How do you go about choosing just one artist in 2009 who continued doing what an artist does best: painting with consistency, experimenting, picking up commissions of a certain scale, and commanding top-of-the-bracket prices in that genre? And who would most likely take this forward in 2010 as the face of Indian art and as, probably, its safest blue-chip investment?

Trends across 2009 were mostly erratic. Even top artists took a sabbatical, gallery movement before the India Art Summit was almost comatose, plummeting prices meant that most contemporary artists went out of circulation, and investor confidence in art was so low it impacted artists’ morale. It is indicative of contemporary art continuing to remain off-stage in 2010: these artists will show more than they sell, they will experiment more, and some like Jitish Kallat will have a huge impact as ambassadors as they present the intellectual face of Indian art internationally.

But no contemporary Indian artist can singly take on the onus of being the face of 2010 — they are showing less, prices still have to rise, and what many of us are getting to see at shows in India or abroad are old works. Others have still to achieve a record of consistency — something that had been ignored in the euphoria that was largely responsible for the crash in prices — and which is why the likes of Sunil Gawde or N S Harsha will have to wait for their spot in the sun.

Among the old guard, gallerists I spoke with put forward interesting suggestions ranging all the way from A Ramachandran to Krishen Khanna, whose works I admire but who have not had any path-breaking shows or created an especial stir to qualify for the role, to Satish Gujral, who it was pointed out has perhaps been India’s most consistent artist and one whose prices have not been impacted by the market. While that may be true, his largely “decorative” features and tag as a “society” artist continue to trip him up. Another friend’s suggestion that Paresh Maity be considered for his ability to re-invent himself held some merit, but Maity too has to fight off the “romantic” tag and travel some more distance to move from “investment-worthy” to “collector-worthy”.

It was surprising that almost no one I spoke to took cognizance of S H Raza’s great influence on the market — there is a frenzy around collecting him, his prices have remained high, there is a buzz around him every time he returns to India (even if the reason is the artist being invited to inaugurate a show of fakes of his own works!), and at auctions or in galleries, he continues to sell well. But the artist is slowing down because of health-related issues, likely to shift to India, and may take some time settling down before he resumes painting again. That hardly qualifies him as the face of 2010, though his success through the year is at least assured.

But by a huge margin, and quite clearly the face of 2009 that will remain the face of 2010, is M F Husain. There was a brief time a few years ago when Husain’s genius was eclipsed, when younger artists were being feted, when some of his peers commanded higher returns at auctions, when he was even dismissed as being too gimmicky or too market-driven. All those nay-sayers can now eat crow. Not only does he make news all the time, and despite staying away from India because of threats to his life (largely exaggerated, I believe, but adding to his aura as an artist-in-exile), Husain continues to thrive.

Recent auctions have confirmed his price hierarchy among Indian artists (Tyeb Mehta, who died this year, has not been included in this survey of only living artists), and the scale of his commissions on the Arab civilisation will leave him richer by millions of dollars. Love him or not, you cannot ignore Husain, and if he remained in the news in 2009, he will continue to make headlines in 2010.

While many in this informal survey voted for Husain, Saffronart’s Dinesh Vazirani summed it up beautifully: “[Husain] has been working consistently throughout the year, mounting some very large exhibitions internationally. The beginning of the year saw his work in the Serpentine show, followed by a large commission from the Sheikha of Qatar. Even with no exhibitions in India, he is still present in the minds of the art world. He travels the world as an ambassador of Indian art bringing in new collectors at every stage. In spite of the slow year for Indian art, his prices in auctions have been good. He has taken his exile from India in the best possible spirit and continues to work with the same passion that he has had over the last 50 years.” Nothing more need be said.

Source – http://www.business-standard.com
Kishore Singh / New Delhi December 30, 2009

The post No Surprises, Really ! first appeared on Indian Art News.

Zhan Wang’s “Artificial Rock” (2007) was on view at Beijing’s Long March Space. 90 x 45 x 85 in.

James Cohan was showing tapestries at his booth, including this one, “Carioca” (2008) from Beatriz Milhazes, at 79 x 79 in.

The post ShContemporary on Solid Footing, Despite Setbacks first appeared on Indian Art News.

