TV Santhosh, Living with a Wound I

Living With a Wound, paintings of November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai by Indian artist TV Santhosh, may help the Indian art market avoid the chill of recession

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Raqib Shaw’s Chrysanthemum & Bee,which was estimated at £80,000-120 ,000, has been picked up for £103,250 and Anish Kapoor’s After Marsyas, with an estimate of £70,000- £90,000, has sold for £109,250.

At the same time, a Subodh Gupta Untitled (Across Seven Seas), sporting an estimate in the range of £40,000- £60,000 has been bought out for £85,250. In the same breath, T V Santosh’s Man Made Famine and the Rats, which was pegged at an estimate of £40,000-60 ,000, has gone for £121,250. In step, an Anish Kapoor Untitled, assessed to sell between £400,000 and £600,000, has been acquired for £481,250.

In an email to ET from London, Mr James Sevier of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art department, said: “The group of works by Indian artists in our major sales of Contemporary Art in London, once again performed exceptionally well. Seven of the nine works offered realised a price that was handsomely in excess of their presale high estimate. We were particularly delighted with the new auction records established for Anish Kapoor (in the Evening Sale) and the leading Pakistani Contemporary artist Rashid Rana (in the Day Sale).”

“The positive results confirm the continued and growing international interest in the Indian contemporary art field. We’re looking forward to building on this again in our Contemporary sales in London in the autumn.”

Incidentally , Pakistan’s Rashid Rana work Veil #6, which showed an estimate of £60,000-80 ,000, shot past the presale value and went for a whopping £325,250. The international section was led by names like Francis Bacon, Anthony Gormley, Richard Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Interestingly, the Basquiat masterpiece, Untitled, from 1982-83 was sold on behalf of the rock band U2 for £5.081 million.

The painting was acquired jointly by members of the band after it was first spotted by bassist Adam Clayton at Robert Miller Gallery in New York. The band acquired Untitled in 1989, and it has since resided in their Dublin studio. A group for 12 works from the Helga and Walther Lauffs collection performed well above expectations when they raised a total of £18.983 million against a presale estimate of £6.470- £8.930 million.

The breakdown of buyers by lots saw Europe leading the way with 49%, US at 39%, Asia 3%, with other regions in the bracket of 8%.

