Sotheby’s London—Is Indian Contemporary Art Market Resistant?

Two diametric figures stand out in Artprice’s most recent edition of ArtMarketInsight: one, that Contemporary Indian art has made spectacular gains--in January 2008, the sector’s price index was up by 830% over the decade; and two, that in the first quarter of 2008, international art prices were 7.5% below those recorded in the last quarter of 2007. So, collectors may have been wondering which trend would prevail at Sotheby’s Indian Art sale held this morning in London.

Apparently the former, as both established names and younger artists in the secondary market performed very well, with 65% of the sold lots going above their pre-bid estimates. A total take of $8,463,437* may be the bellwether that indeed Indian art may be able to sustain its ferocious climb it has made over the past decade.

The auction showed strength early on when four George Keyt oils and five Jamini Roy tempera on cards all sold at least double their estimates, with two Keyt’s selling in the $50,000 range. Next up, two Rabindranath Tagores’ sold extremely well—a pen and colored ink on paper titled Bird for $138,213; Death Scene, a gouache and colored ink on paper, for $284,904.

By mid-sale, PAG works went up for auction and, for the most part, did not disappoint those who were watching to gauge the resiliency of the country’s most established artists. An Akbar Padamsee untitled nude, painted in 1956, sold for $498,000 and an archetypal “metascape” from 1983 for $521,630. F. N. Souza’s The Red Road, representing the personal, the political and the spiritual struggle of the artist, and one that Shelley Souza, the artist's daughter, wrote that “so emphatically belonged to my mother, meaning more than any other Souza painting in her collection” sold for $1,144,208. Two other Souzas’ went down for $450,390 and $222,584. S. H. Raza’s La Source, an acrylic on canvas, went for $213,977; an F. M. Husain for nearly $300,000.

But the most positive signs of an Indian contemporary art market not willing to concede to global market forces were yet to come. A 2005 untitled oil by Subodh Gupta went for a final, eye-opening bid of $521,780. Atul Dodiya’s Each Father, Lost (VIII), a mixed media installation in three sections produced shortly after his father's death, sold for $273,163. Bharti Kher’s Missing, bindis on composite aluminum panel, for nearly $210,000 and Thurkral & Tagra’s Stop Think Go, a work that addressed the problem of HIV and AIDS in India, for $202,160. T. V. Santhosh, another young artist who also remains red hot, had an oil on canvas titled A Handful of Ashes, go for $202,478. Jitish Kallat’s mixed media on canvas Humiliation Tax – II, a piece dominated by the centralized image of a young underprivileged child, a symbol for the most vulnerable and impoverished members of Indian society, went for $114,588. And two Sakti Burman’s cashed in at $154,860 and $72,005.

Other names that did well today at Sotheby's include Ambadas ($72,019), Prajakta Palav ($48,320), Chintan Upadhyay ($57,788), Nalini Malini ($71,989), and Shilpa Gupta ($48,333 and $43,595).

Although 26 of the 123 lots (21%) were withdrawn, passed, or unsold, including four works each by Avinash Chandra and F. N. Souza, it seems the 2008 market for Indian Contemporary art remains stable, if not even increasing in value, even when other genres around the world may be waning a bit. Time will tell in upcoming summer and autumn sales if this is indicative for the remainder of the year.

*All prices quoted include the Buyer’s Premium, but do not reflect any Value Added Tax. They were also converted from Great Britain Pound (GBP) to United States Dollar (USD) on 5/2/08. Actual conversion rates may fluctuate from time to time.

Introspection

Tamarind Arts Council is delighted to present A.V. Ilango’s solo exhibition “Introspection.” In this new body of works, the artist features his iconic portrayal of the bull on his canvases and in metal and stone sculptures. The title is a reference to the nature of the artist’s engagement with a specific subject that is embedded in the mass consciousness of the people of South Asia. An opening reception will be held 14 May 2008, 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm; the exhibition will run from 14 May - 21 June 2008.

About the Artist

The Chennai based artist A.V. Ilango earned his B.S and M.S in Mathematics from Central College, Bangalore in 1971 and 1973. His career as an artist includes many national and international one man, and group shows. His work has been shown at the Salon International de Printemps, Lyon Fine Arts Society. Other exhibitions include Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kuala Lampur, Singapore, London, San Francisco. In 2006, Ilango exhibited at the Indian Consulate in New York as the sole participating artist. In 2008, his solo show “Bovine Principle” was featured at the Forum Art Gallery in Chennai, which was shown a year earlier at the Art Samar Gallery in Trevendrum. And now at Tamarind Art Council in New York.

