the investors’ friends, who bought a canvas each at every auction, and then these were sold through other auction houses at inflated prices. Their cost of buying their own possessions back was the 15 per cent buyer premium charged by the auction house and their entire stock got re- valued at a level that was seven times higher than the original. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">Now this artist, because he was really good, got solo shows at prominent galleries and this further swelled the profits of the first batch of investors. The people who suffered were the later investors who followed auction prices and bought at ridiculous values, and collectors who genuinely liked the artist’s work and paid a price which he does not deserve till date. I saw his works even at the Saffronart auction and some people bought them at stretched valuations. That is how the art market works. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">THIS happens all the time. I call some of these artists, auction artists — that is, they owe some part of their growth to friendly auction houses, which sometimes shut their faculties conveniently and sometimes also have a stake in the growing valuations of an artist. So the next time you read that screaming headline, ‘Indian art sets a new high’, don’t buy the hype: scratch the surface and probe deeper. Also, to get closer to the real value of the work of an artist, subtract the 15- 25 per cent buyer premium from the final value shown, for that is added on the final bid after the auction is closed. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">Don’t get swayed by the valuation game. Check the background of an artist, be diligent about the research and probe the pricing logic. Also, whenever you intend to buy a canvas for over Rs 2 lakh, just buy from the best and well respected art galleries. In the particular case I have used as an illustration, you’d have still got taken for a ride, but in most cases you’d be protected, for even galleries have learnt from the past. </div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify">Auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s would have completed their sales by the time this article goes into print and although they have wonderful lots from the modern space, I wasn’t impressed with the contemporary works. All this price manipulation should not stop you from collecting, but don’t get taken for a ride! Buy what you like and only at the right price !</div><p align="justify"></p><div align="justify"><br />K<b>apil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " newspaper and "First City" magazine. </b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-45095796098008282342010-03-07T10:39:00.007+05:302010-03-07T15:06:28.308+05:30Eye-catchers with Mithu Sen & Latitude 28 !<div style="text-align: justify;">Dear Friends,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here is the latest article in The Telegraph newspaper Sunday magazine " Graphiti" reaching close to a million readers, for your reading pleasure. If you wish to receive instant updates the moment the blog is updated, please enter your email address on the upper right hand side of the blog, no questions, just your email address for the latest views on Indian Contemporary Art ! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The art season is roaring back to life with everyone keen to show after a year of being in the economic doldrums and the calendar for art lovers is growing more hectic. Two shows that have opened in Mumbai and New Delhi grabbed my eye for being distinctive and unique.<p></p>Mithu Sen, arguably, one of India’s most talented artists, is having a solo show at Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. She has always been more active in key exhibits internationally including the last one in Vienna but now gallery-goers have a chance to see her at home. I have always regretted the fact that the Indian public have missed out on what Mithu has to offer as her best shows and works are always out of India but now that’s about to change.<p></p>In fact, Mithu has presented her most dramatic show ever — called ‘Black Candy’ — which opened a few days ago. The unique thing about the show is that most of the works have three dimensions to them. There’s the drawing which has text on it. That’s accompanied by sound which lends an exceptionally different feel to viewing the art. Also one thing to note about Mithu’s art — it is straight from the heart and controversial.<p></p>In this series she is trying to understand the vulnerability that men have and she peers into the desires, pain, sorrow and agony they go through. So the works are sexually very explicit and she engages the viewer in a dialogue with the work. She doesn’t impose any views on you — you relate to the work according to your own responses. Her style is one that I’ve never seen before — the art is powerful and will always stir reaction as it’s created with a lot of passion.<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieTBnsGj83HEn4GKp4oifSV-6jjgULJbv7mw3KOMlvbs6hNhVL7vjlvFSDnN6V1xL8KEcMHVGoJ6wCvBYf-NLVfRamQXWE5ju9AaT7PhIYBjYG4vJKfBKkzo7h-fCOaUfevyNjT-Rq33A/s1600-h/Mithu+Sen-Wrestler.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 163px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieTBnsGj83HEn4GKp4oifSV-6jjgULJbv7mw3KOMlvbs6hNhVL7vjlvFSDnN6V1xL8KEcMHVGoJ6wCvBYf-NLVfRamQXWE5ju9AaT7PhIYBjYG4vJKfBKkzo7h-fCOaUfevyNjT-Rq33A/s320/Mithu+Sen-Wrestler.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445756715304305074" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Wrestler by Mithu Sen</span><br /></div><p></p>Now on also is a show entitled ‘Size matters or.....Does it?’ staged by Bhavna Kakar at her newly opened gallery Latitude 28 ( Latitude 28 is the latitude Delhi is located on!). Kakar is a well-known personality in the art world as the Editor of Art & Deal and has also launched her new Art magazine called Take on Art. As she trained to be an artist, she has a keen curatorial eye and her show is quite interesting. She has had every participating artist work in a large work format and a small work format. This tests the execution skills of the artist and appeals to collector as it allows much more choices.<p></p>Now in discussing the theme ‘Size’, we’ve all been taught that bigger is usually better. But for those of us who are on the fence about whether one should work on a small-scale or take that giant leap forward towards a bigger canvas and digging deeper into one’s pocket, here’s some thoughts about whether size matters.<p></p>In the speculation-led art market, everything boils down to commerce. Sadly art today has a tendency to be valued not by its quality or subject matter but in square inches and square feet! Kakar seeks to dispel with that notion in her own way with creative works in both formats. So she has a 5-ft x 4-ft canvas by Manjunath Kamath and also a set of twelve 4.5-in x 3.5-in works called True Lies. It’s quite refreshing to see large and small works by all artists in the show. I was also impressed by the visual appeal of a 17-ft work depicting Qawali singers by G.R. Iranna.