ET Bureau

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SOTHEBY’S SALE OF CONTEMPORARY ART TO FEATURE EXCITING WORKS BY LEADING INDIAN CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
INDIAN ARTISTS such as Subodh Gupta (b. 1964), Bharti Kher (b. 1969), Anish Kapoor (b. 1954), Raqib Shaw (b. 1974) and T.V. Santhosh (b. 1968) are an ever-growing force in Sotheby’s international sales of Contemporary Art – in addition to the company’s regular dedicated sales of Indian Art – and this summer’s major series of Contemporary Art sales in London will see this trend gather further momentum still. The sales on Tuesday, July 1 and Wednesday, July 2, 2008, will present a total of eight works by these cutting-edge and highly sought-after names and together the works are estimated in excess of £2 million. The sale will also include a work by Pakistan’s leading Contemporary artist, Rashid Rana.
James Sevier, a specialist in the Contemporary Art department, comments: “The group of works by Contemporary Indian artists being offered in our July sales is the largest group of its kind to be offered in our international Contemporary Art sales in London, indicating the growing international focus on this area of the market. Featuring recent paintings and sculptures by Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher and TV Santhosh – alongside important works by Raqib Shaw and Rashid Rana – the tightly curated assemblage reveals the broad variety of themes, materials and ideas that are flourishing within India’s Contemporary arts scene at the beginning of the 21st century. As the country’s traditional beliefs and rural way of life are confronted with the rapid pace of change exacerbated by the country’s urban transformation and the global media, the work of these artists explores the divisions and conflicts prevalent in Indian society today.
We have witnessed a huge growth in demand for works by Indian artists over the past 18 months; their work is increasingly being sought by Western and Indian collectors. This demand has seen new record price levels continually being achieved at auction. We expect the works on offer in July to follow recent trends, affirming the position of these artists as some of the most innovative and influential names on the international Contemporary Art auction market today.”
An Untitled sculpture from 2003 by Anish Kapoor leads the group in terms of value, with an estimate of £1-1.5 million. This stunning piece embodies the pioneering manipulation of space and material that characterizes the very best output of this world-renowned sculptor. One of the largest of the artist’s alabaster works and the first double-concave piece to come to auction, its sheer magnitude marks it apart as a sculptural phenomenon, evoking the grandeur of a feat of nature. Contrasting to the immensity of the marble, two beautiful hollows have been carved to mirror each other either side of the monolith, creating a spatial echo across a thin screen of alabaster. Thus, while the work’s scale is truly inspirational, addressing the viewer at eye-level and engaging total bodily experience, the colossus is also imbued with a serene weightlessness. It manifests dualities that have become synonymous with Kapoor’s seminal canon: presence versus absence; infinity versus illusion; and solidity versus intangibility.
An Untitled black Belgian granite sculpture by Kapoor will also be offered with an estimate of £400,000-600,000. Executed in 2002, the sculpture is a further sublime example of the artist’s ongoing sculptural enquiry into the relationships between form, material and space. Powerful in scale, the awe-inspiring physical presence and natural beauty of this rough-hewn monolith engages the viewer at eye level. It is one of only a handful of works that Kapoor has made on this scale in black Belgian granite. A third piece by Kapoor will be a lacquered bronze sculpture entitled After Marsyas. The title of this sculpture relates to Kapoor’s 2002 commission for the Unilever Series in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern entitled Marsyas. After Marsyas, estimated at £70,000-90,000, presents an experimental lens for contemplating the metaphysical polarities of human experience.
Subodh Gupta’s Untitled from 2005 is estimated at £200,000-300,000 and this work will see Gupta – who is arguably the most internationally recognised of all the Indian Contemporary artists – take the stage in a major Evening Sale of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s once again. The Untitled canvas depicts a vessel stall glistening in the pink dawn of sunrise and it is one of the artist’s most important and powerful photo-realist paintings to ever come to the market. The canvas captures the sense of promise and expectation that epitomises the mood of ambition and prosperity within India’s flourishing economy. The glistening pots and pans mark a stark contrast with the flatness of the soft pink background, creating a strong visual tension. The pots and pans are everyday icons of India’s complex and rapidly evolving contemporary identity; they are a staple of Indian homes both among the rural and urban echelons of society. Gupta utilises the stainless steel objects to inspire a commentary upon the prevailing social ills of discrimination, caste politics, industrialisation and religious tensions exacerbated by India’s urban transformation.
A second work by Gupta will be a highlight of the Contemporary Art Day Sale and this comprises a cast aluminium sculpture from an edition of three entitled Untitled (Across Seven Seas). This piece is estimated at £40,000-60,000.