Beginning in 1992 Ilango has been the recipient of many awards; most recently in 2002 he received the International Gold Medal at the Salon d’Automne, European Academy of Arts, Paris. In 1992 he received the ABS Chennai Chapter & British Council Fellowship: during his visit to UK, and in 1997 he received the State Award at the Golden Jubilee of Independence Exhibition.

About Tamarind Arts Council

Tamarind Arts Council (TAC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting art of Indian influence in North America. Our focus is to support all types of artistic expression, including performing and fine arts inspired by the arts of India. We also sponsor art-related activities and cross-cultural events that expand the audience for Indian art. In addition to hosting artist interviews, producing art shows, and providing a creative outlet for performance artists, TAC sponsors various cultural events throughout the year: film screenings & lectures, cultural dance performances, book launches & readings, artist performances, Indian musical concerts.

To fulfill our mission of encouraging and showcasing Indian artists and performers, Tamarind Arts Council provides fellowships and scholarship opportunities. We have also established an outreach program to art schools in India, which aims to maintain and improve art universities, while creating a channel for creative connections between India and the U.S.

Tamarind Arts Council exemplifies how life can indeed revolve around the arts. Our mission is to inspire the work of contemporary Indian artists and performers and to facilitate public appreciation of these unique cultural art forms and create dialogs between artists in India and the United States through a number of cultural programs and exchanges.

Rsvp: rsvp@tamarindarts.org or call 212-200-8000 ext 105 For more information, please contact us or email admin@tamarindarts.org or visit our web site at www.tamarindarts.org. Hours of operation: Tuesday - Saturday 11 am to 6 pm. Closed on Sunday and Monday.

Tamarind Arts Council Presents "Gandhi - A Legacy"

Mahatma Gandhi has inspired many of the world’s greatest political leaders and freedom fighters, including Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Abdul Gafar Khan who fought for equality following his dictums of ‘Ahimsa’ – non-violence and ‘Satyagraha’ - ‘clinging to truth’. His sterling words of pacifism ring clear today: "There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for." Gandhi dedicated his life to the wider purpose of discovering truth, or Satya, and his pleas for peace inspired future international icons like John Lennon.“Gandhi: A Legacy”, an exhibition featuring exceptional monochrome photographs, which have been kindly loaned from private collectors, will be on view at Tamarind Art Gallery,142 East 39th Street, New York. These rare photographs capture private glimpses into the man, the legend—India’s Father of the Nation—how he lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony.

The exhibition opens to the public on the 10th of April and runs thru the 23rd of April 2008.

This is your chance to witness history.

Prices Remain Steady at New York Auctions

Sotheby’s and Christie’s held their annual Indian modern and contemporary art spring sales this week in the Big Apple with very few surprises—even with two works breaking the million dollar mark.

There were no great shakes at Sotheby’s Indian Art Wednesday morning session. Of the 89 lots up for bid, 27% went unsold, including three works by Krishen Khanna, three by F. N. Souza, two Akbar Padamsees’, two Jogen Chowdhurys’, a Raza and one M. F. Husain. Still, the 65 pieces that went down the hammer garnered a total take of $5,106,875USD*.

The big winner of the day was a Husain oil on canvas dated 1953, a seminal period when the artist was still discovering his language and style. Composed with the rhythmic, confident line that later became his trademark, the Untitled piece sold for $409,000. Not far behind was Souza’s Head of a Man, which finished at $313,000. Seven other paintings from members of the Progressive Artists Group finished in the quarter million dollar range, hardly eyebrow-raising after the past few years of escalating prices.

Rounding out the big numbers, Jagdish Swaminathan's iconic 1971 Untitled landscape featuring flat planes of saturated yellows and orange delineating and detailing a deeply spiritual reverence for the unrealized universe, sold over pre-estimated values at $229,000. An unsettling rare self-portrait and a comment on the inevitable decay of the human body by Rameshwar Broota finished at $169,000; Jehangir Sabavala’s oil and acrylic on canvas, The Bridge, for $163,000; and Anjlie Ela Menon’s Goat People for $121,000.

Other artists faring well were three oils from B. Phabha (selling in the range of $32,200 to $44,200), George Keyt ($32,200/$20,000), Shanti Dave ($25,000), Gulam Rasool Santosh ($51,400), Sakti Burman ($67,000), Manu Parekh ($49,000), Avinash Chandra ($63,400), A. R. Chugtai ($79,000), Ambadas ($46,600), and Arpana Caur ($49,000).

