A decent camera or a cell-phone can make a photographer of you, just as pen and paper can make a “writer” of a filing clerk: so, does efficient handling of such instruments become your passport to the art world? The discussion on the concluding day of “Home and the Street” at Studio21 addressed such related questions: “When does photography become art?”

Curated by British photographer Christopher Taylor, the show featured the work of Sumit Basu, Jayanta Saha, Kushal Ray, Nilanjan Ray and Saibal Das. Das was also part of the panel that included photographers Sunil Dutta and Dev Nayak, alongside Amlan Das Gupta, who teaches English at Jadavpur University.

The tone of the evening was set by Das Gupta, who began with another question: “Can photography be an art?”
Referring to the German thinker, Walter Benjamin, he wondered that if something can be replicated time and again, could it ever be called art? Such a question not only shook established notions of originality but also posed a challenge to photographers who wanted their work to cross over from journalism and advertising into the finer realm of art galleries and museums.

Photography, Das said, becomes art when it conveys “something beyond information”. Nayak confessed his ignorance of how that transition takes place. It is best, he said, to compare photography with writing — what a society reads into a photograph makes its aesthetic value. Nayak feels that in India, the obsession with the technical know-how of photography tends to obscure merit. Good work speaks for itself, no matter how it is produced.
A member of the audience asked the panellists if they introduce themselves as “photographers” or as “artists”. Although the question was not directly answered, Sunil Dutta said that such divisions were irrelevant. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.
While there can be no quarrel with this position, the evening ended somewhat inconclusively, though not before some feisty comments from the audience. One gentleman held forth on the all-too-pertinent fear of a different kind of reproducibility: the trap of cliches set by Varanasi, Old Calcutta and family portraits.

Unfazed, Das said that it didn’t matter to him who had photographed Chitpur in whatever way before him so long as he is able to connect with his subject “emotionally”.

Wealth advisers renowned for sponsoring art shows to attract clients are starting to use them to attract the attention of individuals from booming emerging markets.

UK wealth manager Barclays Wealth has boosted this initiative by announcing a sponsorship deal with two contemporary Indian art exhibitions.

Fresh from its sponsorship of tennis tournament the ATP World Tour Finals, it will sponsor two Indian exhibitions in London, ‘The Mother Teresa Series’ by M.F.Husain and ‘The Five Rays of Raza’ by S.H.Raza.

These will be showcased at Barclays Wealth’s Brook Street offices on 10th and 11th December and then move to the Mayfair gallery of Tanya Baxter Contemporary and Kings Road Gallery until 31st January 2010.

The bank said: “A recent change is that whilst Indian art had been bought almost entirely by Indian collectors (mainly based outside India), it is now increasingly being collected by non-Indians.”

Elswhere, HSBC Private Bank has hosted a lunch to launch The Connection Collection by Israeli-born European designer Arik Levy, which will be showcased at Design Miami/, the International art fair, next week. Following Design Miami/, Arik Levy’s installation will be displayed at HSBC Private Bank offices in Geneva.

Tony Joyce, global head of marketing at HSBC Private Bank, said: “Our clients are increasingly interested in important design and our research has shown that they support our partnership with the Design Miami/ events.”

German Deutsche Bank said it had signed a five-year sponsorship contract with ART HK, the three year old Hong Kong-based art fair.

ART HK will take place from May 27 to May 30 next year and expects over 110 galleries from 24 countries to attend. It was originally sponsored by defunct investment bank Lehman Brothers for its debut in 2008. This year it had no lead sponsor.

“Our sponsorship of ART HK reflects the importance and the growth of Deutsche Bank’s operations in the Asia-Pacific region,” the bank. “The successes of ART HK in 2008 and 2009 show the high demand for a world-class art fair in the region.”

It is the 1st anniversary of Mumbai Terror attacks. People from different part of India giving their tributes in different way to the victims of 26/11. Internationally acclaimed sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik created a sand image to tribute the innocent people and the National hero who were passed away on this sad event, at Golden sea beach of Orissa, with a massage to the world, “All Ideologies end up killing people” & “Stop terrorism”.  
 
People to gather at Puri beach to tribute near the sand image of hotel Taj to the innocent people who died on last year 26 Nov. We should stand together to fight against the terrorist, Pattnaik said. Before Sudarsan has also created many sand sculptures to condemn terrorist attacks.
 
Pattnaik created a 7ft high sand sculpture of Taj Hotel by using 6 tones of sand. Students of his sand art institute join hand with him to complete the sculpture.
 