<p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTwc8FJxm_Uj7fSWZBVvj8TYakV2gYjkdO66EpWRs63mlEafis84Klklq80fPHR3tccx5N5XWRbP1KPoNUhGmbrK961aKc3rakmvl7mX2c2NlGw6NRyuK5eUwLVwuSWNSIlZkOYX_uPBo/s1600-h/Manjunath+Kamath-Lie+in+between+question+%26+answers.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 238px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTwc8FJxm_Uj7fSWZBVvj8TYakV2gYjkdO66EpWRs63mlEafis84Klklq80fPHR3tccx5N5XWRbP1KPoNUhGmbrK961aKc3rakmvl7mX2c2NlGw6NRyuK5eUwLVwuSWNSIlZkOYX_uPBo/s320/Manjunath+Kamath-Lie+in+between+question+%26+answers.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445756707641927138" border="0" /></a><p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhayUlDGoPrlLhI1AGIv5LgPt_FiIstfwU7y4TwcvZ7wnSuK6xHcOax_AkPK6noZ6n3ACpY2C19zRuWKENlQ5q6IWZ_AjXM6dZYRRRpYU46bSmQ1Tkc6mY4DktIG-eLTe6aOpZAhyphenhyphenBAR7I/s1600-h/Baiju+Parthan-Ointment.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 208px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhayUlDGoPrlLhI1AGIv5LgPt_FiIstfwU7y4TwcvZ7wnSuK6xHcOax_AkPK6noZ6n3ACpY2C19zRuWKENlQ5q6IWZ_AjXM6dZYRRRpYU46bSmQ1Tkc6mY4DktIG-eLTe6aOpZAhyphenhyphenBAR7I/s320/Baiju+Parthan-Ointment.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445756699446835506" border="0" /></a><p></p><div style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="__mozilla-findbar-search" style="padding: 0pt; background-color: yellow; display: inline; font-size:inherit;color:black;">Manju</span>nath Kamath’s Lie in Between Question & Answer; (above) Ointment by Baiju Parthan<br /><br /></span></div>Baiju Parthan has two works called Ointment in both formats and I was impressed with both works that are about the ideas people have about the world and the lengths to which we go to protect, defend, and propagate them. The very fact there are many views explaining the universe differently suggest that these are all products of engagement. The visual representation of both the works is just stunning.<p></p>So here are my picks so if you’re in Delhi or in Mumbai, you have some interesting art shows to visit and engage with both visually and intellectually!<p></p><br /><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " newspaper and "First City" magazine. Comments and views are welcome at indianartreview@gmail.com.</b></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-74045414333063797522010-02-20T18:50:00.008+05:302010-02-20T23:00:05.597+05:30Atul Dodiya's Master Stroke !<div style="text-align: justify;">Dear Friends,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here is my article in Mail Today on Atul Dodiya's upcoming art show opening at Vadehra Art Gallery in New Delhi and the price correction that has happened. I saw the images and the works looked quite nice but really 3 works on the basis of images stood out, now sources indicate that the show is sold out. I don't know the identity of the buyers or the motive, I just thought that Atul and Vadehra Art gallery did a smart thing by keeping the price right. I think in a contemporary art market which is an an infancy stage it was quite a welcome decision. Here is the article published on the 19th of February for your reading pleasure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is the season of art openings and the curtain is set to go up on many exciting shows this month. If you still haven’t had the time, do check out Resemble Re-Assemble at Devi Art Foundation to view some cutting-edge contemporary art from Pakistan. But that’s not what I am going to dwell upon here. One of the most important openings for the first quarter of 2010 is Atul Dodiya’s Vadehra Art Gallery show on March 5. I’m picking up this show as it offers amazing insights into the Indian contemporary art space. Dodiya, I believe, and so do others in the know, is India’s foremost contemporary artist who also commands the respect of his community.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">I’ve seen admiration for him cut across galleries/ collectors. In the boom that drove values to illogically high levels in the Indian art market, the average price of Atul’s works had reached close to a crore. I don’t know who was responsible for it — whether it was his gallery Bodhi, which was representing him at that time, or his own brainwave — but the market was suddenly flooded with scores of his paper works in editions of 12 to 20. Their commercial values were in the range of Rs 6-8 lakh and they were being billed as unique prints because he had done some work on each of them. Then he had a show at Bodhi in Mumbai with 40 watercolours. The sales were brisk and the demand was high. Everyone was happy but the number of works in a speculative art market defied logic, and worse, the quality of this show called Pale Ancestors, was average for his talent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7-QoBhqQ9sep8H4rXBhu-AAn4nyPrekc6r5wo4fTPIMguc_32C9clLirNtErHIgl7oDD77pBjMutI8u3C74F-X0mxTqrqqMGGIMi5AFrx44BZztN7hxQ5pWIOwq-_Fb3urTQMol23tYo/s1600-h/atul+dodiya.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 277px; height: 280px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7-QoBhqQ9sep8H4rXBhu-AAn4nyPrekc6r5wo4fTPIMguc_32C9clLirNtErHIgl7oDD77pBjMutI8u3C74F-X0mxTqrqqMGGIMi5AFrx44BZztN7hxQ5pWIOwq-_Fb3urTQMol23tYo/s320/atul+dodiya.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440315893644486946" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even before the market started turning, Dodiya’s values started coming down as there was too much supply and the values were too high — mediocre 30-by-22-inch watercolours were being offered for Rs 20 lakh! As the demand started going down, suddenly there were no takers for his work at those price points. He was not seen at any important show as far as I can remember. The values crashed and Dodiya’s works priced at Rs 20 lakh went for Rs 6 lakh, that too if they found a buyer at the auctions. There was no demand for any of his other works in the secondary market. So, I was happy to receive images of the upcoming Atul Dodiya show passed on by a fellow collector. Note that the images were being circulated a good 45 days before the show is scheduled to open. The works are significant and most of them are 5ft-by-8ft, quite lush in technique and content. What’s commendable is the artist’s maturity and the Vadehra Art Gallery’s offering of these works at Rs 30-36 lakh. WHO better to introduce a price correction and leave money on the table for the collectors than one of the country’s respected contemporary artists.