Indian Contemporary Art - Indian Art News

Kaushlendra Pratap Singh: Bridging the Past and Present Through Abstract Art

visionsart — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 10:03:33 +0000

Born in the vibrant landscapes of Uttar Pradesh in 1987, Kaushlendra Pratap Singh has embarked on a creative journey spanning over 15 years, leading him to a profound exploration of the abstract realm. His artistic odyssey began during his academic pursuits, where he meticulously honed his skills at Allahabad University, culminating in a BFA in 2009. Seeking further enlightenment, he pursued an MFA at Raja Mansingh Tomar University, Gwalior, in 2011. It was during this transformative period that he embarked on a captivating artistic pilgrimage, eventually finding his calling in the realm of abstract art at the renowned Bharat Bhawan, Bhopal.

Scribbling of earth, Mixed media on paper, 2022, Kaushlendra Pratap Singh

Inspired by History: Kaushlendra’s inspiration flows from a deep-seated fascination with ancient objects, evoking a yearning for the past that channels into his art. In the midst of modernity’s relentless march, his soul finds solace in the embrace of nostalgia. He believes that delving into history is an endeavor of understanding our roots and rediscovering the essence of human existence.

The Artistic Process: Kaushlendra’s artistic process emanates from a union of the conscious and subconscious mind. He strives to unlock the depths of his thoughts, feelings, and experiences, transcending the physical and venturing into the ethereal. This amalgamation of the conscious and subconscious mind manifests in his work, giving it a multifaceted richness that invites contemplation and introspection.

Capturing Fleeting Moments: As Kaushlendra observes the ever-changing face of the earth, he is acutely aware of the transient nature of existence. Through his art, he strives to capture these fleeting moments, immortalizing them on the canvas. His subjects become vessels to encapsulate the essence of time, preserving fragments of history and breathing life into them through abstract interpretations.

Caves and Ancient Monuments: Caves, with their enigmatic allure, and ancient monuments’ architectural magnificence captivate Kaushlendra as subjects of exploration. The ancient caves, witnesses to the unfathomable passage of time, whisper secrets from epochs long gone. Their geological formations, illuminated by playfully dancing light, become metaphors for the human psyche, mirroring the complexities of the human soul.

Delving into the architecture of ancient monuments opens gateways to the past. These awe-inspiring structures, once bustling centers of human activity, now stand as silent witnesses to the passage of centuries. Kaushlendra endeavors to unlock their stories, employing the language of abstraction to bridge the gap between the ancient and the contemporary.

A Meditative Realm: By gazing into the abstract forms Kaushlendra creates, he aspires to transport his audience to a meditative realm, where the boundaries between past, present, and future dissipate, leaving them immersed in a transcendent experience. Through his work, he aims to inspire reflection on the beauty and impermanence of existence and the timeless legacy of human civilization.

In conclusion, Kaushlendra Pratap Singh’s artistic journey has been one of self-discovery and a quest to unveil the enigmatic past. Inspired by ancient objects and driven by nostalgia, his art delves into the profound depths of consciousness, where the conscious and subconscious intertwine. His subjects, caves, and ancient monuments, serve as conduits to channel the essence of time into the abstract realm. With his creations, he strives to kindle an introspective flame within the beholder, fostering a profound connection to our shared human heritage and the eternal flow of time.

Stay tuned for the unveiling of Kaushlendra Pratap Singh’s exquisite artworks on VisionsArts.com. Get ready to embark on an artistic journey like no other!

#IndianArt #AbstractArt #ArtCollection #VisionsArts #KaushlendraPratapSingh #ComingSoon

The post Kaushlendra Pratap Singh: Bridging the Past and Present Through Abstract Art first appeared on Indian Art News.

Unveiling the Artistry of Cheena Madan – A Tale of Colors and Imagination

visionsart — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 14:01:43 +0000

Meet Cheena Madan, a self-taught artist whose abstract works are about to grace the canvas of VisionsArts.com!

