Collectors' interests need safeguards

BUSINESS CLASS

A rather unexpected court ruling has penalised the government and awarded financial damages to sculptor Amar Nath Seghal. Sehgal had sued the government some two decades ago for not having taken care of a work commissioned by it.

His complain was about a large mural placed in a government building that was apparently painted over and later dismantled. It is said to have been left to literally rot in a store room.

Although there is much to cheer about the fact that government institutions must be held more responsible to take care of the works of art they buy or commission, this ruling has certainly opened up a Pandora's box and the misuse of the precedent is sure to haunt collectors at all levels.

The government has not done a terribly good job of preserving the art it owns, whether it is art at the museums or PSU's like Air India or ITDC, educational institutions, or even the ministries and VIP residences.

Works installed at these places are mostly borrowed from the pool of museums across the country. Forget the fact that we cannot preserve ancient monuments and antiques, it is rather depressing to know that we cannot even take care of art bought as recently as a decade ago.

In that perspective, the court ruling will possibly make government institutions responsible in taking care of their possessions. Now, scores of artists who have lost their art to babu neglect can, and possibly will, ask for compensation for the works in question.

However, the big question is should an artist be allowed to sue you for neglect if you have paid for the work? What right does the artist have over a sold work? Is there a difference between neglect and abuse? What if the neglect was not intentional? Should the same hold true for private collections as well?

How does one decide on the compensation? If such stringent penalties are placed on government collections, will this be the death of public sector patronage? What does buying a work mean in the first place? Does every work created has to be preserved?

Personally, I'm not quite sure if this ruling is good for us entirely. I quite like the idea that government institutions should stop abusing their collections and hope that a series of public interest litigations force things to change for the better.

I also feel that there should be different set of standards, not necessarily double standards, for distinguishing between public and private collections as the government is responsible to the public at large. However, I fear the abuse of this precedent by all and sundry, if proper safeguards are not clearly defined.