Future shock

THE ART CLUB

An interesting argument is beginning to circulate in living rooms across the capital "" and presumably also in art-savvy Mumbai "" about the validity of the current expression of contemporary art.

While "modern" art itself has been unshackled to an extent from the ignominy of the masses who claim not to "understand" it, the trend among younger artists who are both erudite and have strong political or social beliefs, is to let it flower across their canvases.

But the canvas, too, is as much victim to this new questioning: will any art that is based on technology "" such as the digital layering so favoured by some "" survive beyond its immediate era?

Will a Jitish Kallat, for instance, have any value a decade or two later, as technologies change? For that matter, even the politics of the time could create an art that is by its nature doomed to a short existence.

Beyond this so-called "life" of the work of an artist is the growing concern that as changes bring in newer imperatives, it will affect the value of the works too.

At a time when art prices are rocketing (and will, according to indicators, continue to escalate), will the strait-jacketing of either the treatment or the content detonate the future price mechanism for artists who have chosen to paint out of the box?

The artists themselves could say that this is nothing more than drawing room fascism, the imperative of art as a decorative response to investment.

But this tug between designer art and art as a creative/emotional response itself is an old one, and can only be solved through processes of learning/appreciation.

What is more important is that pursestrings now control the medium of contemporary art more wholely than before.

As a result, the investment index is being closely watched by both serious as well as amateur investors/ collectors.

Gallerists respond by recommending blue-chip artists: the masters (a market almost controlled by the Bombay Progressives), the Romantics (the figurative school that has been influenced almost completely by the Bengal School) and others (the Baroda thinkers; the Bhopal abstractionists).

The point even gallerists admit is that the new art may not survive beyond its immediate age. Prices "" and today neither artist nor collector is immune to market oscillations in value "" matter.

So, while talent will gain recognition in the short term (five years), in the long term, there is no guarantee that post-modern art will contine to reap a rich harvest.

And while art cannot be evaluated on the basis of decorative aesthetics, the particular art of this age does raise questions of display-ability.

In fact, such art raises awkward questions: should positions on contemporary social sensibility and citizens' rights (nuclear armaments, the overburdening of childhood, war, consumerism) be left to the media to play out, or do they need to be tackled by art? And if art is to respond to these issues, then is it not another form of media/communication?

In that case, does it no longer involve a patronage of aesthetics (from which it is choosing to move away) despite creating an environment where the success of art is increasingly being measured by, ironically, monetary imperatives? Any reconciliation of two extreme positions currently seems insurmountable.

Therefore, what remains to be seen is not how these works sell now, but how they will do in the secondary market a few years from now.

Unfortunately, there is no fast-forward button to make that happen immediately, and only time will tell which art/artist survives the aesthetics of changing eras.

SHORT TERM/LONG TERM

A number of artists are doing work that raises political and social rather then aesthetic concerns. It is their work that will be closely watched in the future, to see whether they have an increasing secondary market value. A representation of these artists includes:

T V Santosh: Photo-impact images point to television news as entertainment. (Current price: 4'x5', Rs 95,000)

Jitish Kallat: Digitalisation plays a role in his work; has recently reinvented his oeuvre. (Current price: mixed media on canvas Rs 50,000-7 lakh, paper Rs 25,000-1 lakh)

Baiju Parthan: Uses photo-realism; questions the compression of urban life. (Current price: 6'x6', Rs 5 lakh)

Anju Dodiya: Social ills find a large expression in her work. (Current price: Rs 50,000-4 lakh for works on paper/mattresses)

Subodh Gupta: The voids of decay and environmental struggles peep through in work that is photo-imaged in its expression. (Current price: 8'x6', Rs 3 lakh)