New Delhi-based Bharti Kher is a trans-cultural Indian whose broad artistic language explores everyday concerns like identity, race, ethics and society and their continued dislocation within a global media age. Executed in fibreglass, wood and fur and estimated at £40,000-60,000, Misdemeanours from 2006 is one of Kher’s most iconic and powerful sculptures. It captures a snarling hyena whose hyper-real – almost hallucinatory form – typifies the dream-like characters inhabiting the surreal landscape of Kher’s imagination. It points towards the shattered harmony between man and nature in a modern society in which animals are increasingly confined to laboratories, zoos and tourism in their struggle for survival against the onset of urban expansion and a booming human population.
Raqib Shaw’s Chrysanthemum & Bee (after Kotsushika Hokusai) encapsulates the multiple layers – in terms of both style and subject matter – that typify the work of this artist. Shaw’s output can be defined as occupying a space between two artistic traditions; that of Kashmir in India (where he was born) and also London (where he now lives). Taking inspiration from the work of the great Japanese painter and printmaker Kotsushika Hokusai, Shaw applies a vibrant Kashmiri palette to the Japanese organic source motif, transforming the subdued, delicate hues of the original print into an explosion of iridescent colours. Motion in an otherwise static image comes from the bee that is, like the eye of the viewer, drawn to the flower. Shaw’s treatment of the chrysanthemum – considered in the Western world to be the symbol of death and mourning – is a masterstroke in the inverting of preconceived notions and truly embraces the Japanese interpretation of the flower as a symbol of regeneration. The panel was acquired directly from the artist by the seller in 2001 and is estimated at 80,000-120,000.
Further Day Sale highlights include TV Santosh’s oil on canvas from 2005, Man Made Famine and the Rats, estimated at £40,000-60,000 and a stunning work by Pakistan’s leading Contemporary artist Rashid Rana entitled Veil #6.
Since Rana’s first solo exhibition in 2004 with Peter Nagy’s Nature Morte Gallery, he has become one of the leading figures of Mumbai’s vibrant Contemporary Art scene. Rana is an artist who is best known for his photographs, videos and installations which tackle multiple issues such as politics of gender, violence and popular culture, as well as the authenticity of a work of art in the current media age of global distribution. Veil #6 belongs to Rana’s critically acclaimed series of works that drew their inspiration from the urban environment of his home city of Lahore. It depicts a found newspaper image of five veiled Muslim women at a protest rally against un-Islamic dress and brings together all of the artist’s concerns regarding gender, race, the media and popular culture with a single image. Added to this is the work’s underlying subversive content – namely the thousands of tiny pornographic images that describe the composite image in a pixelated x-rated mosaic. Rana’s photographic practice creates images that offer an alternative view of how popular ideas and prejudices are created.
* Pre-sale estimates do not include buyer’s premium
Sotheby’s holds the record for any Indian work of art sold at auction. This was set by Raqib Shaw’s Garden of Earthly Delights III , which sold for £2,708,500 (US$5,491,755) in London in October 2007.
The works will be on view at Sotheby’s, New Bond Street, London on:
Saturday 28 June 12noon – 5 pm
Sunday 29 June 12 noon – 5 pm
Monday 30 June 9 am – 7 pm
Tuesday 1 July 9 am – 12 noon

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The price curve of Indian art is shooting north in the global market because of ‘increased consciousness’ about it, say experts. This has been brought about by greater visibility of art and artists from the country and easy access to relevant information about Indian art from the internet, they say. “Indian art is becoming a part of international consciousness, which is why we have seen a spectacular growth in this field,” Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the London-based Christie’s, told IANS on e-mail. “Boundaries are becoming more fluid. We are seeing more Indian artists being represented in international museum exhibitions and art fairs. The exposure is helping create newer collectors who actively seek out works by the best of Indian artists to add to their collections,” Mehta said. On June 11, a painting by F.N. Souza, an Indian artist who spent the better part of his life in New York, sold for $2.5 million, while an untitled painting by Tyeb Mehta (Figure in a Rickshaw) fetched 982,050 pounds setting new price records at the Christie’s auction in London. Five of contemporary artist Subodh Gupta’s works were also sold in the same auction at record prices. Gupta’s ‘Bucket,’ an abstract canvas with the symbolic motif of his trademark bucket, was sold for 121,250 pounds while his ‘Magic Wands’ and ‘Cotton Wicks’ were sold for 169,250 pounds and 15,000 pounds respectively. Twelve artists set new records in terms of prices at the auction in London. According to experts, Indian art in general had a higher price profile in almost every international art show this year. A New Delhi-based dealer, Nature Morte, sold a set of three sculptures by Gupta for nearly $1 million, while a painting by rising star T.V. Santosh went out to a British collector for $170,000 at the prestigious Art Basel, the largest fair of modern and contemporary art in Switzerland. Gupta’s seven-metre wide ‘Triptych’ sold for $1 million in the same fair. In March 2008, M.F. Husain’s ‘Battle of Ganga and Jamuna’ sold for $1.6 million in New York. Auction houses and dealers attribute the boom to growing consciousness and appreciation of According to Mehta, the new breed of collectors, who are armed with more money, are incredibly well informed. “They usually look for a combination of three factors in an art work – lineage, the artist and its freshness. “For instance, the ‘The Birth’ by F.N. Souza which sold for a record-breaking price of $2.5 million, had the combination of all the three: it was a large museum quality masterpiece by one of the giants in Indian art and completely fresh to the market,” Mehta said. The freshness of the artwork, experts claimed, was instrumental in pushing up its price. Peter Nagy, director of Nature Morte Gallery in Delhi, which sold almost all its works at the Basel fair, says the increase in price is directly related to the demand for the works and the increased attention that the international art world is paying to contemporary art works coming out of India today.