Sudarsan has so far participated in more than 39 international sand sculpture championships across the world and won many awards for the country. In 2008 Sudarsan won the World champion title as a first Indian at Germany. He always tries to give message on social issues to World through his sand sculptures.

Pop art has been riding the fast lane for some time now. Each passing day this art stream is getting more and more popular. What used to be desi and uncool yesterday is uber cool today.The modern take on the Indianness is chic and stylish. Perspectives have changed. People are happy to bring back the Indian street flavour into their everyday lives through the route of home décor, garments and accessories. Today brand “India” is larger than life and everyone wants to own a piece of this India, even if it is in a very small way.

At this juncture, our inexpensive products are surging to the forefront instantly. There is now a huge demand for little bric-a-bracs such as kitsch note books, keychains, badges, coasters, fashionable bags and shoes and even furniture and products of home decor such as cushions, trays and curtains and so on, which are direct translations of our colourful streets.

We have already, for long, seen graphic artists and designers romancing the autorickshaw or three-wheelers. Today, we have a wider range of street imagery being translated onto various fashion and lifestyle arena. It is all about creating something that makes you want to own a part of India.

Scenes from congested streets and little nooks and corners of a chaotic busy bustling day double up as meaty imagery for such art. The jungle of archaic telephone wiring atop a cobweb-laden dusty pillar and small shops displaying colourful inexpensive plastic products tucked away somewhere in the lanes of Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi Paharganj add to the data bank of our graphic designers. Or old dilapidated buildings and film posters pasted on these chipped walls. All these tell a crazy, colourful story about our ‘Imperfect India’, which is so perfect!

Bollywood is the biggest kitsch flavour that “brand India” has in its big bag of enticing goodies. Though explored and re-explored to the fullest, amazingly there is still room for more exploration and reinvention. This season, when I started working on my new collection around Bollywood, I was struck by the scarcity of a serious brand that can bring out the madness of this colourful world of filmy kitsch, and there began my saga with rosy-cheeked actors popping out of film hoardings of yesteryears finding a comfortable spot on a wide range of products — which no one needs to aspire to possess.

The whole idea of kitsch Indian art should be affordability and the “within reach” factor that promotes “brand India” through the masses. More than enticing the foreigners, our idea should be to have Indian buyers inculcate the feeling of wanting to possess that little part of India that has been replaced by westernisation.

we find it fascinating how people look for someone to change their perspectives. Today, people are waiting for someone to come by and help them see Indianness in a new light. Riding the tide of the same pulse, several brands have cropped up with their interpretations of this same Indianness. It is indeed a pleasure to know that our culture and our old dusty streets still fascinate creative minds.

Mumbai: Mumbai-based Domnic Anthony was the only artist from Asia invited for the coveted residency at the Kunstoffe, Berlin — a scrap yard that organises an international artists’ programme with the aim of creatively exploring the possibilities of recycling. And while ‘rubbish’ and ‘garbage’ may be words running through your mind at this point, Anthony explains, “I use wastage, scrap and make it visually interesting by putting it together in an interactive installation.”

What sent the German media into a tizzy was the fruit of his one-and-a-half month long residency — The Tree Of Life — a “futuristic” installation that depicts how important a thriving ecological environment is for our survival as “human beings,” gingerly cling to the delicate branches of a tree.

Anthony says, “Destroying the TREE not only finishes off the immediate life around it, like small creatures, birds etc, but also ultimately destroys LIFE on earth. When consumerism stops, everything stops.”

Interestingly, this ‘UP Trash Artist’s’ (as branded by German media) work also caught the eye of critically acclaimed German artist Adler AF. One thing led to another and, “She suggested we work and exhibit together,” he says.

Although their collaboration is only in the initial stages, they have big plans. Anthony explains, “She might come sometime next year. She plans to work with trash available here and put up an exhibition.”

But one of their more unique collaborations, should it materialise, is the setting set up of Asia’s first trash Museum in Mumbai. Until then, Anthony’s The Tree Of Life has been so well received that his German sponsors have decided to take the exhibit to Florence too.

Visitors entering the Indian Paintings and Decorative Arts Gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts must first pass between two carved sandstone pillars from a 7th century cave temple in the Krishna River Valley.Looking left, visitors will be drawn into the swirling red dreamscape of “Munna Appa’s Kitchen,” a 1994 oil painting by Arpita Singh depicting the plight women face in modern India.

Turning right, they’ll see Jagdish Swaminathan’s iridescent “The Tree, the Bird, the Shadow” which uses hallucinatory images to evoke the wealth of Indian culture.These are just the pole stars of “Bharat Ratna: Jewels of Modern Indian Art,” a mid-sized exhibit that simmers with the vivid colors and pulsing energy of Indian art after the 1947 independence from England.

