The Elusive Buyer !

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".

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.

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.

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.

Santiago Sierra at Kochi Muziris Biennale 2012

Let me share some thoughts on this new order with you...

Logical artist pricing - 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.

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.

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.

‘Leave your shoes here’ by Hossein Valamanesh

Gallery Loyalty - 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.

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.

Mahabubur Rahman for India Art Fair 2013

Wake up or Perish - 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.

Works by Jitish Kallat

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!

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.

Bestcollegeart.com and Glenfiddich’s Emerging Artist of the Year Award, 2013

Events around the year - 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.

HFV Project by Ariel Hassan,Kochi Muziris Biennale 2012

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!

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.

Warm wishes

Kapil

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.

United Art Fair - A story of guts to glory!

Dear Friends,

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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Till then, here are some of my personal picks from the United Art Fair!

Parag Sonarghare 
I perform therefore I am
Acrylic on canvas and used clothes

Dhara Malhotra
Silent Hymns - I
Acrylic and mixed medium on canvas

Soni Jogi
Red bird on yellow
Acrylic on canvas

Yuvan Bothysathuvar
Dependent
Canson paper on plywood

Rashmi Kaleka
Austral Visit
Mixed media acrylic on canvas feather glue plastic bags

Prathap Modi
Unheard Voices
Wood carving and oil on wood

Kundan Mondal 
Possibly Political - 2
Wood with digital print and acrylic on paper

Prittam Priyalochan
Performer with his pink umbrella at IGNCA
Ink, charcoal and acrylic on paper

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.

Hybrid e-com art startup BestCollegeArt.com wants to give a platform to budding artists, to launch high-end art portal ArtDistrict13

Dear Friends,

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 !

Join us on this journey and see how we have contributed in our small way to the Indian art scene !

Warm regards.......

Hybrid e-com art startup BestCollegeArt.com wants to give a platform to budding artists, to launch high-end art portal ArtDistrict13

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.

“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.

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.”

The BestCollegeArt.com site

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Revenues and transactions

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).

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).

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.

Why the name BestCollegeArt?

“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.

Other ventures

The Wall: 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.

Charitybeds: 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.

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.

What’s next?

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.

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.

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.

Indian Contemporary Art - The Road Ahead and being on The Wall !

Dear Friends,

My apologies for not being regular in updating this blog.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Warm wishes

Kapil


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 ".

Master strokes

Dear Friends,

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.

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.


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.


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.


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.


Ponna’s art is witty, has a satirical edge and he uses the medium of painting to convey very profound messages.


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.


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.

Silence Please...Smile please...Sincerity please..!!

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.

Balaji Ponna's Birds express...What people can't!!!

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.


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..”.

Ponna's We make lot of 'action painting' daily is an oil-and-soot on canvas

Ponna captures the current mindset and mood of people well with his satirical works. This is a commentary on the times we live in.

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.

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.

Dear Friends,

I have been not updating this blog for a long time.

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.

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.

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 !

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.

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 !

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.

The Wall comes to you EVERY month on the 1st day of the month and also will always be FREE !

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.

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 !

As you read The Wall, do not forget to click the tab of "Back Issues " to read all the previous 5 issues.

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 !

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 !


Cheers

Kapil


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.

India Art Collective - India's Online Art Fair - A perspective

Dear Friends,

I am posting on the blog after a long time !

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 !

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.

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.

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.

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.

So do no hesitate to ask for a discount, send an email or make a call !

Overall, very refreshing and a very nice initiative, so do log in NOW !


Cheers


Kapil


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.

Collective Metamorphosis curated by Kapil Chopra at Nature Morte,New Delhi

Dear Friends,

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.

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.

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.

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.

The idea was to have people collect art and even gift it to each other, anything that increases the collector base in this country!

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.

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.......

I am a collector but not a curator!

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.

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.

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.

Peter Nagy gave the initiative a head start last year when he curated the opening exhibition "The Present is Now" which opened to rave reviews.

"Collective Metamorphosis" 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.

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.

Paribartana Mohanty 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.

Deepjyoti Kalita 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.

Kumar Kanti Sen 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.

Gopal Samantray 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.

Tauseef Khan 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.

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.

I hope you enjoy viewing this show at Nature Morte till 1st August or online at bestcollegeart.com.

Cheers

Kapil

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.

Lasting Art Impressions of 2010 !

Dear Friends,

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 !

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Incompetence Of Being Complete by Deepjyoti Kalita

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.

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.

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.

Paribartana Mohanty’s work Bandwala, Then And Disco

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.

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.

Via Dolorosa by artist Saad Qureshi

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!

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.

NDTV Interview on " The Indian Art Scene "

Dear Friends,

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.

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 !

Cheers

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.

Greed Factor !

Dear Friends,

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.

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 !

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.

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.

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.

Last Howl from the Cross by F.N. Souza (1963)

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.

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.

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.

an untitled work by Subodh Gupta (2005)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

T.V. Santhosh’s Scars of an Ancient Error-I (2006)

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.

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.

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.

Paradise Lost

Dear Readers,

My latest article in The Telegraph, Sunday edition reaching over a million readers, comments as always are welcome. Do log on to www.bestcollegeart.com, 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 !

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.

Shrapnel-Detail from Chamber, an acrylic on hand made paper pasted on board, by Veer Munshi

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.

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.

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”.

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.

Pandit House, a photograph on archival paper, by Veer Munshi

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

A Little Negligence by Ashis Mondal

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.

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!

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.

Hype and Reality !

Dear Friends,

My latest article in "The Telegraph" Newspaper reaching over a million readers for your reading pleasure, comments are welcome !

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Artist S.H. Raza

Works which do not meet these criteria are still not selling or selling at much discounted valuations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bharti Kher’s work titled The Skin speaks a Language not its own

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.

An untitled work by Subodh Gupta

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.

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.

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.

And of course, the final message to collectors, the most important golden rule —buy only what you love!

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.