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Simultaneously, the 13th Art Forum – Berlin’s International Fair for Contemporary Art – is being staged at the city’s Funkturm trade fair grounds.

This brings together 127 galleries from 26 countries, and around 2,000 participating artists from across Europe, as well as from Russia, India, South Africa, the USA and Central America.
Mumbai-based artist Riyas Komu, seen as one of the most promising contemporary Indian artists, is meanwhile giving his first German solo exhibition of sculptures and paintings at the Bodhi Gallery.

One of 37-year-old Komu’s epic sculptural installations titled “Watching the other world spirits from the gardens of Babylon” is seen as a take on the US invasion of Iraq with its immediate physical and traumatic impact on the individual and his or her surroundings.
Wagon-like constructions, carved from used wood and detailed with skull and brain depictions refer, he says, “to the origin of all militaristic methods of destruction, namely mankind.”
Komu is often termed a champion of the underdog – with his sculptures and paintings questioning what people hide behind the masks of their faces. He employs a dozen workers in Mumbai who all come from the village where he used to live.

“It is interesting to introduce traditional craft into my work. Such craft used to be used only for decorative or luxurious purposes, whereas I use it in an entirely different context,” he said.
The director of the 2008 Berlin Art Forum is Sabrina van der Ley, who shortly will become curator of contemporary art at the Kunsthalle (Art Hall) in Hamburg.

“Since the Art Forum began in Berlin in 1996 it’s grown into the biggest art fair in Germany, which was what everybody was hoping for,” she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
“In those 13 years it has also become the most important art market place in Germany, especially for contemporary art,” she says.

This year’s Art Forum sees more than half the exhibitors coming from abroad. But Berlin is well represented with 28 galleries, say the organisers, who promise “exciting new encounters” with exhibitors from Spain, Austria, Russia, India and, for the first time, South Africa.
The Nordic Countries are again in force, as are the Benelux countries with a stepped up representation. Thirty-one galleries are first time participants in Berlin.

Three years ago Mihai Pop and Adrian Ghenie founded the artist-run gallery “Plan B” aimed at an international audience in Cluj, the largest city in the Romanian province of Transylvania.
Now after organising last year’s Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, they are in Berlin to show the work of six artists operating in different media. Among them is David Nuur, who attracts attention with subtle thought sculptures.

Twice daily, international experts will be shedding light at Art Forum talks on the increasingly global art world.

Mexico’s Nino Monocal presents a solo exhibition of paintings by the multi-facetted and emerging artist Duvier del Dago in Berlin, and Berlin-Beijing gallerist Alexander Ochs displays sculptures and paintings by outstanding Chinese artists.

Yin Xiuzhen’s “Bras” (20,000 euros) and Yang Shaobin’s “My Left Leg” (230,000 euros), earlier displayed at the Shanghai Art Biennale, are to be seen at the Art Forum.
The Korean painter Sun Young Byun’s “The House in the Painting, The Painting in the House” is also shown alongside the star Chinese artist works. The Art Forum runs until November 3.

The post Berlin in art fever as it hosts four major exhibitions first appeared on Indian Art News.

SAFFRONART CLOSED its exciting Autumn Online Auction of Contemporary Indian Art, registering a total sale value of approximately Rs 29 crores (US $7.2 million), about 72 per cent in excess of the low estimate. Hosted on Saffronart’s new technology platform which serves up an innovative and secure user interface, this sale featured several genres of Contemporary Indian Art including painting, sculpture, photography and installation.
At this sale, world auction records were set for 18 Indian artists, including TV Santhosh, Anju Dodiya, Sudhir Patwardhan, GR Iranna, Mithu Sen, Anita Dube, Sudarshan Shetty, Anil Revri, Tushar Joag, Manisha Parekh, Debanjan Roy, Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi, Kishor Shinde, Chitra Ganesh, Ravikumar Kashi, Ram Bali Chauhan, Mayyur Kailash Gupta and Nicola Durvasula.
Within the first hours of the auction, several lots crossed their higher estimates, including TV Santhosh’s diptych, featured on the cover of the catalogue, and works by Subodh Gupta, Riyas Komu, Anandajit Ray, GR Iranna, Tushar Joag, Dhananjay Singh and George Martin, setting the pace for the exciting bidding activity that continued till the last seconds of the sale.
At this auction, over 575 registered bidders from all over the world competed against each other for the works of some of India’s most talented artists. The top five lots of this Saffronart auction were Subodh Gupta’s Idol Thief I, selling for Rs 4.28 crores (US $1.07 million); Subodh Gupta’s Saat Samundra Par (Across the Seven Seas), selling for Rs 3.4 crores (US $850,000); TV Santhosh’s When your Target Cries for Mercy, selling for Rs. 2.8 crores (US $701,500); Anju Dodiya’s The Site, selling for Rs 1.06 crores (US $267,375); and Sudhir Patwardhan’s The Clearing, selling for Rs 93,15,000 (US $232,875).
Online art auctions, pioneered by Saffronart, have transformed the landscape of Modern and Contemporary Indian Art, making it accessible to participants across geographies and opening it to a wide spectrum of international art lovers. Other Articles by Rupali Ghadge Saffronart’s September annual on-line auction Established by Dinesh and Minal Vazirani, Saffronart has set global benchmarks for online art auctions. The company’s innovative business model has prompted the Harvard Business School to write and teach a case study on Saffronart.
Saffronart has been instrumental in fundamentally changing the market for Modern and Contemporary Indian Art. With its professionalism and transparency, it has contributed to the burgeoning international and domestic interest in Indian art, and in the process established itself as the leader in Modern and Contemporary Indian Art auctions globally.