It surveys six decades of artistic freedom through an ecumenical selection of works by 16 painters whose widely varied approaches embody India’s diverse geography, religion and culture.A tasty buffet rather than a feast, “Bharat Ratna,” which translates literally to ‘Jewel of India,’ nonetheless provides a more than satisfying sampling of efforts by Indian artists to throw off several centuries of foreign cultural imperialism.

Noted collectors Rajiv and Payal Chaudhri, of New York, have loaned all 16 paintings in the exhibit.For this show, they have chosen representative works which reveal the ongoing tension between the “evolving modernism” of Western art and India’s millennial traditions.

Viewers familiar with Hindu statuary will find many painters who shared a similar interest in conceptual rather than realistic imagery and a mutual infatuation with rich hues and mythic subjects.Rajiv Chaudhri said he wanted to share his collection with American viewers because “I am a firm believer in the idea that the art of all ages and religions is the common heritage of mankind.”

“Since Egyptian, Greek and Chinese art are part of my heritage, it follows that I also believe that Indian art is, or should be, part of the heritage of America, Europe, and the other regions of the world,” he said.Organized by Edward Saywell, chairman of Contemporary Art and MFA programs, it is the museum’s first exhibition of modern Indian art. MFA staffers Jane Portal, Amanda Broder and Angie Simonds all worked on the show which runs through Aug. 22.

Payal Chaudhri said painters from all religions created distinctly Indian art that expressed their shared national identity rather than cultural differences.”This is the beauty of modern Indian art. As you look at these paintings, you will not be able to distinguish who painted which: a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhists, a Parsee, or a Sikh. Nor will you know who is the Bengali, the Punjabi, the Kashmiri, the Marathi, the Tamil or the Kannada, or who was born to a high caste or not. They are all represented here. The reason you can not tell is because they are all Indian,” she said.

Often called the “Picasso of India,” Maqbool Fida Husain is represented by a spectacular 1964 oil “Ganesh Darwaza” which depicts a menagerie of actual beasts and divine creatures capering outside the gates of a famous fort. In a single luminous image, Husain demonstrates his genius for portraying India as a fabulously multilayered amalgam of religions, cultures and traditions.In an informative, free brochure accompanying the show, Husain remarked: “In 1945, I was one of a group of painters who thought we must find our own roots. …I have a very definite goal. I must find a bridge between the Western technique and the Eastern concept.”Visitors need no special familiarity with Indian art history to recognize the expressive power and striking beauty of these works.While many had absorbed Western influences, the artists in this show were moving beyond borrowed techniques to forge new identities from venerable traditions.

Krishnaji Howlaji Ara painted classical Indian dancers in shimmering Impressionist colors. Raised Catholic in Portuguese Goa, Francis Newton Souza infused the martyred figures of “Man and Woman” with the darkly brooding sheen of Christian icons. Trying to express Indian subjects with Western techniques, Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar depicted the everyday life of the poor in the flamingcolors of French impressionists.

Asked to identify common elements shared by artists in the show, Payal Chaudhri cited their “sensuality (as) a celebration of life that reveals itself in the subject matter and the confident use of color.”She said the works in “Jewels” make it evident that spirituality is “the hallmark of traditional Indian art.” “At the same time, these artists are intensely individualistic and are not afraid to strike out of their own,” said Payal Chaudhri.

In its March auction, Sotheby’s sold 76 of the 139 lots on offer (54%) while its September auction sold 63 out of the 89 lots on offer (70.8%)
Anindita Ghose
New Delhi: The Indian art market’s recovery could take place earlier than expected, according to a just-out report by London-based art market research firm ArtTactic Ltd. The report says that there is renewed confidence in the market, which had dipped to an all-time low six months ago.

Its current confidence indicator for the Indian art market is pegged at 49, just under the 50 mark. The 50 mark indicates that there are an equal number of positive and negative responses on the outlook for the art market in the short term. In May, the same indicator was in the negative territory, pegged at 20.

The ArtTactic Indian art market confidence indicator for modern and contemporary art is based on interviews with 89 players in the Indian art market. While only 19% of the respondents in May believed the Indian contemporary art market would recover within two years, this has gone up to 33% in October.

Signs of a thawing market have been visible over the last few months. Neha Kirpal, associate director of the India Art Summit that held its second edition in August in New Delhi this year, says that sales at art fairs and auctions are rising. Sree Goswami, director of Project 88, the only Indian gallery to participate in the prestigious Frieze Art Fair in London, was there last month and found the mood at the fair surprisingly upbeat: she sold seven of the 12 works on offer to international buyers with a specific interest in Indian contemporary art.