</div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is one the best pricing decisions in a market full of greed and speculation. The credit for taking a bold decision to mark down values for really significant works must be given both to Dodiya and his gallery. Sources say he is already sold out — a month before its opening day — because it offers both quality and value. In the last few months, I’ve seen numerous shows open where canvases have been illogically priced, and to anyone who disputed the logic, the standard answer was that you need to appreciate the aesthetics and not focus only on prices. We saw mid-tier contemporary artists out of tune with reality and had top galleries justifying values in 2009 as being the same as in 2007, which was illogical because in 2007, the Indian economy was on an overdrive. On a different note, the Saffronart auction catalogue for March is now online, and you can make out that the contemporary art market is recovering fast, with a much better variety available for buying this time. My pick of the lot in the contemporary space is the stunning T.V. Santhosh canvas. The whole of 2009 did not see any of his recent works being consigned and this is estimated at Rs 30-40 lakh.</div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I like the fact that the estimates for most of the works are in line and Saffronart has done a good job in keeping them low. I can sense a recovery for the contemporary art market but would advise you all to be careful. Remember the rule: Buy only what you like and if you have decided that you need to own a particular work, do not get carried away. And do your research on the pricing.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cheers</div><div><br /></div><br /><br /><b>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " newspaper and "First City" magazine.</b>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-62448590762914232212010-02-09T20:25:00.011+05:302010-02-20T18:58:16.471+05:30The Pakistan Palette !<div style="text-align: justify;">This is my article on The Pakistan Contemporary Art Show at Devi Art Foundation which appeared in the Sunday magazine "Graphiti" of The Telegraph Newspaper which has a print run of 0.5 million copies. Comments are welcome!<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The art scene is back at its vibrant best! Week after week there are new shows and one of the season’s best has been assembled by Anupam Poddar at the Devi Art Foundation.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Poddar’s passion as a collector is well known but his initiative in mounting a show of his collection of Pakistan Contemporary Art gives viewers a chance to see new art from our neighbour that’s innovative and absorbing. I was also impressed with his choice of curator, Rashid Rana, one of Pakistan’s foremost contemporary artists best known for his Red Carpet & Veil series — tiny images of an abattoir forming a red carpet and pornographic images in the shape of a veil.</div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">The exhibition of 45 artists, culled from the vast collection of Anupam and Lekha Poddar, is aptly titled Resemble Reassemble. It showcases Experimental Art rather than the miniature intricate work we associate with Pakistani art. The art which spans the past decade is fresh and for a country which has issues with travel visas and limited interactions with other countries due to security issues, strongly contemporary. It’s art with which you instantly connect and the satire, in fact, is sometimes too much in your face. It’s also refreshingly without the hype and speculation of Indian Contemporary Art.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And the icing on the cake — for me — is the show’s staging at the Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon, a stunning museum with lots of open spaces and excellent ceiling heights where you revel in the experience of soaking in the works. I was quite impressed with the earlier works of Ayaz Jokhio, one of the participants in the recently concluded Asia Pacific Triennale in Brisbane which also had Subodh Gupta and Thukral & Tagra from India. The show featured his works from 2005 and if I look at his works today, they’ve changed quite a lot, but even in 2005 you can feel the intensity of his style.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So here are my top three picks. Imran Ahmed Khan in this installation Implode 1 has various parts of an AK 47 rifle suspended with surgical medical instruments all hanging from the ceiling in a spectacular visual display. According to him, weapons and surgical instruments are related. Both penetrate human flesh, one to kill, the other to cure, both are handled by human figures and in most cases draw blood. This was a haunting image and executed beautifully.</div><p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvihcvgqnqTLiBxVnF4CaxdvcB8FT0f5mEdJGmeVDWfRE9ZEj_u_BwBHLRsih9kfNV5d9QzRZs99nmL9gUbokKiX0iTxKiqn4JgGXnv5rV_z7mFk3UQPd02h04I_ATDn0OGhUjlRjYE8/s1600-h/Imran-Ahmad-Khan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 110px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvihcvgqnqTLiBxVnF4CaxdvcB8FT0f5mEdJGmeVDWfRE9ZEj_u_BwBHLRsih9kfNV5d9QzRZs99nmL9gUbokKiX0iTxKiqn4JgGXnv5rV_z7mFk3UQPd02h04I_ATDn0OGhUjlRjYE8/s320/Imran-Ahmad-Khan.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436258830197382098" border="0" /></a><p></p><div style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Implode 1 by Imran Ahmed Khan</span></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">In the second work, Amber Hammad gets herself into the photograph titled Maryam, the Arabic name for Mary. It recreates the Mother Mary & Child genre that has inspired many paintings and sculptures around the world. She recreates this image in front of traditional Islamic architecture and the photograph has a box of diapers and a book on erotic art next to it. I admired the way the artist conveyed the various dimensions of a woman’s life in an Islamic environment. It’s a subtle yet defining work with a touch of humour in it.</div><p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCB6iyqka4i5N-8G1VOP8eXbcShCr4rdIR4gR1a_k_HgdGs-lkRSZAeM1OhFDmDV7OW6j1bU_C-YaewlqtBnqEHLsK_SveQFL5m8WTDx15-BYY2Dr20rk9sLYra97dlEwtOuvYw2DOscI/s1600-h/Amber-Hammad.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCB6iyqka4i5N-8G1VOP8eXbcShCr4rdIR4gR1a_k_HgdGs-lkRSZAeM1OhFDmDV7OW6j1bU_C-YaewlqtBnqEHLsK_SveQFL5m8WTDx15-BYY2Dr20rk9sLYra97dlEwtOuvYw2DOscI/s320/Amber-Hammad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436258839799472626" border="0" /></a><p></p><div style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Amber Hammad’s Maryam</span></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">And of course, no commentary on Pakistan Contemporary Art can still be complete without some miniature work in it. Nusra Latif Qureshi has lived in Australia for many years and in this work, titled Rainbird, For What Place Are You Crying?, maybe the lovers pointing to some distant location in the work is her own longing for her country –— a yearning shared by all Diaspora artists. Her work, an excellent fusion of miniature art with an exploration of personal, social and political histories, is stunning. Take note specially of her deft use of striking colours and the subtle intricacies inspired by the traditional miniature work.