Gilded art

HIGHER PURCHASE

Guess who's joined the ranks of the country's collector-sellers of art? The capital's humble Delhi Art Gallery is striding the marquee as it strives towards the snobbish echelons of fine arts shops that do "serious" work.

With director Ashish Anand having turned Manifestations into a biennial show, he's pointing the direction he would like to take, to occupy a space ignored by major gallerists who tend to concentrate on only contemporary, or well-known names of artists.

"There's huge disparity in prices between those artists who're very good but have been ignored, and those who're well-known," says Anand. "An artist, no matter how good, if he isn't promoted, doesn't get recognised."

In essence, Manifestations fills that gap, with 100 works of 100 artists, now on hock at prices that range from the lower end of Rs 1 lakh (say Shyamal Duttaray or Krishna Reddy) to Rs 40 lakh (for an exceptional J P Gangooly).

Having just wound up the Mumbai leg of the show at Jehangir Art Gallery (with some 40 per cent of the works sold), it now opens in New Delhi at the home gallery in Hauz Khas on Monday (till August 21).

Anand's entry into the market is interesting. At a time when prices have been spiralling and the interest in collecting has been at its highest ever, the Delhi Art Gallery has nudged its way up the ladder of visibility through a concerted effort at building a collection of some worth.

"I have a pretty large collection," Anand avers, "one of the largest in India." It took close to a decade to put together, a time when he did not show the works. But he's not unwilling to reveal his hand now. "I bought out complete studios of artists who had been neglected, as a result of which I was able to build up a huge resource."

While he was buying, Anand was also studying the market as well as art. "I wanted important works and not recent works," he says, not that the masters don't form part of the collection. But he's remained faithfully focused on his sights.

"I invested time and money not just in the works but in sourcing old magazines and journals, anything printed on the artists, and now have a lot of reference material on my hands."

Eventually, that too will be put to good use. "The gallery is a small part of my overall plans that include a library, a documentation centre, even an auditorium for screening relevant films. Earlier, I was on a buying spree, but now I find the need to document the research and the art as well."

Therefore, Manifestations II (the previous show was in October 2003) comes accompanied by a catalogue that is more in the nature of a hardback book, and there are notes from critics as well as fairly comprehensive professional biographies of the artists represented at the exhibition. At Rs 1,500, it's a whole lot more affordable than the artists' works.

With that, Anand now joins the elite club of gallerists who do detailed catalogues/books for major shows "" among them Saffronart and Osian's. "The collection itself is as comprehensive as possible, and is not region-specific."

Not that the self-taught collector and gallerist does not have his share of those from the rarefied world of art who accuse him of being a Johnny-come-lately in search of rich pickings.

"I spent years travelling, meeting scholars and artists, studying museum works, familiarising myself with art and artists," Anand says on the eve of one of the season's first major shows.

How much attention his Herman Muller, or Walter Langhammer or S L Haldankar merit could well decide the direction of Anand's future course of action and Manifestations III (in March 2005). But there's no doubt that, if you have the eye and the money, there are some rich pickings at the show next fortnight.