Despite having no formal education in fine arts, Cheena’s journey has been a testament to the power of imagination and boundless creativity. From a young age, she exhibited an extraordinary talent, painting in a naturalistic manner and experimenting with textures, techniques, and ideas that danced across her canvas.

Cheena Madan, Visions Art

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Contented Flounce , Acrylic On Canvas, By Cheena Madan – 2021

Acrylics are her chosen medium, allowing her to breathe life into her unique artistic style. Nature serves as her muse, and in her works, she captures the grandeur of the soul while embracing the serenity that lies within. It’s a gentle reminder to a world that often forgets the beauty that surrounds us.

Get ready to embark on a visual journey like no other as we prepare to unveil Cheena Madan’s beautiful and vibrant abstract creations on VisionsArts.com. Stay tuned for an artistic experience that will ignite your senses!

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From Husain to Picasso, the Indian buyer is getting eclectic

visionsart — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 11:47:00 +0000

After years of selling Indian art to affluent NRIs, international auction houses are now looking to expand the market to Indians at home.

After years of selling Indian art to affluent NRIs, international auction houses are now looking to expand the market to Indians at home. Neelam Raaj spoke to Edward Gibbs, chairman and head of the India department at Sotheby’s London, and Yamini Mehta, senior director for South Asian art, about the changing tastes of the Indian collector.

Your first India office is opening in Mumbai next month. Is there now an India auction on the cards?

EG: We’re certainly listening to the needs of our clients, and at the moment we are bringing a series of travelling exhibitions, lectures and other bespoke events. In the future, auctions are a strong possibility. Indians have become more active in our international sales. Just last year, there were 25-30% more Indian buyers.

You recently described Indians as buyers and not sellers. Is it difficult to make them part with their works?

EG: I stand by that. Indians are primarily buyers. Indian clients start with items of cultural heritage, transition into luxury categories such as jewellery and watches and then trophy pieces like impressionist and modern paintings. There has been a five-fold increase in Indian buyers in 2015 in the jewellery and impressionist-modern categories.

Have Indians taken a shine to jewellery auctions?
EG: If you look at a five-year span from 2010-2015, Indian buyers have bought and bid $400 million in jewellery alone in our global sales. Some look for stones, others for heirlooms and yet others shop for weddings. There is no typical buyer but they are very active in the top end and are driving global sales.

Has the Indian art market recovered from the slump post 2008, especially contemporary art?
YM: There have been multi-million-dollar prices for the modernists like V S Gaitonde, S H Raza etc. Even mid-career artists are getting more visibility. There’s a collector in Ohio who is going to showcase Sudarshan Shetty, Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher at the Pizzuti museum later this year. Nasreen Mohamedi is having a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new space which was formerly the Whitney. It’s such a coup that this brand new space will open with an Indian artist. Come summer, Bhupen Khakar will be featured at the Tate. So Indian artists are beginning to be shown in new places.

With modern artists so much in demand, isn’t it tough to get your hands on that special piece that can be the star at an auction. Aren’t there just that many Gaitondes or Razas?
EG: You have to scale the mountain every time. But it’s a challenge we relish. We are like hunter-gatherers, looking for trophies, and the next cover lot. This time we’re very fortunate, and we have sourced a Gaitonde for the South Asia sale in March that’s become a talking point.
YM: It’s the largest work he’s ever done on canvas, and was initially done for Air India. It has that airy feel, and a sense of space and eternity. It eventually didn’t go to Air India and ended up with another artist-collector called Bal Chhabra who supported many of these artists. Chhabra parted with works like Raza’s Maa but this was the one piece that he didn’t want to part with in his lifetime.

Edward, you’re an expert in classical Indian art. Are miniatures a good investment bet?
The miniature market is extremely buoyant. In October 2015, the collection of a Londoner, Sven Gahlin, which included many miniatures went on sale. It was a 95% sell-through rate. There are a lot of new buyers from India. We see some collectors of modern and contemporary looking at it seriously as they expand their collections to the classical period. It’s a niche area and the quality is fabulous. Compared with other areas of the global art market, they do represent very good value for money.