</div><p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3NYi8EOM0pRn4o6VKjygaofSB4nh3ySnxuf0E5MMaHlfupZVw08_4L5R-S4jOOK04anTDdzZAhINnzqyeuNcsqEPhH3JKuSvHTn_t16ibe7VXFAGI4E22_C5OvuBYndj7GGGMuGjjs4/s1600-h/Nusra-Latif.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 263px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3NYi8EOM0pRn4o6VKjygaofSB4nh3ySnxuf0E5MMaHlfupZVw08_4L5R-S4jOOK04anTDdzZAhINnzqyeuNcsqEPhH3JKuSvHTn_t16ibe7VXFAGI4E22_C5OvuBYndj7GGGMuGjjs4/s320/Nusra-Latif.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436258827336398450" border="0" /></a><p></p><div style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Rainbird, For What Place Are You Crying? by Nusra Latif Qureshi</span></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">I have also been collecting Pakistan Contemporary Art for the last two years and have been impressed with the quality of the work. The values are also quite reasonable especially for the quality of work available. It’s not difficult to get a nice work from a younger contemporary artist for around Rs 50,000 and even experienced contemporary artists are all available in the Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh range. Some of the galleries showing such cutting edge Pakistan Contemporary Art are Green Cardamom in London and Grey Noise in Lahore.</div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">So if you are looking for art which is a commentary on the times in which we live, start looking at Pakistan Contemporary Art seriously. There’s some great art across the border just waiting to be collected! And if you are ever in the vicinity also do take a trip down to Gurgaon as the show stays open till May 10.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " newspaper and "First City" magazine.</span></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-55834655203344599632010-01-24T09:57:00.015+05:302010-01-30T16:12:57.296+05:30Rules of Buying Art after a Difficult Year !<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This is my new monthly column in "Mail Today" newspaper on the Art Market. Mail Today from the India Today group is one of the leading newspapers in New Delhi and the National Capital Region.</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Enjoy !</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The year 2009 started on a difficult note for Indian Contemporary Art but it looks poised for a recovery in 2010, though it is still early days. Last year saw the prices commanded by most Indian contemporary masters sink to all- time lows with some values dropping by more than 75 per cent from their peak.<br /><br />The Art Tactic Confidence Index sank to a low of 19 in March, but it had recovered to 46 in November 2009 — in plain terms it means that 46 per cent of the collectors would buy contemporary art now, compared with 19 per cent in March. The improvement, as you can see, is relative and there are hardly any buyers for works over Rs 10 lakh.<br /><br />In the two years before 2009, values had become unsustainable and some of that trend continues till this day. Most of the shows opening in Delhi in the last two months had disappointing sales; only 20 per cent of the works got sold — so much for the ‘ recovery’! All that you hear today is good news, such as a Manjit Bawa selling at Rs 1.6 crore, which is close to a new record, but not that most of the top contemporary artists were struggling at the auctions. So please discount the statements emanating from the galleries that the market is booming and collectors are buying.<br /><br />What does one do in 2010? Well, you must know that the values are still high and gallery prices are what they used to be at the time of the boom — maybe 10 per cent lower. If you buy at these prices, you’ll end up with a hole in your pocket. So here are some of the rules for you to follow — buy what you really like and would love to hang on the wall; go for the younger contemporary artists with reputed addresses such as Nature Morte, Gallery Chemould, Sakshi Art Gallery, Guild Art Gallery, Project 88 and Latitude 28. The prices should ideally be lower than Rs 2 lakh, but even then, research the artists before collecting their work. Consult other collectors if you believe your favourite artist has potential to grow in the future.<br /><br />In the top- end contemporary space, it may be prudent for you to wait and watch. In the year gone by, I have bought T. V. Santhosh because he was able to hold his prices even at the peak of recession. The other is Seher Shah, who is still up and coming, but the values are good. All the others are younger artists with prominent galleries — like Sajjad Ahmed, Prajjwal Choudhary, Shreyas Karle and Siddartha Kararwal, whose work is priced between Rs 50,000 and Rs 2 lakh. At the upper end of the spectrum, the only artist I would buy at reasonable valuations is N. S. Harsha, who’s not prolific but is very talented.<br /><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6og7ZQVDgTmru9n065KDYH6nFWHNDPB5kwCIOcMr6ZYQxMl_RBaGTNEpYBBgXefft4sXLjayQhNVamEokeBY3ZqhfaaTjEFZzx-n7KiLRKaTW9VVowgY7DUvk31UZhmF9dIYvWfxaVk/s1600-h/TV+Santosh.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430158822778238306" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 237px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6og7ZQVDgTmru9n065KDYH6nFWHNDPB5kwCIOcMr6ZYQxMl_RBaGTNEpYBBgXefft4sXLjayQhNVamEokeBY3ZqhfaaTjEFZzx-n7KiLRKaTW9VVowgY7DUvk31UZhmF9dIYvWfxaVk/s320/TV+Santosh.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Game Theory by T.V. Santosh</span><br style="FONT-STYLE: italic"></span></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br />The year 2009 also saw over 600 investors in the Osian’s art fund struggling to get their capital back. My response is that people who invest in a fund that promises to give higher than bank returns are courting a risk.<br /><br />If people lose money because they weren’t diligent enough, or because they became passive investors after reading art world headlines, then it was bound to happen. The Indian art market does not have a big enough base of collectors to support an art fund, so wait for the market to really grow before you lose your money in such ventures. Art bought for financial returns can be risky because of the lack of pricing transparency and also due to the fact that it isn’t liquid like other assets.