The gap can be largely attributed to Christie’s record-shattering Yves Saint Laurent/Pierre Bergé single-owner extravaganza in Paris in February, which brought a staggering €374,392,500 ($484.4 million). Twelve works sold for over $10 million each at the six-session sale, including Henri Matisse’s 1911 still life Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose, which fetched $46,457,480. It was the most expensive picture ever to sell at auction since Claude Monet’s Bassin aux nympheas (1919) sold at Christie’s London to private consultant Tania Buckrell Pos for a record £40,921,250 ($80,451,178) in June 2008.

Comparisons are also striking in two critical fine art arenas, Impressionist/modern and postwar/contemporary, where Christie’s posted worldwide auction sales of $620.7 million and $192.3 million, respectively, as opposed to Sotheby’s approximate breakdowns of $240 million and $200 million. Again, the one-off YSL sale was a major factor.

Sotheby’s CEO William Ruprecht sought a silver lining during a conference call session following the firm’s second-quarter filing, perhaps largely in an effort to make up for recent restructuring and cost-cutting, saying, “Our auction commission margins are up 41 percent, and operating costs are down 39 percent [excluding restructuring charges].” Christie’s has also struck a positive note, with CEO Edward Dolman stating, after the company’s figures were released July 23, that the house is “delighted to have further enhanced our leading global-market share in the first half of 2009 and increased sold-by percentages at all price levels.” But both houses suffered during the financial downturn, compared with the same six-month period a year ago, with Christie’s auction sales (even with YSL) dropping 52 percent from $3.2 billion and Sotheby’s 67 percent from $3 billion. The houses performed similarly in private sales or so-called “private treaty” transactions, which include sales at Christie’s wholly owned gallery subsidiary Haunch of Venison and Sotheby’s Noortman Master Paintings, with Christie’s racking up $199.7 million and Sotheby’s $198.4 million. But while Christie’s private-sale figures were down 34 percent from the same six-month period the previous year, Sotheby’s registered a 46 percent uptick in private transactions for the second fiscal quarter, with $134 million.

That’s about as much comparison as anyone can do, since Christie’s, a privately held company controlled by French multibillionaire François Pinault, remains a closed book in terms of reporting any profit/loss picture. At Sotheby’s, a publicly owned American firm with stringent public financial disclosures, though, the picture is pretty clear.

For the second quarter that ended June 30, Sotheby’s registered net income of $12.2 million. This compares with $95.3 million for the same period last year — hence the 87 percent plunge — but still, it was the first profitable quarter reported by the firm after three consecutive quarters of losses.
For the bigger first-six-month period of 2009, though, Sotheby’s suffered a net loss of $22.3 million, compared with net income of $82.9 million for the same period a year ago. And that’s despite a 28 percent reduction in operating costs.

Ruprecht credited the blitzkrieg cuts in both staff and operations during the teleconference on Tuesday. “We adjusted quickly to the different and difficult environment that suddenly presented itself, and we are very well positioned to capitalize on a market rebound and benefit from improved margins and lower costs,” he said.

Those improved “margins,” relating to how much money the firm makes in its auction-room business, largely refer to the recent absence of super-high-priced lots that often go to auction without any commission charges on the seller’s part.

Sotheby’s, like Christie’s, has for the most part stopped its risky strategy of offering financial guarantees to lure high-end property to auction, and with it, the chance to take a bigger cut in star-lot profits. This more conservative posture further reduces the salesroom gambling that led to millions of dollars in losses for both houses when the postwar and contemporary art market tanked last November.

During the teleconference, Ruprecht fielded a question from a financial analyst covering the industry as to whether “we’ve hit the bottom or can things get worse.” He responded, “I think we’ve seen pretty much the bottom of what we’d anticipated in terms of the volume of commerce in our business. … I don’t see it getting any worse than first-half volumes.”

If Sotheby’s sticks to its plan to save $160 million in costs by the end of the year and manages to attract sufficient auction-bound and private property to improve its financial footing, the firm stands a chance to return to profitability.

The stock market reacted unfavorably to Sotheby’s financial report card on Wednesday, with BID (Sotheby’s trading acronym) dropping 51 cents (3.4 percent) to close at $14.48 per share. That compares with a 52-week high of $28.92 per share last August.

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction.

The post Sotheby’s Posts Sobering First-Half Results first appeared on Indian Art News.

The post The new reality—the state of the art market in 2009 is not easy to predict first appeared on Indian Art News.