Indians have always had a comfort level with art from their own country. Is that changing and are they open to looking beyond their borders?
YM: As people are travelling and becoming more global in their mindset, you’ll have all kinds of eclecticism in collecting. Even here you can have a home that looks completely western in its decor or completely traditional or a mix of both. So you have people who have an M F Husain and a Damien Hirst on their walls. There are several Indian collectors who buy top names in western art like Picasso and Van Gogh.

Any other highlight of the South Asia sale?

YM: There’s a wonderful Amrita Sher-Gil titled In the Garden. This comes from the Hungarian side of her family. It was painted in her grandmother’s garden. It has influences from Bruegel, Gaugin and Cezanne and elements of Indian miniatures such as the multiple perspectives.

The recent India Art Fair changed its focus to art from the subcontinent this time. How do you see the South Asian art scene shaping up?

YM: India is still dominant but new markets are coming up. After the India Art Fair, collectors and curators have headed to the Dhaka Art Summit which is going on as we speak, and this time it has big international artists like Tino Sehgal taking part. A Lahore biennale is also in the works. Sri Lanka is doing quite well, especially works from the 43 group. In fact, we have an early work by Senaka Senanayake, one of Sri Lanka’s best artists, in the New York sale.

Credits – Neelam Raaj | TNN | Feb 6, 2016, 10.20 PM IST

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Art is anything but ‘elitist’, says Kiran Nadar

visionsart — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 15:44:00 +0000

Chandna Arora,TNN | Jun 15, 2014, 12.00 AM IST

Kiran Nadar, founder of India’s only private art museum, says that she wants the common man to go to museums regularly

All the things you think of when you hear the words ‘art’ and ‘museum’ together in the same sentence, are absent when you visit the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. It’s inside a mall, a couple of minutes from one of the busiest shopping-eating-chilling hubs in South Delhi. There’s nothing subtle or boring about it – even before you enter, you’re greeted by a gigantic mushroom cloud of utensils, Subodh Gupta’s Line Of Control, towering 36 feet above you.

However, museums as Indians know them are usually state-funded and slightly academic – what is, then, a ‘private, philanthropic’ museum, which KNMA is? Founder and chairperson Kiran Nadar explains, “Basically, a museum is a place of learning, intended to expose people to various tracks of cultural activity and art, in various forms. The state has certain responsibilities (to build museums), but in America – let’s take that as an example, since it has the maximum number of private museums – most museums are not state-funded, and are comprised of collections of various people who’ve collected through their life and then donated it to form a private museum, which is how this culture of private museums started. Our thought was that I had a collection, and I felt I should do something meaningful with it, not just put it into storage.”

“And from that came the idea of setting up a private museum along the lines of what is in abundance in the US, thereby fostering the arts and sharing the collection with people,” says Nadar. “Basically, I also get to see my own collection, which I wouldn’t if it were in storage! I felt that art dissemination and art knowledge translation was what something we could do.” To that aim, it’s also “not for profit,” she says. “The collection has been deemed to the museum, and entry is free. We do school outreach programs, workshops – whatever we can do to foster the arts, we try to do.”

Nadar has stressed that she’d like to see ‘sustained dialogue’ and ‘visibility for modern and contemporary Indian art’ – but doesn’t Indian art have visibility globally already? Or is it that the Indian is less aware of Indian art than the rest of the world? “It has limited visibility – I wouldn’t say less or more – but Indian modern and contemporary art, compared to, say, Chinese modern and contemporary art, is definitely on the backburner. Chinese collectors are definitely more (in number), and it has a more sophisticated, larger collector base. In India, that base is very small. Because of that base being small, the dialogue with art is also much less. You don’t find a museum being part of people’s activities on a regular basis. If you go to any western city, you find that people visit museums in the normal course of things – if a show opens, the common person, not just the art connoisseur or art-interested – will go and visit. But in India, that hasn’t happened. Even at the NGMA – take a show like Anish Kapoor’s – it got visibility, it got footfalls, but again, I feel they could have been much more. The wider audience did not go in the numbers that they should have,” she says. “There is a gap in the dissemination of knowledge to people, which needs to be bridged so that they decide that a museum is not a stultified, boring, moth-eaten place. It is vibrant, like going to an exciting movie. It has the same kind of stimulating possibilities. Therefore, people have to get interested in doing this, they have to go to a museum once in six weeks, once a month; it has to become a part of their to-do list. India has such a great heritage of art, and it’s a shame that culture is not disseminating further.”

