ART: Want to cater to the rising demand for artworks from affluent Indians
Indian art is big and growing bigger, and everyone it seems wants a share of the pie. The crowds — approximately 10,000 in number — who thronged the recently-concluded Indian Art Summit were a testimony to the growing numbers of those who want to buy art or add art to their investment portfolio. Clearly, the demand is huge, and one that financial services providers are keen to meet.
There is Edelweiss which began offering art advisory services to its Wealth Management clients this January. “This is the right time to enter the art market,” feels Anurag Mehrotra, head of wealth management, Edelweiss Securities, adding: “The interest in art is rising considerably. In the most recent Christie’s Asian Contemporary art sale, Subodh Gupta’s “Saat Samundar Paar” sold for Rs 5.14 crore, breaking world records for Indian art. The most expensive painting titled “Number 5” by Jackson Pollock sold for Rs 600 crore. From this we can conclude that Indian contemporary art is still undervalued compared to world art and therefore, the potential for growth is huge.”
Echoing this confidence is a recent publication, London-based ArtTactic’s Indian Market Report 2008, which shows a 12 per cent increase over last year in the market confidence indicators. Incidentally, Anders Petterson, ArtTactic’s managing director, was in India recently, and at the instance of Renu Modi of Gallery Espace gave a presentation on art market trends to a selection of buyers and collectors.
A recent entrant, Bajaj Capital Art House, a venture of Bajaj Capital, proposes to be a one-stop shop in this area, offering a whole range of services from advise on buying and selling to procuring a wide choice of art works across all media at “competitive” prices, authentication and provenance, framing, storing and conservation and insurance. Not just this, BCAH will attempt to educate opinion by organising meet-the-artist dos, walkthroughs of art shows with curators and galleries and, most important, holding exhibitions.
The first of these Ananya, curated by Shahma Bahl, BCAH’s consulting art adviser, comes up in mid-September. This will be a huge show featuring a hundred artists from all age groups and backgrounds, from masters to cutting-edge, up-and-coming artists from across India and beyond. The selection will include paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics, photographs, new media art, sculptures, installations and more, representing different genres, forms, media and price ranges. The show will be so huge that it will take up three spaces in New Delhi: The Visual Arts Gallery, the Convention Centre Foyer Gallery at the India Habitat Centre and the Arpana Gallery at the Siri Fort Institutional Area.
“We’re planning another show in Mumbai later this year,” informs Anu Bajaj, chief executive officer, BCAH, whose involvement with art began a couple of years ago with Gallery Positives, “a gallery that concentrates on god and positive thinking”.
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“BCAH’s art advisory services will be offered,” says Rajiv Deep Bajaj, vice-chairman and managing director, Bajaj Capital, “to clients with financial assets of Rs 50 lakh and above. And with the high salaries in BPOs and a few other sectors these days, you can manage to have that mid-career, when you’re around 30.”
Art and banks and finance companies have always been closely allied, of course. One of the main sponsors of the art summit was Societe Generale Private Banking India. Its executive director, Nipun Mehta, says: “It was an exercise to show support for art and artists, to help them grow in their space.” The company has earlier supported an SH Raza show in Mumbai and another Singapore show of Yusuf Arakkal and Paritosh Sen. HSBC and ICICI Bank have also supported art before.
But how viable is art as an asset? Bajaj makes the important point that art has poor liquidity, which is why he does not tell his clients to put more than five per cent of their assets into it. “One should not look at the short term. One has to develop an interest, appreciate art as it appreciates,” says Mehrotra, adding: “Art as an asset class as of now is not regulated. Thus, it can lead to manipulation of valuations.”