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NEW YORK.- After the spectacular success of Christie’s South Kensington sale on June 2008 which set numerous world auction records, this season Christie’s New York is pleased to announce the sale of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art on 16 September. The sale will offer major works from modern masters like Tyeb Mehta, Maqbool Fida Husain, Ram Kumar, and Jagdish Swaminathan, to cutting edge artists such as Subodh Gupta, Riyas Komu, Jagannath Panda, and Rashid Rana. The sale of over 120 lots is expected to realize in excess of $12 million.

South Asian Modern
After establishing the world auction record at $1.9 million Christie’s will be putting Tyeb Mehta in the spotlight again with Untitled (Yellow Heads), 1979 (estimate: $600,000-800,000). Since his early years as an artist, Mehta has used the canvas to express images in his most unique formal treatment that illustrates the struggles of contemporary society. His encounter with minimalist art, especially Barnett Newman, during his year long stay in New York in the late 1960s, has had far reaching influence in the entire opus of the artist’s career. By selectively utilizing formal elements of both minimalism and abstraction, Mehta, through a balance of form and color, reconstructs the figure in a lyrical synchronization—creating a style uniquely his own.

Self-taught artist, Maqbool Fida Husain, played an instrumental role in the development of modern and contemporary art in India. Referred to as the ‘Picasso of India’ by Forbes magazine and a founding member of the revolutionary Progressive Artists Group (PAG), Husain developed a style that merged Cubism, Expressionism, and Abstraction with traditional Indian forms and iconography. Ritual, 1968 (estimate: $600,000-800,000) is one of the most significant works by Husain and a suburb example of the fusion of Indian themes and Modernist style. Adopting the formal attributes of sculpture, Husain gives weight to each line and color constructing an image of female elders in a style which highlights the integral role of women in Indian society. Last spring, Christie’s once again proving its dominance in the market, achieved the world auction record for the artist at $1.6 million.

The sale also features an important figurative work by Ram Kumar who drew upon the influences of Amedeo Modigliani, Edward Hopper, and Fernand Legér. The record for the artist was established at Christie’s when Kumar’s Vagabond was auctioned for $1.2 million. Untitled, 1961 (estimate: $400,000-600,000), depicts a young girl against a dark backdrop. The artist utilizes the characteristically pure line of Modigliani in the oval face and deep dark eyes, balanced delicately on an elongated neck. In this painting spatial depth is created with tonal variation and texture that translates into the artist’s later landscapes; making this work a critical bridge between the two stylistic idioms. This enigmatic and suggestive portrait is a simple yet forceful characterization by a master.

Contemporary Art
Among the contemporary art offerings, Subodh Gupta takes center stage with four works of art. Gupta draws heavily from his own experience in culling material for his art, recasting traditional objects of Indian culture in contemporary media and contexts. This is evident in the stainless steel canisters and utensils used in Miter, 2007, number three from an edition of three, (estimate: $600,000-800,000). These everyday, utilitarian forms are taken out of their normal context and elevated to the status of luxurious commodities. In turn these utensils celebrate Indian tradition and culture through its very exploitation. In June 2008 at Christie’s London, the similar sculpture Untitled, achieved $1.18 million setting a new record for the artist. Like Jeff Koons’ charmed hearts and balloons, the shiny reflective quality ensures that the surrounding environment becomes part of the work. A true multimedia artist, Gupta moves between sculpture and paintings. In his painting, Steal 2, 2007 (estimate: $800,000-1,000,000) Gupta displays his virtuosity as a painter by combining pop and photorealist aesthetics into a uniquely Indian style.

Writer, political activist and painter Jagdish Swaminathan, was known to draw inspiration from folk and tribal art, miniatures and Indian mythology for his paintings. His painting, Untitled (Bird Mountain Series), 1973, (estimate: $300,000-500,000) is an expression of the artist’s perception of the “virginal state” of nature. Mountains, trees, rocks, and birds juxtaposed against pure expanses of color- induce a meditative stillness. Swaminathan’s vision of his mystical
landscape with weightless apparition-like forms floating in a luminous space brings to mind images of Paul Klee and Pahari miniatures paintings. A cornerstone to one of Swaminathan’s most well known series, Untitled, 1973, epitomizes the artist’s ability to capture the poetic grandeur of the natural world and immeasurable vastness of the spiritual realm in a solitary intimate reflection.

Another highlight comes from Rashid Rana, Pakistan’s most celebrated and well-known artist. Two Dimensions, 2007, (estimate: $80,000-120,000) depicts a monolithic skyscraper is a composite image made from ‘pixels’ of everyday Pakistani street scene. Rana uses his native urban environment of Lahore for inspiration and combines single tableaux of day-to-day life in grand compositions of contemporary existence. The duality of the image along with the ‘double take’ it creates is a key feature of Rana’s digitized imagery. Rana’s work has been showcased internationally and was featured at the Grid <> Matrix held in 2006 at the Kemper Art Museum alongside masters such as Piet Mondrian, Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg and Andreas Gursky.

Already holding Riyas Komu’s world auction record, set in Hong Kong, Christie’s is pleased to be offering Designated March of a Petro – Angel (or Desert March), 2006, (estimate: $60,000-80,000). Exhibited in the Arsenale of the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007, this work is part of a larger series of six works featuring the actress from the Iranian film ‘Circle’ gazing in different directions. This painting addresses the plight of humanity in societies targeted by larger power-hungry nations or ‘neo invaders’. Komu depicts the actress enrobed in a head scarf, her gaze transfixed on an unknown object or person beyond the edge of the canvas. Through her anonymity, she becomes the symbol of universal womanhood and Komu’s composition becomes a tribute to the spirit of ordinary people with the extraordinary strength to survive.

The post Christie’s New York Presents an Outstanding Sale of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art first appeared on Indian Art News.