Collectors want Indian art to be rooted in an Indian idiom.
The casual collector of contemporary Indian art might fool himself into thinking that the artist whose works he collects has a language that is global — which at some fractional level might even be true — but in the larger context, serious collectors will tell you, a local vernacular is essential, for art without identity is vulnerable to market forces that seek content that local collectors can relate to.
Almost without exception, this is true of whether the masters or, now, the contemporaries, even though the perception is that artists today no longer respect traditional history, or mythologies, or geography. And yet, Subodh Gupta, the darling of the Western world, has an oeuvre he builds around stainless steel utensils from shops in India, or paints taxis, so quintessentially Indian, there can be no parallels anywhere else in the world.
Atul Dodiya traverses the long distance from Indian mythology — his Sarbari exhibition from the Ramayan is one example — to social practices such as the irony that binds Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, with the sceptre of dowry deaths, or, in another context, the godliness of Bollywood. T V Santhosh’s images of violence can find a resonance in much of South Asia, or in other parts of the world that have witnessed conflict, but they are rooted within India. Riyas Komu’s portraits are Indian, even perhaps Asian, but there is no mistaking his reference points. Sumedh Rajendran’s sculptures are made often of tin trunks bought off street bazaars. Bharti Kher’s vortex-inducing concentric circles are constructed entirely from mass-produced bindis.
Think back, and you have S H Raza’s Bindus and references from tantrism; M F Husain is steeped in (mostly) Hindu mythology, with some amount of historicity (the British Raj, in particular) and some contemporary but “Indian” subjects (Indira Gandhi, Mother Teresa…). If K H Ara painted flowers, you can be sure these are familiar versions, not rare blooms from outside the country. Amrita Sher-gil’s more important works were not the early portraits, including nudes, that she did, but her later work with Indian themes drawing from the vocabulary of miniatures. Chittaprosad’s extensive work was related to the Bengal famine, and the aftermath of the country’s partition. Tyeb Mehta’s powerful works are steeped in mythological power struggles.
How do these references play out for collectors? For Indians, the context is only too clear: These are stories, or situations — social, historical or cultural — that they are familiar with, the interpretation of which finds resonances within a familiar landscape. The importance of this cannot be underscored, and however global an Indian, this rootedness lends a greater degree of depth to the collector’s aesthetics. The result is manifest also in values: Abstract works rarely measure up to the prices of derivative works, always allowing for exception, about which more later.
Foreign collectors who look to Indian art react most strongly to works with an Indian context. While a common idiom across Indian artists has never existed in a way that, perhaps, Chinese art is recognisable as Chinese, or Korean, or Vietnamese art is, still, the ability to tell Indian art as Indian is important for expatriate or overseas collectors.
Bhupen Khakhar’s communities, Arpita Singh’s nuances, Manisha Parikh’s use of materials in mixed media works, Rekha Rodwittiya’s sculptural divas, Jagannath Panda’s cities on the edge of existence, Chintan Upadhyaya’s painted babies, Manjit Bawa’s animals, humans and gods all have an identifiable Indian context.
Often, the more exotic the aesthetic experience, the more valued the art, say gallerists who sell to international collectors or investors. International auctions are indicative that when there is a story to tell, and when it is rooted in the heart and soul of the country, it will command a premium over even artistic excellence.
What of those artists whose Indian aesthetics may not be as easily apparent? F N Souza spent his childhood steeped in Christian teachings, which are obvious in his canvases, but the streetwalkers of much of his work come from his immediate milieu of London and Paris, neighbourhoods that he inhabited, and which contributed in turn to the legions of his buyers.
For all their surrealism, Jehangir Sabavala’s people and landscapes are confined to India; Ram Kumar’s abstracts arise from his Benares series, and one can see the distortion which today is apparent as just hints of colour in his landscapes; Akbar Padamsee’s more primordial landscapes, according to one critic, are compared to Kalidasa’s stories of Damayanti, or Shakuntala; and Krishen Khanna’s very Western strokes deal with Indian themes such as street urchins or rickshaw pullers and bandwallahs.
A rare exception is V S Gaitonde, whose untitled abstractions provide absolutely no reference point, making it difficult for a lay collector to look for familiar concepts to hang on to, something Gaitonde has ruthlessly avoided. In ensuring that the works are not titled, he makes it even more difficult for viewers to contextualise his work.
That’s one reason he has been slow but steady to appreciate, and is usually collected by seasoned art lovers, one of whom paid Rs 1.49 crore only last week for a canvas at the Saffronart auction. Gaitonde’s genius might be the stuff on which investments ride, but those with more apparent contexts are finding easier takings when it comes to both primary as well as secondary sales.