Sales figures released by art auction houses corroborate these sentiments: In its March auction, Sotheby’s sold 76 of the 139 lots on offer (54.7%) while its September auction sold 63 out of the 89 lots on offer (70.8%). More dramatic are the Indian auction house SaffronArt’s comparative results: Its March auction realized Rs7.8 crore against an estimate of Rs13.2 crore, while its September auction realized Rs17.5 crore, exceeding exceeding its Rs16.4 crore estimate.Interest revival: A 19 August photo of the Indian Art Summit held at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. Rajkumar / Mint
“It was a state of not knowing that prompted market experts to estimate a recovery in two or more years. Things look far better now—success at art fairs such as Frieze and Basel, and recent auction results have put everyone at ease,” says Kirpal. She adds that the number of galleries signing up for the next edition of the India Art Summit has also gone up compared to this year. Summit organizers have booked 8,000 sq. m of space (up from 4,500 sq. m this year) and expect to accommodate 20 more galleries. Kirpalrefutes the negative impact on the market by investors whose money is locked in underperforming art funds.
Dinesh Vazirani, CEO of SaffronArt, corroborates this by saying that the market has shifted from being an investors’ market to a collectors’ market. “The speculative investors are not part of this current growth spurt yet. We now have established collectors and new collectors coming into the fray.”
Besides keeping tabs on the overall market sentiment, the ArtTactic report also tracks confidence levels in individual artists and “survival ratings” for 15 modern and 16 contemporary artists. Among the modern masters, artists such as F.N. Souza, Zarina Hashmi and Jagdish Swaminathan whose indices had remained in the positive territory even in May, show a greater upswing. Amongst the contemporary artists, most striking are the indices for Thukral and Tagra, Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, N.S. Harsha and Jitish Kallat whose indices come back to positive territory after hitting negative lows in the May 2009 report.
Sceptics are wary of putting too much store by the ArtTactic report as they feel that the respondents surveyed stand to benefit by projecting a positive market sentiment. Anders Petterson, managing director of ArtTactic, says that this bias is dealt
with by making sure the survey sample is a balanced mix between the trade such as galleries, auction houses (domestic and international), domestic and international collectors, investors, curators, historians, critics and writers. “It’s a cross-section of the most important players in the Indian art market. Many of them have a long-term interest in the market, and hence their answers will not be driven by short-term decisions,” he says.
Petterson mentions a significant increase in both subscriptions and enquires for bespoke research from the Indian art market client base since the beginning of 2009.
Maithili Parekh, deputy director of Sotheby’s, feels that the ArtTactic report is of value as it is the only available quantifiable report of the Indian art market. “But I would caution against a sole reliance on quantified surveys such as this,” she adds.
Art market quick facts
Top end of the market regains confidence
In May 2009, the ArtTactic confidence survey showed that there was zero confidence in the higher-end of the modern Indian art market. In the last reading in October 2009, 16% of the respondents were positive to the top end of the Indian art market (works valued at $1 million and above), and 25% of the respondents were positive to the $500,000 to $1million price bracket
Prices go down; speculation
The liquidity in the Indian art auction market is down 54% since September 2008, when Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Saffronart raised $23.9 million.
The recent sales in September 2009, raised a total of $11 million. 61% of the respondents believe the modern Indian market could face more downward pressure on prices.
In the contemporary Indian market, 75% of the respondents believe that prices will continue to decrease. However with an expected downward pressure on prices, the risk of speculation has re-entered the market, after a significant drop in May 2009.
The ArtTactic Speculation Barometer shows a 21% increase in the contemporary Indian market. Respondents surveyed expressed concern that significantly lower prices are providing an opportunity for speculators to re-enter the market.

The list of branded watches, bags, and designer clothing now has a new addition – the painting on the wall. Not just any painting but one created by an artist who is a brand by himself. Going by recent auction reports it seems that new records are being created for artists who are perceived as huge brands. The price tags associated with certain artists can only be explained by their brand value. Internationally as well as within the country this trend is catching on big time. Indian artists have never had it better before. Brand Husain is immense and not only because of his art. His penchant for courting controversies and his constant presence in media ensures that his brand value never dips. Just as celebrity participation in talk shows and reality programmes on the small screen have spun success stories for the producers and advertisers, so have a select group of artists for their collectors and investors. The man on the street may not have heard of the local artist living down the lane but will surely have heard of Husain

It is no surprise that art as a profession is catching the imagination of many youngsters. The million dollar records that are set and broken at international auctions spell glamour and attraction. Some of these artists who have a great international appeal and presence have acquired almost a cult status. People seem to covet their works irrespective of the fact whether they can relate to it or not. MF Husain, SH Raza, FN Souza, Subodh Gupta, Jitish Kallat are just some of the names that have become bigger than their art. The demand for these artists has grown dramatically over the years and has translated into phenomenal sales as well. These artists have become synonymous with status and a ready recall value, which adds to their brand value. Even the uninitiated approach art galleries and dealers with names from this list to ensure their investments remains safe and appreciates well in the next few years. It does appear that in art too the brand rules.