Art is anything but ‘elitist’, says Nadar, and she’d like people to learn that through the various outreach programs that the museum does. “When we have a school project, we try and tell the kids to bring their parents. Normally, it’s the parents who bring the kids, but the reverse might happen if the kids become interested. The dialogue with the lay person is important. Unless the lay person gets interested, it’ll remain ‘elitist’, and the aim is to keep it for everyone,” she asserts.

One of the few instances when ‘everyone’ does get to hear of art is when Indian works are snapped up at exorbitant prices in global auctions. Is that one of the reasons people think it’s elitist? “Prices do have a curiosity value. It’s like a 100 crore film, but people are not going to watch it just because it’s a 100 crore blockbuster, they’re going because of the entertainment value of the movie. That is what we want to inculcate. The curiosity of a painting going at a certain price is always going to be there, it always has an ‘awe value’, but if that value can be translated into people saying ok, this artist’s work is showing at the museum, then there should be a natural curiosity of people going to see that work. But when you have a show, you can’t always have trophy works to lure people. The aim is to show work which is part of a theme. Like this show (Is It What You Think?), it has a work on the Babri Masjid, which has a historical perspective. Even though there are no trophy works, there is a Nalini Malani retrospective. The show has a social ambit, social messages that are very strong. We want people to feel motivated to see and relate to these works,” she says.

Nadar starting collecting art ‘for herself’, but that changed when she set up the museum. “Initially, it was completely subjective to what I felt I should buy, and that stays – if I feel a work is important, I’ll buy it. But today, I look at it in more depth, I look at the collection as a whole, and if I’m collecting Indian art, then I look at gaps in my collection. If someone asks, are you buying this for yourself, I tell them there’s no ‘self’ left at all, unfortunately – it’s all for the museum. I’m still emotional about art, but I don’t buy as impulsively as I did. I study a lot more before I go in and get a work,” she says. She’s also planning a third building for the museum, an iconic structure in Delhi with the ‘destination value’ of the sort that the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has.

The museum has three ongoing exhibitions currently – one is Chapter 2 of Nalini Malani’s Retrospective (1964 – 2014) – You Can’t Keep Acid In A Paper Bag. The second is Unfinished Portraits, which features in-depth oeuvres of 16 Indian artists from the KNMA Collection. The exhibition displays a contextual history of Modernism in India, its ideological moorings at Santiniketan with Nandalal Bose, Binode Behari Mukherjee, Ramkinkar Baij, Krishna Reddy, Somnath Hore and Ganesh Pyne from Kolkata, two artists – FN Souza and MF Husain from the Progressive Artists’ Group (Mumbai), and Jeram Patel, Himmat Shah, Arpita Singh and Bhupen Khakhar from Baroda and Delhi, and also contextual photographs of Madan Mahatta, Richard Bartholomew and Ida Kar. The third is Is It What You Think? – Ruminations On Time, Memory and Site, a group exhibition showcasing the work of 17 artists. The exhibition is intended as a compliment to the three-part retrospective of Malani’s work.

Nadar says that this momentum started last year with their Nasreen Mohamedi retrospective last year, the largest retrospective of her works in the world, with 138 works. On Is It What You Think?, she says, “This particular show has 17 different artists with their perspectives on war, on various things that have happened socially in the Indian fabric. There’s a perspective this year – society has slightly greater awareness. We’re showing Amar Kanwar’s video installation on rape, but it’s a burning subject, with the Badaun rape, Nirbhaya… Bengal to UP, everywhere it’s a malaise, and it’s incomprehensible how depravity of this kind can exist. And yet these artists have talked about it in an earlier period of their lives. There is a great social fabric to this show and it mirrors society in more ways than you’d expect. Babri Masjid (demolition) on one level happened many years ago, but today again, the issue of a Ram temple might emerge. There are issues to be seen and to be connected with.”