<br /><br />I would rather enjoy the process of buying art, hang some great canvases on the wall, make sure I apply the principles of intelligent buying to protect my capital and spend time reading on how to buy art and not invest in art funds. Spend time on the World Wide Web, visit shows at the best galleries in the cities, read blogs, and you are on your way to becoming a well- informed art collector!<br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /><strong><em>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " newspaper and "First City" magazine.</em></strong></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-19111686443119967962010-01-11T08:56:00.010+05:302010-01-12T23:35:38.638+05:30The Crash and After !<p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Dear Friends,</p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This is the article published in "Graphiti" the Sunday magazine of The Telegraph newspaper on the 3rd of January giving my views on the year gone by and the road ahead !</p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">It’s been a turbulent year for all asset classes including art but it’s thankfully drawing to a close on a better note than it started. However, it’s left behind some hefty damage — especially at the speculative end. What are the relevant lessons of the past year for Indian Contemporary Art — how can one build a portfolio that holds its value during rough weather?</p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We should note right away that the market for the modern artists — especially Gaitonde, Souza, Husain, Raza and a real gem whom we lost this year, Tyeb Mehta — remains strong but even among those art titans there are some pretty steep price variations. What this difficult year highlighted was the importance of quality and not just names. So if you’re lucky enough to possess a Souza work from the late ’50s to the early ’60s, the price for a 2ft by 3ft canvas now could be Rs 75 lakh, but if you have a Souza work from the late ’80s, within the same size range, the price could be just Rs 20 lakh.</p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ9xXi2nD_nxRMYFzX4wsh1Rr1jvIxmfYJe_ISQ9Hc_aHtl3X2Y0goPvSi0UKvaH-yUA460u4noaeIeygC9KAlKSqGdux1ct66YO4DKZMhWV5jAqbFevaPlG0EfoU3wIi8ZtnqkfkjfdQ/s1600-h/Souza-Landscape_with_Houses_and_Lake.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5425482629358248562" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 262px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ9xXi2nD_nxRMYFzX4wsh1Rr1jvIxmfYJe_ISQ9Hc_aHtl3X2Y0goPvSi0UKvaH-yUA460u4noaeIeygC9KAlKSqGdux1ct66YO4DKZMhWV5jAqbFevaPlG0EfoU3wIi8ZtnqkfkjfdQ/s320/Souza-Landscape_with_Houses_and_Lake.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Landscape with Houses and Lake by F.N. Souza</span> </span><br /></div><p></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">In the contemporary space, the speculative side of the market has taken the biggest hit. There had been a lot of froth in the market and that has been pretty roundly removed. All the key stakeholders — galleries, artists and collectors — were caught up in the tide of ever rising values and when the bad times struck, prices crashed by as much as 75 per cent. </div><p></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">A lot of artists, even those who had been bracketed in the top tier, suddenly found they weren’t selling at all when confidence troughed in March. One of the most flamboyant art galleries in the last four years, Bodhi Art Gallery, which had presences in Delhi, Mumbai, Singapore, New York and Berlin, finally closed down all its locations this year under the weight of mounting costs as their roster of artists slumped from the lofty valuations they’d enjoyed just a year earlier. </p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMdv6VxN5dIX3F9x_awo8ajaPMIs_4Jqoq9Jj45wlerstP_8Owpirs_iAowWsCkWvQ-L90y6Py__pf5eXlJiL0YQ__g7YN829n3sSORVbwaoWzf0jjlWVy52maRi95avVaZKqYnZMM8-w/s1600-h/Atul_Dodia.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5425482643772125810" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 254px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMdv6VxN5dIX3F9x_awo8ajaPMIs_4Jqoq9Jj45wlerstP_8Owpirs_iAowWsCkWvQ-L90y6Py__pf5eXlJiL0YQ__g7YN829n3sSORVbwaoWzf0jjlWVy52maRi95avVaZKqYnZMM8-w/s320/Atul_Dodia.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Atul Dodiya’s Sleeping with the Stars</span></span><br /></div><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">I feel the fall of Bodhi Art Gallery, which some rivals had regarded as too commercial, has not been a good thing for the world of Indian contemporary art. Bodhi was a leader in redefining some of the norms on presenting and displaying art, publishing arguably the best catalogues with each show and also taking Indian contemporary art to an international collector base. </p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">It also had some of the best sites, welcoming and well-informed gallery staff and a really conducive environment for viewing art. But the scale and magnitude of the operation built on a group of artists who’d started to believe the hype was too much and finally led to the demise of what was, at one point of time, India’s most powerful contemporary art gallery. It was built on a model of investment and financial returns and though art is a financial asset anyone who looks at it merely through a commercial prism is bound to fail. </p><p></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">And there is a lesson in the recently concluded Christies’ Hong Kong sale of contemporary art. Its price estimates were completely out of whack with market realities. So it was not surprising to see that most of the works did not even manage a decent bid. </div><p></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">So what ultimately is the takeaway for collectors and galleries from these cautionary tales? In the good times, don’t get carried away by hype. It’s important to note that what keeps its value is quality — but only at the right price. Still even in these difficult times, a 1979 work by Jogen Choudhary was able to smash all records in the Sotheby’s auction to breach the Rs 2 crore mark due its incomparable quality.</p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimN0Nx80lWImWfShZRXNnrMfsvAxyo4oSRVGf8XXrJ6bbsjVZJfv-5JXFH9iP7FfZu545k4_NjFtBrz1TKJfxGNL1MwWGdp2xv4zO0to_81xiKU30FMs86_SSEZsXfnnHoD4u7PWq_Ij0/s1600-h/Probir_Gupta-All_in_the_Landscape.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5425482640236042258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 199px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimN0Nx80lWImWfShZRXNnrMfsvAxyo4oSRVGf8XXrJ6bbsjVZJfv-5JXFH9iP7FfZu545k4_NjFtBrz1TKJfxGNL1MwWGdp2xv4zO0to_81xiKU30FMs86_SSEZsXfnnHoD4u7PWq_Ij0/s320/Probir_Gupta-All_in_the_Landscape.