Only a month ago – well after the Crisis had kicked off – Forbes was breathlessly reportingthat some billionaires had managed – inadvertently or otherwise – to ‘hedge’ their balance sheets by investing in fine art. Eli Broad, for example, had lost approximately $2 billion in his equities portfolio over the previous year, the magazine reported, but the ‘soaring value’ of his art collection (it increased by $1.9b in the same time, according to a recent appraisal) had nearly made up for it.

Well, I’ve got some bad news for Mr Broad and anyone else with art on the balance sheet. Based on last week’s auction results (and last month’s in London), collectors should be marking down the value of their holdings by roughly 40 percent – which, as it happens, parallels the year-to-date losses on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (down 37 percent since this time last year) and the S&P 500 Index (down 42 percent for the same period).

While the contemporary art auctions in New York last week were not the bloodbaths that some had feared (or hoped for) — Christie’s and Sotheby’s sold 68 percent of the lots in their evening sales (but only 54 percent and 43 percent by value, respectively) — one thing should now be perfectly clear: art is not the strategic investment it has been widely proclaimed to be.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. According to the money magazines, the art-investment fund advisors and the auction houses, art was supposed to be a ‘safe’ alternative to equities, because the ‘returns’ on art had a negative correlation to returns on stocks, meaning that in an economic downturn you might take a bath on your stock portfolio, but the value of your art collection would hold up (or at least long enough for the economy to pull through and for the equity markets to rise again). As Citi Private Bank’s Suzanne Gyorgy told The Business Times last month, when there is a decline in equities, investors will turn to tangible assets and the art market will see a ‘bump’ in value, ‘counter-cyclical to the equities markets’.

Unfortunately an overwhelming number of art market analyses have been relying solely on the conclusions provided by the Mei Moses Fine Art Index. The Fine Art Index compiles ‘art market returns’ (which are derived by looking at works that have sold multiple times at auction) and compares them to the S&P, concluding, primarily, that when the stock market skids, the art market won’t follow suit for another 18-24 months. And sure enough, the last art-market peak came two years after 1987′s ‘Black Monday’. But looked at from a Japanese perspective, there’s no such lag: just as the art market was peaking, so did the Nikkei, which to this day has not returned to its high of 29 December 1989. When the stock market of the world’s biggest art collectors went into freefall, the art market immediately followed. In short, the art market doesn’t trail, and neither is it ‘counter-cyclical’, particularly today, when the bulk of the buyers are far more reliant on wealth that in many instances exists only on paper (and can disappear very rapidly).

Yet no one has been more enamoured of applying financial lingo in the service of increasing prices for contemporary art than the auction houses. Based on recent statements, Tobias Meyer (Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art) and Amy Cappellazzo (International Co-Head for Christie’s Contemporary Art Department) seemed to believe that art at the high end was not just a good alternative to stocks, but close to bullet-proof. As Meyer told Forbes in October, ‘There is an enormous amount of cash out there for very limited [numbers of] works of art… It’s the golden ratio for any market: limited supply, unlimited demand…. The high, high end will get more expensive.’ Of course, Meyer just presided over a sale where demand was not only limited, a mere six works managed to meet their low estimates. And this past April, Cappellazzo, participating in an Artforum panel, told the audience, ‘Warhol’s market trades like currency — it is the most efficient market there is… If you execute the trade at the right level… the market will absorb it all at all levels. It is a perfect market, really.’ Based on the results for Warhol this week (13 percent sold by value at Christie’s), that market isn’t so perfect after all. Can we all now agree that having a painting of a dollar sign isn’t the same thing as having dollars?

None of this is to say that there aren’t good deals on art out there. Just like in the stock and real estate markets, there are works available right now whose value will increase, if not soar. But the thing is, those values are going to peak in tandem with the next run-up in global wealth. Gone are the days of the geographic and financial isolation of art collectors, and gone too is the ‘alternative’ of art as an asset.