But the Modern masters remain closest to her heart, because “that collection is completely from the KNMA collection, it’s part of what I have collected. It’s a very intimate show because all the works are small and paper works, and it’s I suppose easier to comprehend for the lay person, because it’s translatable into a figurative rendering. It’s very dear to my heart because all these small works I collected out of complete passion for the art, at the stage when I was buying for myself,” she says, smiling fondly.

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Husain’s paintings fetch $4.7 million at New York auctions

visionsart — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 04:48:00 +0000

A collection of over 20 paintings by legendary artist M.F. Husain fetched $4.7 million at auctions held at the prestigious Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York.

An auction held on Thursday at Sotheby’s of 11 masterpieces by late Husain fetched a total of $557,500 with one of his paintings Man with Sitar selling for $146,500.

However, proceeds from the Sotheby’s auction paled in comparison to those generated at Christie’s two days ago, where a single Husain work was sold for $1.14 million.

At the Christie’s sale, Sprinkling Horses went under the hammer for $1.14 million, one of the highest amounts ever paid for the late master’s work.

It was among the 13 paintings that were auctioned at Christie’s sale of South Asian modern and contemporary art.

The 13 paintings were sold for a total of $4.2 million.

Eleven Husain paintings were on sale at Sotheby’s, which presented Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art including Indian Miniature Paintings as part of its week of Asian art auctions.

A legendary artist, whose work often landed him in controversy, Husain passed away in June this year. He was among the first and few artists from India to be in the ‘one million dollar club’

His Empty Bowl at the Last Supper was sold for $2 million in 2005, which was at that time the highest sum ever paid for a work of modern Indian art.

In 2008, Husain’s Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata fetched $1.6 million, setting a world record at Christie’s South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale.

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Concept drives contemporary Indian art

visionsart — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:12:00 +0000

Source: Times of India

Concept is driving contemporary Indian art to probe new frontiers beyond the conventional formats.

“There is a new interest in conceptual discourse in art in India. The thought processes going into a work of art is much more serious and theoretical now because India is functioning in the global realm,” curator and critic Heidi Fichtner, said in an interview.

Fichtner, the programme director of the Seven Art Gallery Limited in the capital, works with concept artists across different media.

Fichtner said leading galleries in India were promoting artists who could hold their own in the international framework.

“At international art fairs, Indian artists have to compete with foreign artists who have more theoretical and conceptual grounding,” she said.

Concept art as a mainstream artistic genre gained currency in the late 1990s when a talented young group of artists like Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Bose Krishnamachari, Shilpa Gupta, Riyas Komu, N. Harsha, T.V. Santosh, Jitish Kallat, Mithu Sen, Bharati Kher and several others began to work on “concepts or ideas” – both realistic and abstract – in multi-media.

Vadodara-based Japanese artist Shinobu Mikami’s works are grounded in a personal concept of change.

Mikami, who studied art in Japan and France before coming to India, uses glass, fabric, language, drawing and experimental memory to create delicate translucent shapes, nebulous landscapes and shadowy figures on paper, canvas and three-dimensional objects.

“Glass as a medium attracts me because of its presence and absence. It helps me create intimate images,” Shinobu Mikami, a student of sculpture at Vadodara (Baroda) in Gujarat, said in an interview.

Her glass works include a broken drinking glass in which the cracks fan out like tentacles of a spider and the shards lie in abstract abandon. Mountains of blasted glass powder fringe her landscapes of glass.

Comparing Indian and Japanese concept art, Mikami said: “Indian art was still more grounded in figurative drawing and manual interventions unlike Japan where contemporary art was totally conceptual and driven by high-technology.”

