Rules of Buying Art after a Difficult Year !

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.

Enjoy !

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Game Theory by T.V. Santosh

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.

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.

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!

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.

Sydney Art Review & What I am buying now!

Well, Delhi is getting hot by the day ! and I am back from a lovely week in Sydney where the Australian winter is just setting in ! I was in beautiful Sydney on business and I always take out time for my favourite passion which is art, so the free time I can squeeze in goes in educating myself on the art scenario in the country.

We were fortunate as in an event at Intercontinental Sydney, Fred Matti, the GM did a wonderful job of organising an event banquet where the sights of Sydney and the food of Sydney was brought into the hotel, it became my first interaction with Australian art where I met Brenda Colahan who is an Australian art advisor and she gave me a great run down on Australian art and here it is for you, the two most important living artists in Australia are John Olsen and Tim Storrier. John Olsen is the top artist and his large canvas is priced at around 80 lacs and a good large Tim Storrier at around 60-65 lacs, the size being 6 ft by 8 ft works or close to that.

On Sunday, I had the privilege of meeting my good friend Bradley Cocks with Collette Dinnigan, Australia's top fashion designer and having boutiques in London and Paris. I had an opportunity to share a Rose wine with her at their lovely residence covered by Vogue and then took me to meet Tim Olsen son of the legendary John Olsen, Australia's top artist. Tim runs two wonderful galleries in the posh Paddington area of Sydney. The galleries were simple but exquisite in their appearance with natural light coming in and lighting up the whole space. There was a show by a young artist called Paul Davies and honestly coming from the overheated Indian market, the prices were really unbelievably low which made me remark instantly as to how reasonable the prices were. To put it in perspective, Guy Maestri recently won the Archibald 2009 award for a portrait of the singer Yunupingu as shown below, it is Australia's top award and carries a prize money of ASD 50,000 (approximately 18 lacs now compare this with some of our awards instituted most of the time by galleries who make tons of money and give a prize money of Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,00,000).Tim who represents him had a canvas of 8 ft by 6.5 ft for close to 6 lacs that is close to 12,000 a sq ft and this artist won the top prize, I can tell you scores of artists in India who haven't even won a significant award and are quoting at double these valuations.

(Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu)

An interesting thing I noticed was the focus on aboriginal art in Australia and the attention that is drawing, that could be a pre cursor to our own tribal art really taking off, so be on the lookout for that ! The other thing I noticed when I went to the Museum of Contemporary art in Sydney was the number of children who had come in to have a look at the art with their parents, now this convinces me on the future growth of this market as children grow up appreciating art. I also saw one of the most inspiring installation shows by the famous lady Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, it was mind blowing and her installation for someone born in 1929 was more contemporary than the younger lot !

Well, back in Delhi, I was quite impressed with Bhavna Kakkar and Aparajita Jain's new show at Travancore space in Delhi called Re-claim/Re-cite/Re-Cycle. I went on the last day of the show as the invite was very inspiring and I was curious to have a look. Bhavna curated an exceptional show and one of the best shows that I have been to this year. I walked in not really being ready to buy anything and was just blown away by a work by Prajjwal Choudhary who had a very interesting piece on recycling of art, I bought this piece shown below which is actually matchboxes with prints of Damien Hirst's Skull,Jogen Choudhary's works, Ravinder Reddy and many more, the matchboxes are arranged to say " Who Will b next " in a triptych,its a huge work and has a lot of profound thoughts on the matchboxes and merged with the art. So this is what I have bought in the last 10 days. It was a pleasure to have met Prajjwal at the show also, I was very impressed with his detail and idea with which he approached the whole subject of recycling and how the same art was being created in a different forms by other artists and the question was " Who will be next to be cloned ?". I felt his take on the whole subject was great. So I applied my buying principles which are I liked the work, it was a significant work, the artist was backed by an excellent gallery Project 88 and that his value for a huge triptych which was 2 by 12 feet at around 1.75 lacs was reasonable for this work. I made a buying decision and actually love the work, this is not a promotion for you to buy Prajjwal but I think he is interesting and you can look at his last solo in the past exhibitions section of Project 88 and do some research on him before you make your own buying decision.

Till then enjoy the summer sun, take a break and track the Astaguru auction at http://www.astaguru.com/ for further trends on the art market.

Cheers

Kapil Chopra

Disclaimer - As usual, please assume I have a vested interest in all I say ! Please do your own research and apply your own buying principles before you buy a work of art and only buy if you enjoy the work !