The Berlin Canvas !

Dear Readers,

Here is my latest article published in The Telegraph newspaper in the Sunday edition reaching over 1 million readers......

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.

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.

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?”.

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.

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.

Shoja Azari‘s Final Judgement

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.

Paper to Monument II by Seher Shah

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.

Assembled Identities by Probir Gupta

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.

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.

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 !

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!

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.

Artists to buy in these times ! Part 1

Here is my list in all categories of artists that I would like to buy, enjoy and invest in. The key principle is to enjoy the art you buy, you should like it and that's important, secondly you should buy it at the right value and last, buy art that is investment worthy. Do not buy art recommended by the bored housewives club (80 % of all art galleries in India qualify in this category ), look at the background of the artist, education, inspiration for work, gallery promoting the artist and where all has that art been shown. As most of the people who will follow this blog when I release it open for public viewing be new or fairly new art enthusiasts, hence I will restrict the values to under Rs.30 lacs to start and start with Rs.10,000.So here is my top pick in each category to start with....

(Sominum Genero)

• 30 -35 lacs category - I just love these guys, they are the most intelligent artists I have ever met, they research in detail as to what they would like to paint and then follow the theme through. The works and installation look nice, have a theme and they have international collectors lining up for their work. They have shown at key fairs like Art Basel, FIAC and others and were in the news recently with their show at Mori Musuem. Wallapaper magazine ranked them among the top 101 designers in the world and they are Thukral & Tagra. They are my top pick in this category, for the level of international interest they generate, their art and the logic behind, make them great artists to buy. In the Asia Contemporary Sothebys sale where only 19 of the 31 lots sold, their work went for over 110 lacs when some top Indian artists failed to sell, that is not a criteria but just a comment. Their interesting work on AIDS, Somnium Genero ( dreams ) and Bosedk are some of the key series that they have worked on. Difficult to get a work of theirs, till you are on the collector list of Peter Nagy and gallery Nature Morte(http://www.naturemorte.com/). Pricing is for a 6 by 6 work in the primary market, they have had a work at Saffronart sold for less but according to the artists it was a part of a series and should not have been sold on its own.

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(Black Star)

• 3-5 lacs category - This is a great category, its affordable and if you like her art, then I believe in some years she will be in the above mentioned category. She is one of the young stars on the horizon, very talented and has already shown at Art Basel, her work was sold out at Armoury and at Fiac in October. Her work has been placed at the world famous Musuem of Modern Art ( MOMA) in the US and she recieves rave reviews from all art critics, Seher Shah as a notable art collector says is a "superstar". She is known for her drawings and her prints, I like both, the thing to die for her are her large prints around 60 by 36 inches in her series on Jihad Pop and Projective 1 & 2. Visit her website http://www.sehershah.net/ and http://www.bosepacia.com/ for her work details and do buy her if you can get any of the sizable works. The work shown above is a series of smaller works under the name Black Star, I like the bigger works which will be priced now at around USD 8,000 to 10,000 whenever they are released, the size for the older works was around 60 inches by 36 inches and they were sold between USD 3,000 to 5,000 but none available now.

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(Har Darwaze Pe Likha Hai Rehne Wale Ka Naam)

• Rs.10,000 -20,000 - Yes, you read it right ! you can start investing and buying art that you like even at this value and it is investment worthy. Shreyas Karle has won the Bodhi award and then followed it up with the Kashi Award for a promising artist, passing out from Baroda, he is quite refreshing in his approach and again very intelligent. I have been following his work for long and was very impressed with his award winning show " Har Darwaza pe likha hai rehne wale ka naam" at Kashi art gallery ( http://www.kashiartgallery.com/). All the doors have an identity in these limited edition works and are smiling or dancing, very quirky and nice works, the show opened recently and I remember Dorrie telling me that it was sold out in 3 hours ! Works were sold at 10,000 each and I believe he is someone to watch out for in the coming times. The size was 11 by 15 inches and with 2 Artist proofs plus 7 editions.

These are the artists who according to me are in the best buy category even in these recessionary times and more so now because you may not get good quality works at the prices that you can get them now at. Two out of three come from Nature Morte/ Bose Pacia due to respect that I have for Peter Nagy and the work that he has done to promote Indian contemporary art. Although in my last blog post, I did not agree with their pricing on Hema Upadhayay who is terribly over priced, also over producing and in my avoid category for the time being. My next blog will highlight some other artists that I really like, are international in their appeal and collector base and have the potential to achieve greater heights.

Ardent art lovers and collectors may get upset with my obsession on commercal aspects of buying art but this as the title suggests is "indianartinvest", I will always tell you to buy what you like and enjoy but at the right price and most important it has to be investment worthy i.e. should have potential for appreciation in the future.

Disclaimer- Please assume that I may have a vested interest in promoting these artists and may own some of the works mentioned here. Please acquire these works only after due diligence and consultations with your art advisors and gallerists.

Enjoy your art and keep on reading !