Chennai-based artist Ganesh Selvaraj’s new series made of paper shreds from old magazines rely on the notions of time, infinity and artist’s personal experience of the world.

“The concept of the series is seed, which can represent an idea, a thought or the centre of the flower. Each shred of paper is a seed,” Selvaraj said.

Selvaraj is preparing for its next project which is an “ambitious plan to drive a public carrier – either a truck and or an auto-rickshaw in Chennai to interact with his audience – the people”.

“It is a human art project I am thinking of,” he said.

Asim Waqif, who teaches at the Delhi School of Architecture and Planning, uses bamboo, rope and hi-tech micro-electronics for his installations to “link the old with new -tradition and technology”.

“I am taking a bamboo installation using traditional tying techniques and fitted with sound and touch sensors to Art Hong Kong, an international art fair in Hong Kong in September,” he said in an interview.

Nearly 260 galleries from 38 countries will take part in the fair.

“My work speaks of the constant desire for newness which often makes one forget the importance of vernacular systems that were there before. I am trying to break the barrier and making people respond to the old systems with the help of electronics,” Waqif said.

Indo-Brazilian artist Vijay Patchineelam, who will also be exhibiting at Art Hong Kong, creates books. Crafted stylistic books, books with open sheaves and spread-eagled books in monochrome are symbolic of the consistency that the artist uses as his concept.

“I think colours distract viewers from the real work of art,” the artist says.

Artists Subhdarshini Singh, a former health journalist, uses medicine and health as her concepts for her art.

“It is a new concept and there is nothing like it in India. The first medical art dates back to 15,000 years in rock caves located in the South of France,” the capital-based artist said.

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Tyeb Mehta, Souza lead auction stakes at Christie’s

visionsart — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:06:00 +0000

Source: News One

New Delhi, May 26 (IANS) The early masters of Indian contemporary art and the progressive group of artists like Tyeb Mehta, F.N. Souza and Akbar Padamsee are high on the auction stakes at the Christie’s sale of South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art in London June 9.

The most significant work which will go under the hammer is an untitled painting by Mehta of a figure sitting on a rickshaw painted in 1984. Estimated at 1,200,000 pounds (Rs.88,630,184), it is one of the key works to have come to the market in this decade, Christie’s said in a statement Thursday.

The sale also includes another rare and early work by Mehta dating to 1961, which was exhibited in a seminal show of Indian Art in 1962, curated by the English art critic George M. Butcher.

The work estimated at 250,000 pounds (Rs.18,468,410) posts the well-known influence that post war master Francis Bacon had on Souza. The demand for Mehta was highlighted this spring when ‘Bulls’, a diptych painted in 2005 set a world auction record at 1.7 million pounds (Rs.125,569,391) at Christie’s in New York.

A selection by paintings by F.N. Souza is another high point of the auction.

After the landmark success of the sale of works from the Francis Newton Souza Estate (an archive of works managed by the family of the artist) in 2010, Christie’s has put 54 selected works by Souza on sale, including 45 from the family archives. The most valuable lot of Souza’s work offered for the first time in over half a century is from the private collection of an English gentleman.

‘Landscape’, painted in 1958, is the most crucial of the lot painted during the high point of Souza’s career.

The work, a large format painting, illustrates the inherent tension between nature and civilization using savage brushstrokes and a fiery palette. It is estimated at 500,000 pounds (Rs.36,932,174).

Another important lot on sale is an untitled work by Akbar Padamsee painted during the artist’s tenure in Paris in 1955. Sourced from the private collection of the famed contemporary art dealer Yvon Lambert, it is estimated at 400,000 pounds (Rs.29,551,882).

The auction house said ‘international appeal of this category (early contemporary artists) continues to grow with participation from buyers in Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE, US and Europe’. The sale as a whole expects to raise in excess of 4 million pounds (Rs.295,518,823).

Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary South Asian Art at Christie’s, said the focus was on Indian art this year in the international market.

‘This sale presents one of the most exciting groups of contemporary South Asian Art ever to be offered in a auction,’ Mehta said.