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">All in the Landscape by Probir Gupta</span></span><br /></div><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Now, though, the situation is looking rosier for the art world. Art Tactic, an art research firm which tracks confidence in Indian contemporary art, has seen its confidence index recover to 46 from 19. This means that 46 per cent of the collector community surveyed will buy contemporary art at current valuations — perhaps not as good a figure as one would like but still a lot better than the 19 per cent registered earlier when times were tougher. Another pointer to improving sentiment is the recently concluded Saffron Art auction in which 62 per cent of its art works sold above the higher estimate — underscoring that the market is recovering its poise.</p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2010, one of the most interesting events is a show by cutting edge British collector Charles <span class="__mozilla-findbar-search" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0pt; DISPLAY: inline; PADDING-LEFT: 0pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0pt; PADDING-TOP: 0ptcolor:black;" >Saatchi</span> at his <span class="__mozilla-findbar-search" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0pt; DISPLAY: inline; PADDING-LEFT: 0pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0pt; PADDING-TOP: 0ptcolor:black;" >Saatchi</span> Art Gallery in London. The show, aptly titled “The Empire Strikes Back,” will put India — and Pakistan — in the global contemporary art spotlight once again, something which had happened with Arco Madrid last February where India was the focus country. But the timing of <span class="__mozilla-findbar-search" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0pt; DISPLAY: inline; PADDING-LEFT: 0pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0pt; PADDING-TOP: 0ptcolor:black;" >Saatchi</span>’s exhibition is better in the context of the recovery in global markets than the Madrid show.</p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span class="__mozilla-findbar-search" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0pt; DISPLAY: inline; PADDING-LEFT: 0pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0pt; PADDING-TOP: 0ptcolor:black;" >Saatchi</span>’s show, which opens on 29 January, promises to be really eye-catching. The roughly 26 artists featured include a mix of the top names in the Indian and Pakistan contemporary art space and also some new names you may not even have heard of. Some of the younger artists showing are Sakshi Gupta, T. Venkanna, Kriti Arora, Rajesh Ram and Rajan Krishnan among others. You may also want to take a peek at some of the research <span class="__mozilla-findbar-search" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0pt; DISPLAY: inline; PADDING-LEFT: 0pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0pt; PADDING-TOP: 0ptcolor:black;" >Saatchi</span> has put up for this show, which you can view at <i>www.<span class="__mozilla-findbar-search" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0pt; DISPLAY: inline; PADDING-LEFT: 0pt; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0pt; PADDING-TOP: 0ptcolor:black;" >saatchi</span>-gallery.co.uk</i>. </p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Here at home keep an eye out locally for well-known photographer Rashid Rana’s show, curating at the Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon starting January 16. This exhibit, focusing on the journey of Pakistani contemporary art, should be quite interesting, considering the passion of Anupam Poddar and the pioneering work he has done in the world of collecting Pakistani art.</p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></div><p></p><p class="story" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Now in the meantime, let me wish you all a Happy New Year and a good time collecting in 2010.</p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><p></p><br /><strong><em>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he writes for "The Mail Today " newspaper and "First City" magazine.</em></strong></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-70676601773765370082009-12-20T20:20:00.015+05:302010-01-11T19:53:18.410+05:30Confessions of a Collector !<div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Let me start with a true story on the importance of collectors in the Indian contemporary space. I was invited by my very good friend Swapan Seth, who is maybe the most prolific collector of contemporary art in this country today to view a panel discussion that he was part of. This discussion was on Video Art at Gallery Espace, a gallery I think has done a wonderful job with a lot of art initiatives including the one on promoting video art and even the recent exhibition. Swapan was part of a panel and the discussion started at 6 PM in the evening, there were some of the poster boys & girls of Indian Contemporary Art curators and critics on the panel with him.<br /></div><p align="justify">I got up at 7.30 PM finally because I realised that most of the people on the panel just loved their own voice and was bored to death ( except 1 speaker who was really good). Swapan finally got a chance 15 minutes later after hearing others for a good 1 hour 45 minutes !, now this is a collector who is keeping Video art alive and one of the most appreciative collectors for young artists. I asked some people who stayed back and they loved the last part only !<br /></p><p align="justify">This is a clear example of how the art world needs to change with the focus on collectors.Galleries and curators who will not adapt will just stand on the wayside as people move on. I will tell you what I love about Peter Nagy, Arvind Vijaymohan and Bhavna Kakar in New Delhi, they are interesting people with a view, they all are involved in the sales process but are not boring or full of themselves.</p><p align="justify">Let me also share a view that I hear about buying and selling of artworks. Meet any top artist represented by a top art gallery in India, now they only sell to serious collectors and please do not put the works in auction, my retort is why not ? </p><p align="justify">Answer :Well, because old collectors loved their art and never sold the works, they were genuine lovers of art.</p><p align="justify">Question : Really, how much did they pay for the works at that time ? 1 Lac for a Hussain ? ! Talk about paying 25 lacs for the work of a top contemporary artist and you will get the answer.</p>If a collector is taking financial risk because he loves your work, then he has the right to buy and sell, when Charles Saatchi says that, very few people have a problem but otherwise I hear this all the time. Now, I am not talking about flipping a work, I am against that or even being in the art world to just flip will get you nowhere but look at the costs of collecting today. What is the harm in consigning works to an auction to raise further funds so you can collect more ?