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AMIT ROY

Subodh Gupta’s untitled canvas and (above) Raqib Shaw’s Chrysanthemum & Bee, to be auctioned at Sotheby’s
London, June 25: India in transition appears to be the theme of works by contemporary Indian artists, especially Subodh Gupta from Bihar, which are due to be sold at auction at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s in London.
On Tuesday and Wednesday next week, Sotheby’s is offering eight works by “the cutting-edge and highly sought-after names of Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Anish Kapoor, Raqib Shaw and T.V. Santhosh”.
This will be preceded by an auction on Monday at Christie’s, featuring works by Subodh Gupta, Anish Kapoor and Syed Haider Raza.
It seems the world’s two premier auction houses are almost competing for the best of contemporary Indian art but, collectively, their sales in London and New York have driven up prices so that million-pound-plus figures are no longer rare.
At Sotheby’s, Calcutta-born and London-educated Raqib Shaw’s Chrysanthemum & Bee (“an explosion of iridescent colours, with a rich gold border”), inspired by the Japanese painter and printmaker Kotsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), has a reserve price of £80,000-120,000 (Rs 68 lakh to Rs 1.02 crore).
The auction house has proudly pointed out: “Sotheby’s holds the record for any Indian work of art sold at auction. This was set by Raqib Shaw’s Garden of Earthly Delights III, which sold for £2,708,500 (Rs 22.7 crore) in London in October 2007.”
Sotheby’s says “Indian artists are an ever-growing force in Sotheby’s international sales of contemporary art” and that this summer’s sales in London “will see this trend gather further momentum still”.
At Sotheby’s, Subodh Gupta’s untitled canvas from 2005, estimated at £200,000-300,000, depicts “a vessel stall glistening in the pink dawn of sunrise”.
Over at Christie’s, Subodh Gupta’s Dubai to Calcutta, bronze and aluminium, in three parts, has a reserve price of £150,000-200,000.
“Dubai to Calcutta is one of an important series of works known as Across Seven Seas made in 2006,” states an explanatory note from Christie’s.
“Consisting of a series of aluminium and bronze cast replicas of the kind of luggage that millions of Indian migrant workers bring back to India on trolleys as the materialistic fruit of their labour in other lands, these works are commemorative statues of a widespread contemporary economic phenomenon particularly relevant to Subodh Gupta’s home state of Bihar.”
It adds: “The impoverished Indian state of Bihar has been providing a large percentage of India’s large population of migrant workers for over a hundred years.”
It goes on: “Serving as a kind of opposite to Gupta’s sculptures of commonplace pots and pans, these luxuriously rendered baggage trolleys represent the extraordinary, but in fact also pitiful, material objects from the outside world so proudly brought back into the country by migrant workers, in the same way that the kitchen utensils seem to symbolise the disappearing culture of home.”
This insightful observation also applies to Anish Kapoor, who came to London from Mumbai, while Raza settled in Paris (he received a Padma Bhushan last year).
At Sotheby’s, Kapoor’s untitled sculpture from 2003, which features hollows scooped from alabaster, has an estimate of £1-1.5 million.
At Christie’s, there are three of the sculptor’s works on sale, with the most expensive, featuring a polished purple mirror, given a reserve price of £600,000-800,000.
Kapoor has always striven not to be narrowly classified as “Indian” or “ethnic”, though today claiming he is really the son of Mother India may add to his lustre.
Raza’s La Terre, acrylic on canvas, is estimated to fetch £1,000,000-1,500,000 by Christie’s, which says: “Rooted in Raza’s childhood memories of life growing up in the small and densely forested village of Kakaiya near the Narmada River valley in Madhya Pradesh, the painting is an evocative expression of the rich density and strong sensory life inherent with the deep, warm, blackness of the Indian night.”
Raza, who has lived in France, has given a quote on what has driven him: “I have never left India. I love my country and I am proud of it. I have been linked with the profound spiritual, religious message that India has to give to Indians and to the world of which we are forgetful at times, even in India.”

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