How contemporary art gallery Bodhi handles its current eclipse will be a pointer to the survival of its art fraternity.
India’s hottest art property this time last year was the contemporary art market, so it is ironic that nobody seems to want to touch it any longer, especially not the trade, which has a sense of getting its fingers burnt on that account. Contemporary artists, feted as the new stars on the Indian firmament, created an incredible amount of wealth from seemingly little more than ideas and largely inexpensive or at least a proportionately negligible value of materials, but have since been dropped like hot potatoes. Gallerists have stopped taking calls from potential A-listers because they no longer have the depth to package and market these artists. Even the well-established among the contemporary haute-list are struggling to come up with exhibitions galleries might be interested in.
What this tells us is what many had been crying hoarse about in preceding years: That the prices of many contemporary artists were unsustainable and not based on any solid foundation of work over a period of sustained longevity. Arriviste galleries and gallerists mocked the older, longer established art institutions for not doing enough, for playing safe with pre-moderns and moderns, for lacking the guts to turn experimental, for being critical of younger talent, and for their unfamiliarity with world trends and edgier art that was cornering the younger collectors and escalating sharply in value. Certainly, international art fairs and buyers seemed to prefer the contemporary artists who appeared to have escaped the confines of geography, instead of the long-standing moderns who are now being collected only by rich but older Indians and NRIs.
Alas, it proved to be no more than a house of cards that collapsed at the first hint of a breeze. In the storm that followed, the best of the established moderns were buffeted around in the cross-winds, but were at least left standing. With the exception of a handful, the contemporaries all but disappeared. And nothing exemplifies this better than the eclipse of contemporary art gallery Bodhi.
Bodhi Art Gallery was an experiment that was, if not ahead of its time, certainly of the kind and scale not seen before in India. The shows were intelligent, the attendant staff well versed in art, and everything came professionally packaged — from brilliantly produced catalogues that made documentation an essential part not just of its own shows, but pretty much mandatory for all other galleries in the country. It attracted the marquee names among contemporary artists, and also a whole bunch of younger artists who needed a platform and nurturing.
In a chicken-and-egg situation, the meltdown arrived at a time when the gallery — by now spread across Delhi, Gurgaon and Mumbai as well as Singapore, Berlin and New York — was heavily invested. Inventories were large, real estate costs larger, and managing the business required a flow of funds when returns had dried up, as interest in especially contemporary art dwindled. In a domino effect, Bodhi started to close its galleries till all but Mumbai has remained open, and now there are rumours in the market that even that location might be up for review.
And yet, Bodhi had done everything that was probably right and supportive (of artists) and meant to provide rigour (for collectors) — so the rigor mortis is unfortunate, if too real. Unfortunately too, unlike banks or airlines, there was no case of appealing to the state for support or a bailout — art remains peripheral to the vast machinery of governance. How Bodhi grapples with the situation and whether it is able to extricate value from its inventory and line-up of artists will be closely watched not just by the trade but also by collectors.
This is because values in contemporary art have fallen steepest — up to 70 per cent by some estimates. Therefore, options of trading appear limited for some time, at least until values rise again. Any gallery with a large inventory will find its capital costs crippling. Some galleries that were lucky enough to buy into contemporary art when it was still relatively cheap are now dealing with this in the only way they can — by in turn selling inexpensively, which has put up a barricade for those galleries whose acquisition costs were higher. Collectors, even those whose interests have tended to the contemporary, now find themselves looking back to the moderns for their purchases. This is not helping the case of the contemporary art market any further.
There are several other galleries that are heavily invested in contemporary art, and one can only hope that they will be able to survive these difficult times if faith in contemporary art is to be retained. The interest contemporary art evokes at the India Art Summit next week will be a pointer to any healing in this direction. And the future of Indian art, which must move on from the stranglehold of modern art, will depend on which way this interest — and funds — flow.