<p align="justify">These are uncomfortable questions, ethics are sometimes meant for collectors only, in 2 specific cases this year and I am talking about galleries which are in the top 5 galleries in this country, the prices were revised downwards by 40 % in 24 hours of the show opening ! So much so for the love and appreciation of art.</p>So what did I buy this year ? Only what I absolutely loved ! ( Rule No.1 ) and also at the right value ( Rule No.2 ).<br /><ul><li><div align="justify">A Lovely 10 ft by 6 ft Seher Shah shown at Armory Show in New York and then being shown at the current solo in Nature Morte</div></li><br /><li><div align="justify">A triptych by Prajwal Choudhary, the image is posted in the earlier posts on this blog at <a href="http://www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com/">http://www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com/</a> from Bhavna Kakar & Aparajita Jain's lovely show at the peak of the recession, great work at a fantastic value</div></li></ul><p align="justify"></p><ul><li>A Sajjad Ahmed photography work from the same show, the value that he asked was ridiculous to say the least, till the gallery got him to understand some basics of pricing!<br /></li><p align="justify"></p><li><div align="justify">An absolute beauty of an installation by a young artist called Sidhartha Karawal called "My Generation is Silent" again featured on this blog from Project 88</div></li><br /><li><div align="justify">Sarnath Banerjee's satirical graphic works, a set of 4 works on property dealers, really fantastic from Project 88</div></li></ul><p align="justify"></p><ul><li><div align="justify">TV Santhosh's "Game Theory", absolutely brilliant work on canvas ( I think his canvas works are to die for !) from Guild Art Gallery</div></li><p align="justify"></p><li><div align="justify">Shreyas Karle, a collection of 15 paperworks which I am yet to recieve ! from Guild Art Gallery</div></li></ul><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify">What did I sell ?</p><p align="justify"></p><ul><li><div align="justify">Arunkumar H G, the Nandi bull, lovely work but had to sell it to raise money.<br /></div></li></ul><p align="justify">Which Artists will I sell or not buy this year ?</p><p align="justify"><strong>I think I will avoid all middle rung contemporary artists this year</strong>, so if you have the money, please go ahead and buy </p><p align="justify"></p><ul><li><div align="justify">Thukral & Tagra</div></li><li><div align="justify">TV Santhosh ( Only Canvas)</div></li><li><div align="justify">Jitish Kallat ( Only Canvas)</div></li><li><div align="justify">N S Harsha</div></li><li><div align="justify">Mithu Sen ( Large substantial works only)</div></li><li><div align="justify">Seher Shah ( Large works only)</div></li><li><div align="justify">Jagannath Panda ( Large works, price needs to be right)<br /></div></li></ul><p align="justify">I think both Bharti Kher & Subodh Gupta are in a different league due to their association with Hauser & Wirth but collectors have lost money and hence considering my limited funds and risk aversion, I would stay away for now. Although, I would buy a great Subodh installation any day but considering the prices would need to be really lucky on the value front.</p><p align="justify">Now, for everyone else who is over the 2 lacs mark just research more and below the 2 lac mark, if you love the work just buy it. Simple rules for collecting art. Over 2 lacs, needs to be justified, I loved Aditya Pande & George Martin at 2-4 lacs and would have happily sold them at 8-10 lacs without batting an eyelid. The Value perspective needs to kick in especially in the environment today, otherwise you are being taken for a ride. Now collectors I know were buying them at 10 lacs, which according to was just pure speculation because there was no way that they could command such prices logically. Would I buy both of them at more reasonable valuations, absolutely yes!</p><p align="justify">So what about all the wonderful artists over 2 lacs, well just watch if they are going anywhere, if you love the work , then please keep it otherwise just consign to an auction, no harm with that. I have 3 artists I have mentioned on this blog earlier who have now moved to my sell list for this year as I believe they are doing nothing exciting and have reached a value threshold. So I need to sell to sustain my collecting frenzy!</p><p align="justify">I would rather buy a Sajjad Ahmed, Prajwal Choudhary & Sidhartha Karwal for under 2 lacs or less and enjoy my art, as all of them have the potential to make it big.</p><p align="justify">As for the 20 artists, who are sitting at 8-10 lacs price levels, ask them for the justification on their pricing and do your research, most of them would be in my avoid category.</p><p align="justify">Some very good art shows opened in Delhi in November & December, but most of them have been commercial disasters with illogical pricing and negligible sales. Pretty much like the Christie's auction which failed miserably as the estimates were too high, Saffronart scored with the right pricing and had better results with in line estimates.<br /></p><p align="justify">Thank you for your support, encouragement and affection for making this the most widely read and searched blog on Indian contemporary art ( I am not saying this, Google is saying this !, over 1.2 lac search results for this blog!)</p><p align="justify">I will just try to be as frank and honest as I can be........</p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify">Merry Christmas and have a great New Year ! Happy Collecting !</p>Cheers<p align="justify">Kapil<br /><br /><br /><strong><em>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he has written for "The Mail Today " newspaper and "First City" magazine.</em></strong></p>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3472991468222494561.post-24691130991438534122009-12-16T22:40:00.009+05:302009-12-16T23:28:52.554+05:30Terror on Canvas<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The recent article on T V Santhosh that I wrote in "Graphiti", the Sunday magazine of The Telegraph newspaper reaching over a million readers...........</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This week I’ve chosen to zoom in and look at one artist in the Contemporary art space — T.V. Santhosh. He’s interesting for a number of reasons but I’d have to say one of the key ones is that he’s one of the few artists to have focused on the ever-challenging relationship between India and Pakistan.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Santhosh, who has shown at many of the important global art fairs like Art Basel in Switzerland and Armory in New York among others, started focusing on imagery and the aftermath of terrorism much before any other artist in this country began using it as a visual language. He’s really been way out in front on this difficult subject.