Indian artists sell at Art Basel Hong Kong

The recently concluded fourth edition of Art Basel Hong Kong offered art from India a wider platform to showcase in the Asian region with galleries from the country reporting sales at the three-day-long fair.
Despite concerns of a slowing Chinese economy and its impact on the international art market, dealers such as the Mumbai-based Chemould Prescott Road have said they sold large proportions of the exhibited artworks.
The gallery, which exhibited leading contemporary Indian artists like Anju Dodiya, Gigi Sacaria and Shakuntala Kulkarni among others, sold an entire series of five cement-sheet sketches by artist-architect Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai to a private Chinese museum for USD 10,000 each.

"A fair like ABHK has the potential to introduce Indian galleries to a wider Asian audience and test the market outside. Being a fair that attracts collectors and museums from around the world, Indian galleries can stand neck-to-neck with the best of the rest of the world here," says Chemould Prescott Road gallery owner Shireen Gandhy.
Gandhy, who has been participating in the Hong Kong art extragavaza ever since it began in 2013, is also on the selection committee of ABHK.
"The fair is over-subscribed, so the applications, past booth displays etc are viewed very stringently by the committee. The fair is competitive and applications are viewed with a great deal of discernment," say Gandhy.

The event that came to a close on March 26 attracted a record 70,000 visitors including Hollywood's Oscar winning actor Leonardo Di Caprio and saw 239 galleries from over 50 countries, with half of the exhibition spaces dedicated to Asia and Asia-Pacific region showcasing the region's diversity through both historical material and cutting-edge works by established and emerging artists.

The four Indian galleries that participated in the fair, cracking the "stringent" selection process also included Delhi-based Vadehra Art Gallery and Nature Morte and Kolkata-based Experimenter.
According to Marc Spiegler, Global director of Art Basel, one should not invest in an artwork merely for its potentially increasing market value, but also because it appeals to them aesthetically.

"That way, even if it does sell in the market at your desired price, you are not stuck with something you don't like. You have something you love," he says.
Nature Morte, another regular at Art Basel Hong Kong decided to bring in younger artists like Faig Ahmed and Suhasini Kejriwal with less expensive works instead of international names like Subodh Gupta Bharti Kher, whose works often returned to the gallery due to their exorbitant prices.
Nagy, who has been living in India since 1992 feels that
the "Chinese are not interested in Indian art," and believes there is a "big animosity" between the two countries.

"Frankly it is not like other fairs in the sense that I don't think that the Chinese are interested in Indian art. If we sell things, we sell them to Europeans and Australians. I feel both countries are so big that they have enough stuff of their own," he says.
However, the gallery owner maintains that attending a fair is never about the sales alone.
"You do fairs for different reasons and it is not always about sales. It is also networking," he says.
The gallery did sell some artworks this year, but refused to divulge the prices or the buyer details.

Another Delhi-based gallery, Vadehra Art Gallery (VAG), which exhibited their star contemporary artists like Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, Riyas Komu and Jagannath Panda, had something for everyone with artworks ranging from 500 USD to 60,000 USD.
Atul Dodiya's rendition of "The Garden Party - February 1925", the first work to be sold at the VAG booth was picked up within hours of the artfair's private preview on March 22.
"We have sold about 70 per cent of our booth. The major works sold are of Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Madhusudhanan, Riyas Komu and Jagannath Panda. We have also sold smaller works by Arun Kumar H G, Sujith S N, Nalini Malani and Arpita Singh. The fair is focused on Asian art and Indian art is a good part of it," Roshni Vadhera, gallery owner said.

"There is a good mix of NRIs as well as international collectors (among buyers). Apart from selling a few works to known collectors, we have sold most of the works to new collectors from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Dubai and Switzerland," Vadhera said.
Speaking about the small Indian representation at the fair, she said, "I think it is quite expensive to participate in international fairs and one has to have the confidence that their works will sell. The focus in an art fair is obviously to sell and make more contacts."
The gallery which sold artworks worth 100,000 USD said the edition had been the "best experience at the fair so far."

For Priyanka Raja, who co-owns the Kolkata-based Experimenter with her husband Prateek Raja, India's seemingly paltry representation at ABHK is better than other international fairs where not more than a couple of galleries participate.
"It is a fantastic fair and we meet clients from regions of the world that we would otherwise not meet at other fairs that we do. I think there is lot of interest which is good. Four galleries from India is not bad actually," she said.
The gallery, which participated in the 'Discoveries' sector, showcased two emerging artists including Pakistani artist Ayesha Sultana and Bengali artist Rathin Barman, all of whose works were priced under 20,000 USD.

Despite admitting to have had "great sales," the gallery refused to disclose details.