Thursday’s 10:00AM South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction at Christie's produced more of the same, although two resoundingly broke the seven-figure mark. M. F. Husain’s The Battle of Ganga and Jamuna, one of his most significant works to appear at auction, sold for a staggering $1,609,000. Ram Kumar’s oil on board, Vagabond, whose forlorn and isolated figures with strained postures are linked to the angular jagged shapes of the cityscape and buildings, sold for $1,161,000. Coming in at a distant third was a Tyeb Mehta work at a still respectable $657,000.

Works by other PAG masters in various mediums also sold well, as has been the trend the past half-decade. What is becoming the thing to watch in Indian art, however, are the prices being generated by those who are following in their footsteps. Younger artists such as T. V. Santhosh for example, whose oil on canvas diptych fetched $337,000, an Untitled for $85,000; Rameshwar Broota’s Traces of Man I, for $265,000; Atul Dodiya’s Untitled work of ironic juxtaposition for $217,000, his Red Loves Peas for $157,000.

And on down the line--Ganesh Pyne’s Untitled tempera on canvas work symbolizing his tranquil-obsession with death sold for $127,000; Jagannath Panda’s Untitled oil on canvas featuring a peacock being forced out of its natural habitat finished at $133,000, his Behind the Meeting Place II for $109,000; Chintan Upadhyay’s New Breed Hybrid for $75,400; a Jitish Kallat and a Jamini Roy each selling for $73,000.

At Christie’s, only 17 of the available 131 lots were passed, with a total final total take of $10,974,600.

The New York sales may have proven two things as we make it through the early part of 2008—art prices by the Indian masters are not coming down, while works by contemporary artists seem to be catching up . . . fast.

*All prices in US Dollars include the buyer's premium and are rounded to the nearest dollar.

Younger Artists Soar at Saffronart On-Line Auction

For those who have been following Indian contemporary art over the past few years, you can probably remember when the market was idling on the runway, waiting to take off. It wasn’t that long ago when Progressive Artist Group works shocked the market by garnering prices in the six-figure range; today, it no surprise when a Souza, Vaitonde, Mehta, or Raza sells for over a million dollars. On March 12 –13, Saffronart’s spring online auction may have shown that post-PAG artists may be the next group waiting in the wings for a similar surge upward in prices.

Works by Subodh Gupta, born in 1964, were an example of this surge, who along with Atul Dodiya, born in 1959, Shibu Natesan, 1966, T. V. Santhosh, 1968, Jagannath Panda, 1970, and Surendran Nair, born in 1956, are getting prices unimagined not very long ago.

Nair’s commentary on identity and sociopolitical change, his oil on canvas, Doctrine of the Forest: An Actor at Play (Cuckoonebulopolis) painted in 2007, was the big winner of the sale, selling for a shattering $558,969 USD*. Not far behind was an untitled oil on canvas painted by Subodh Gupta that took a final tally of $477,250. For good measure, his painting Let Me Make My Damn Art, estimated to sell in the $60,000 - $70,000 range, instead went down for a whopping $437,000. And his sculpture of stainless steel kitchenware entitled Feast for Hundred and Eight Gods 2 closed at $209,875. Panda’s Untitled acrylic and fabric on canvas, fell at a remarkable $353,625, estimated pre-sale at $65,790 - 78,950. Natesan’s hyper-realistic images in Each One Teach One, an oil on linen, doubled estimates and sold for $281,448.

Santhosh, too, is making his presence felt on the modern Indian art scene—two oils on canvas, an Untitled and Across An Unresolved Story II, containing thermographic, x-ray like imagery, sold for $232,875 each. Predictably, Atul Dodiya’s works did well, although he was a bit overshadowed his contemporaries. His piece Vansha Vriksha , a watercolor, acrylic and marble dust on paper sold for $208,150; his Bapu Breaking his Fast, an acrylic on canvas, for $104,650; his enamel paint and synthetic varnish on laminate titled Shri Jivan Chaya of Gandhi Nagar (with 17th Wife board Madhuben and 18th Wife Jayashriben) for $172,500.

Three other works, Death of a Snake Charmer by Bharti Kher (born in 1969), Baiju Parthan’s (1956) diptych of cryptic images called Source Code - Benedict, and Anju Dodiya’s Daphne, also broke the five-figure mark. Not far behind in the upper four-figures were works by G. R. Iranna, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Rashid Rana, Jittish Kallat, N. S. Harsha, Sudhanshu Sutar, and Riyas Komu.

Every one of the 119 works in the two-day event was sold, with three quarters of them surpassing their estimated values. There were no PAG works in the catalogue for this, one of the first Indian art auctions of 2008. One that went very, very well without their contribution.