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Santhosh, who picked up his Bachelor’s degree in fine art from Santiniketan and followed it up with a Master’s in sculpture — again from Baroda’s Faculty of Fine Arts, has also got an extremely distinctive style. He paints in vibrant hues — electric green, neon yellow and shocking orange. In fact, his bold use of colour and technique is so individual that once you see one of his works, you’ll instantly recognise them in any other show.</div><br /><p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5dvNQAwNVJzo5riTrZ4G3ZWAkcWJGk5jg52baymYM-wWKaeJUW__f6azW7rA_0nDx69RdGaaRgOD5ubbFO3nnf15vRvDRsxlOkrkCTNf-rZzVm9xC2pyLGYgh8xuqgZYpXLt3AKsLVMk/s1600-h/santhoshtv,+22+x+30,+water+colour.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415888390214200146" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 236px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5dvNQAwNVJzo5riTrZ4G3ZWAkcWJGk5jg52baymYM-wWKaeJUW__f6azW7rA_0nDx69RdGaaRgOD5ubbFO3nnf15vRvDRsxlOkrkCTNf-rZzVm9xC2pyLGYgh8xuqgZYpXLt3AKsLVMk/s320/santhoshtv,+22+x+30,+water+colour.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgapgtQ7zMb5ro9Ztkj0Ez7C13p07MlR2qhaz2-Bw_sO6JS072O1IQz_IAveq-MKyZIRvIyh6pSEYjmjq_9gw0yXrLhfNC9k_WWHXiBe5Dfe7MtEwbBCRS-ZxRlwAHdw3NsZKvNk4cQWf8/s1600-h/TV+Santosh_Low+Res1.jpg"></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhmuQidq-w8cmupzmzuwW1P75cbg6cEyfbXvztRXH5IPxBbPLDh0zFLmucIl7y_RObsIIBEy-i1wDkYvOesz8pnnXsq_YrhxZTMwHBWf1CaizHjCGmsL7dUleyKmQaEiiu5MocAyGR1k/s1600-h/TV+Santosh_Low+Res.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415888375857121106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 237px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhmuQidq-w8cmupzmzuwW1P75cbg6cEyfbXvztRXH5IPxBbPLDh0zFLmucIl7y_RObsIIBEy-i1wDkYvOesz8pnnXsq_YrhxZTMwHBWf1CaizHjCGmsL7dUleyKmQaEiiu5MocAyGR1k/s320/TV+Santosh_Low+Res.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">(From top) A watercolour by the artist; An untitled work by Santhosh; Game theory by Santhosh</span></span></div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The danger sometimes with artists focusing on such volatile topics like terrorism is that too much negativity can creep in. Also viewers can really get tired of looking at such imagery. But these precisely are areas where this Mumbai-based artist who’s from Kerala originally is able to score. There’s no tedium. His work looks visually arresting on the wall, helped by the subtlety of expression in his works so each one stands out. His images depict chaos and paranoia relating to media coverage of contemporary events and his exploration demonstrates a reality on the verge of explosion.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Another interesting aspect about Santhosh — and it’s something I profoundly wish other top Contemporary artists would emulate — is that he’s not overly prolific. So in a year, you can expect him to produce a maximum of eight to 10 canvas works. And because he’s not churning out innumerable works, this establishes room for more demand for his works by both a good Indian collector base and the international collector fraternity.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">His sculptures and installations are also quite haunting and unique but I’d have to say in terms of international recognition, they don’t even come close to his fluorescent canvas works with their deeply saturated colours and fluid edges.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">On the market front, his prices have displayed an enviable sticking power — a resilience which is quite unusual in the light of the downturn in most art values. In fact, Santhosh is the only Contemporary artist whose work in the period from September 2008 to now has not gone below his primary value — in his case Rs 25 lakh for a 6ft X 4ft work.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The lowest price one of his canvases recorded in the recession was around Rs 27 lakh in the Saffronart auction last December. After that no recent canvas works have featured in any auction. This clearly demonstrated that collectors were not willing to consign any good quality works to auctions and were happy holding the work. What got offered in most of the sales were his earlier works that did not compare to the visual language he’s been using in the last three years. But what’s remarkable is that even these older works sold well above their primary prices (the gallery price).</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">For collectors, the good thing that his gallery, Guild Art Gallery, has done is to keep his primary prices quite attractive — for a change the primary prices are much lower than auction values.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">His latest solo show in New York opened on October 14 at the well known Jack Shainman Gallery and initial reports suggested that four out of the five canvas works were already sold a week before the exhibition opened for public viewing. The primary prices were revised upward to Rs 40 lakh, which is steep but in his case, demand for his works have always outstripped supply even in recessionary times. These financial details are important because these values are high and it’s important that due diligence is exercised even if you might fall in love with one of his works.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Now, coming to a question that I have been asked quite often: how about his watercolour works that are available for a fairly affordable Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh? Well, I was never a fan of his watercolour works but I must admit that the quality of his watercolour works has gone up tremendously in the last year or so. Generally my answer would be a rule that’s critical to buying art: “Buy what you like and buy the best, look for works which are significant” and those without a doubt are his unforgettable canvas works. But as this could be a bit of a stretch, I would be tempted to collect one of his watercolour works like the one shown here (in picture) just for the brilliance of expression.</div><br /><p></p><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /><p></p><br /><strong><em>Kapil Chopra is Senior Vice President of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.He writes a blog on collecting and investing in Indian Contemporary Art at www.indianartinvest.blogspot.com.He also writes for The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday magazine " Graphiti" every fortnight. In Delhi, he has written for "The Mail Today " newspaper and "First City" magazine.</em></strong></div>Kapil Choprahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11356940403669603389noreply@blogger.com0