‘The international art world continues to deepen its interest, understanding, appreciation and support of South Asian artists, with this year’s Venice Biennale featuring the first-ever Indian Pavilion and institutions like the Centre Pompidou currently showing ‘Paris-Delhi-Bombay…’, featuring three Indian artists while Musee Guimet is holding a solo show of artist Rina Banerje.’

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Sotheby’s, Christie’s Contemporary-Art Sales Total Drops 75%

visionsart — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:08:00 +0000

Annual sales of contemporary art slumped 75 percent at the two largest auction houses’ evening sales in 2009 after they abandoned price guarantees to sellers.

Sotheby’s and Christie’s International made a combined total of $482.3 million with fees from their five regular “Part I” sales of high-value art in New York and London this year, according to figures compiled by Bloomberg News. In 2008, the same group of flagship auctions made $1.97 billion. That compares with a record $2.4 billion in 2007, and $1.1 billion in 2006.

Worldwide auction sales of contemporary art grew more than eightfold between 2003 and 2007, according to France-based database Artprice. Demand contracted in the fourth quarter of 2008, after the September collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., with Sotheby’s and Christie’s losing at least $50 million and $40 million respectively as artworks failed to achieve prices guaranteed to sellers. Phillips de Pury & Co. also stopped providing guarantees before its fall series of sales.

“As soon as guarantees were taken off the table, sellers became uncertain,” said Philip Hoffman, chief executive of the London-based Fine Art Fund. “Clients don’t want to see big- ticket works go to public auction and fail. A lot of people turned to discreet private sales at the auction houses.”

Private sales of contemporary art raised more than auctions at Christie’s in the first half of 2009, said the London-based auction house. Sotheby’s would not comment on private sales.

Demand Declines

Demand declined at smaller evening auctions in London and New York during the first half of the year. Christie’s February sale in London raised only 8.4 million pounds ($13.6 million), the lowest total at an evening event in the U.K. capital since 2004.

During the first six months of 2009, no single work sold for more than $10 million. The top price was the $7.9 million paid at Christie’s, New York, in May for David Hockney’s 1966 painting, “Beverly Hills Housewife.”

“At the time, people didn’t know what the art was worth or what they themselves were worth,” Francis Outred, Christie’s European head of contemporary art, said in an interview. “They were looking at each other in the saleroom and waiting for someone else to bid.”

As the slump continued, auction houses cut estimates by 50 percent or more from 2008 levels to shore up selling rates.

Richter Low

At Christie’s London in July — where 88 percent of the reduced 40-lot offering found buyers — a 1974 Gerhard Richter color-chart painting sold for 1.4 million pounds, at the low end of estimates. Another version from the same series fetched $4.1 million at Sotheby’s New York in May 2008, also near the lower estimate.

Following reports of improved levels of business at contemporary-art fairs such as Art Basel in June and Frieze in London in October, selling rates and prices increased at evening auctions in the final quarter of this year.

On Nov. 11, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed at a 13-month high. Three hours later, Sotheby’s held a $134.4 evening auction of contemporary art in New York at which only two of the 54 offered lots failed. The total beat both a high estimate of $97.7 million and the company’s $125.1 million tally in November 2008.

Warhol Bills

Andy Warhol’s 1962 painting “200 One Dollar Bills” became the most expensive contemporary work sold this year, when five bidders pushed the price to $43.8 million. Entered by London-based collector Pauline Karpidas, it had been attractively estimated at $8 million to $12 million.

“It was the most significant event of the season,” Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s worldwide head of contemporary art, said in an interview. “Up until then, nothing was trading above $20 million in the market.”

The policy of lowering estimates to generate high success rates had proven to sellers that the market for contemporary art “was alive and well at a recalibrated level,” Meyer said.

The success of the Warhol, together with a general stabilization of prices, is encouraging collectors to offer works publicly, said auction-house specialists.

“It’s balancing from private toward auctions again,” said Outred, of Christie’s. “It’s like the difference between night and day. The phones are ringing and people are interested in selling.”