* (Prices inclusive of Buyers Premium)

Tamarind Celebrates Asian Contemporary Art Week

Tamarind Art proudly presents Creative Circuit: Indian Contemporaries, a museum-quality show of paintings and sculptures from the Charugundla collection featuring some of the most provocative artists in today’s Indian art scene. These works will showcase some of the contemporary artists who are currently setting the standards in the Indian art market, and a few whose names may not be well known but are poised to become so.

Featured artists include Samir Aich, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Jayashree Chakravarty, Avinash Chandra, Sarbari Roy Chowdhury, Sumana Chowdhury, Samit Das, Pratul Dash, Ganesh Haloi, Prabhakar Kolte, Mahjabin Majumdar, Kamal Mitra, Anil Sen, and Hema Upadhyay.

Opening reception will be 19 March 2008 from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pmRSVP - rsvp@tamarindart.com. The exhibition will run from 19 March – 5 April 2008.

About Asian Contemporary Art Week

Over 100 artists will present their works at 60 special events, including receptions, exhibition-viewings, screenings, artists’ conversations and walkthroughs at 46 leading galleries and museums across New York City. Since its inception in 2001, ACAW continues to respond to the rise in public interest and demand for knowledge about artists producing works both inside and outside of Asia.

Participants include an incredibly diverse and broad array of presenting venues, as well as an ever-expanding list of artists from almost every region of Asia. China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and for the first time, the Middle East: Lebanon, Palestine and Israel.

In its fifth year, ACAW launches a series of talks to highlight the week entitled Artists in Conversation. Nominated by a number of art experts from the region, over 75 leading and emerging artists submitted their portfolios from which 25 were selected by the ACAC to speak about their works and concepts at participating venues.

A Dynamic Perception @ Tamarind

Tamarind Art invites you to their exhibition, Dynamic Perception, showcasing five artists from India who are creating work that use figurative subject matter. Participating artists include Subha Basu, Ramesh Kandagiri, Abesh Mitra, Anjan Modak,& Kajal Shah.

Each artist approaches the use of the figure in their work in very different styles. From Abesh Mitra’s semi abstract heads to Anjan Modak’s pieces that lend a lot to their photographic source material. The paintings of Subha Basu owe a debt to the expressionist, Max Beckman, for his use of bold outlines and multiple perspectives. Ramesh Kandagiri’s paintings make use of a limited palette to which causes one to focus less on the colors used and more on his use of line and space.

About the Artists:

Subha Basu received his degree from The Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Rabindra Bharati University. Since graduation he has participated in a number of group exhibitions including, ‘Antarmahal’ arranged by ‘Catalyst’ at Academy of Fine Arts, in 2004. He participated in a Group Show organized by ‘Catalyst’ at Birla Academy of Art and Culture in 2004. In 2006 he was in ‘Future Stroke’ at Gallery Kaniska in Kolkata. That year he was also in ‘Parampara’ at Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Kolkata, and the Group Show at Lalit Kala Academy, Rabindrabhavan New Delhi. In 2007 he was in two shows, ‘Searching” at Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata and “Bhavna” at Metropolitan Art Salon.

Ramesh Kandagiri graduated with honors from Viswa Bharti Shantiniketan where he received his MFA in Painting. Over the years he participated in many group exhibitions all across India. He was the recipient of the Junior Fellowship from Human Resources Development, Department of Culture, and Government of India. He accomplished a project under the same fellowship from 1998 to 2000.

Abesh Bivore Mitra received his degree from the M.S. University Baroda in 1996. Since graduation he exhibited his work in many group and solo shows, in addition to participation in a number of workshops and residencies. Abesh Mitra’s collections can be viewed in his native India and around the world.

Anjan Modak received his degree from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata in 2007. He is continuing his studies in fine arts. Although a student Modak has displayed his work in a number of exhibitions at Lalit Kala Academy in New Delhi in 1996 and 1998. He also has been a part of many university shows from 2003 to 2007. In 2007 he exhibited his work at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata.

Kajal Shah received her degree from M. S. University, Baroda in 2000. Shah’s work has been featured in a number of group shows including “Unfolding Grace” at Lanxess ABS Gallery in Baroda and “Foot Prints” which traveled to Baroda, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. Most recently she was in “Obscure Objects of Desire” which was curated by Johny ML at Open Eyes Dream Gallery in Cochin. In 2004 Shah had her first solo at Contemporary Art Gallery in Ahmedabad.

For more information, please contact Tamarind Art Gallery at (212) 990 - 9000 ext. 105 or email info@tamarindart.com or visit our web site at http://www.tamarindart.com/

Gallery hours: Tuesday through Friday, 11:00 am to 6:00 pm; Saturday, noon to 6:00 pm