The auction houses are aware that the market remains acutely price-sensitive.

“We need to continue to be conservative with estimates,” said Meyer, of Sotheby’s. “The market will be completely determined by supply at the right level. If sellers become overconfident, it will freeze again.”

By – Scott Reyburn

(Scott Reyburn writes about the art market for Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.)
Dec. 16 (Bloomberg)

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Art: Tough times always produce timeless works

visionsart — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:05:00 +0000

The economy is in recession, everything is in a state of flux, and no one knows where the world is heading to. It turns out these are ideal In pics: Contemporary Art conditions for art to evolve. If all goes well, a number of artists, galleries and collectors would find this as an opportunity to combine ambition, style, esprit de corps, and connoisseurship.
Says art critic Jerry Saltz who writes columns for The Village Voice and New York magazines: The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists—especially emerging ones—won’t have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They’ll be able to experiment as much as they want.” The uncertain future is definitelty determining the present. But it is surely not being pulled back by the recent past.
The art world was redefined and retracted when there was a financial crunch in the forties, seventies and the nineties. Says artist Riyas Komu who held a solo show in Berlin immediately after the financial crisis: “I think artists become more experimental at a stage when the surroundings change drastically and also at point when it grows globally. We saw it with Indian art when the nation started moving faster.”
What about recession? “Recession is bad for everyone,” he adds though he begs to differ that it would benefit the art world. “In relation with art if you say it’s good, its like saying tragedy (war) is good for art, I think it’s a cynical view point … One should say an artist becomes more careful and drastically reactionary when the society oscillates.”
However poet and artist Sanjeev Khandekar who has created a body of works critiquing the stock markets and their foundation on speculation feels that a meltdown and drying up of the markets actually would make artists think better.
“Bad times have seen radical art but the good times have always seen more experimentation. Recession is bad for everything. Good art is produced in all times; good, bad and sad times have all witnessed good art. An artist is not a trader. A trader gets the heat of recession. Recession will help to separate “crafty decorative” art that was selling, from good art.”
However, these unstable times also brings in some circumspection. Hence Khandekar immediately appends: “We must remember that good time also facilitates some unusual experimentation and brings in lots of new possibilities. During bad times fascist tendencies and other similar oppressive elements start setting in the system which sometimes does not allow experiments to take place.”
Shalini of Guild Art Gallery has a steadier opinion. She feels that in a boom as well as a downturn artists did have the chance and inclination to experiment. “Just that the tone would be different. In boom the experiments may have been bolder, larger in scale and ambitious In downturn the experiments may take different direction. But I would say that most creative artists would always be experimenting.”
So there is no hurry to throw cheer to the winds. Unhealthy practices like deliberate inflations, artificial scarcity of works of living artists, organised hoardings, planted reviews and orchestrated praise and criticism are fast disappearing and art enthusiasts are seeing this as the right time to open galleries. It has happened before and it is happening now.
London, New York, Singapore and back home in New Delhi several galleries have come up in the past couple of months. Says Anders Petterson, founder and managing director of Art Tactic.com that had published an Indian Art Market Confidence Survey in October, 2008: “A correction is healthy for the sustainability of the art market.
The interest in art will not disappear, art and artists will not disappear—if anything, a tougher environment will be more conducive to artistic creativity, and hopefully the market will go back to focusing on what constitutes the real value of art, as art history is rarely made in the auction rooms.”
That hushers in a mood of introspection. “Slowing down to contemplate cannot be a bad thing,” says Usha Mirchandani of Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke. She held a show by German painter Norbert Bisky at her gallery which just close to the Taj hotel in Mumbai.
“We had his opening at which he spoke about his work, his bonding with India because of the experience he went through and he was very positive about the role of art in life. I would like to hold on to that thought through the coming months and focus on the certainty that things will be good again, value will be restored to art.”
So all is not murky in the world of art. And Riyas Komu vouches for that. “Art wont be an uncle and aunty business at least for sometime,” he declares. Well it will surely give birth to some new babies.

Source – Eonomic Times

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