The greedy auctioneer?

THE ART HOUSE

Increasingly, one cannot help wondering if the professional "" as opposed to the charity "" auction has become a sales graph for the records it sets at the auctioneer's till.

The buzz in art circles is less to do with the works being auctioned and more to do with the prices they fetch. As each artist becomes a brand, the core value of each auction is being reduced to a sales manager's report of targets "" achieved, broken or sometimes failed!

The premise of an auction is simple: there are works to be sold; presumably, there are buyers for them; and the auctioneer wants to ensure the best bid for each work.

For this purpose, the catalogues quote a median price for the work (though collectors complain auctioneers have been pushing this up to ensure buyers are psyched to pay more, and to establish highs in printed works that, over time, will push prices up in any case), though the auctions actually begin at a reserve price that is lower.

In recent times, the record-breaking prices of artists whose works are on the block have created a competitive spin-off between the major players in the market (more about them in a while): whose sale was the larger (at several crores over a few hours, this is no longer sneered at by corporate India), and which artist's work fetched a better price? 
 

Art highs Want to know the most price for an artist's work? Check this out:
M F Husain	Rs 2 crore
Tyeb Mehta	Rs 1.5 crore
V S Gaitonde	Rs 92 lakh
F N Souza	Rs 83 lakh
S H Raza	Rs 68 lakh
J Swaminathan	Rs 34 lakh
Krishen Khanna	Rs 21 lakh
Atul Dodiya	Rs 16 lakh

Therefore, Osian's February 9 auction of Indian contemporary art created the most buzz for the price V S Gaitonde's untitled canvas fetched at Rs 92 lakh (twice over the Rs 46 lakh his work had made at a Sotheby's auction in November 2003).

Previous Saffronart auctions established record-breaking prices for the artists F N Souza (Rs 83 lakh) and S H Raza (Rs 68 lakh). There has been some speculation whether these prices are sustainable, and in the recent Osian's auction, they were unable to come close to these benchmarks (recording, in fact, a fall from previous averages).

Other artists who had seen major highs on their prices are the hugely competitive M F Husain, and a triptych by Tyeb Mehta. In both cases, while the prices were well above Rs 1 crore, it was not for single works.

What was interesting about the just-concluded Osian's auction was not the prices (though that will always be of interest) but the fact that for the first time new names were heralded on the auction marquee.

Earlier, works by India's younger and brighter artists had made it to the catalogues (and got record prices in the bargain "" Atul Dodiya's Rs 16 lakh, for instance); this time round there are some unknown to all but the most serious collectors.

It isn't that these artists are unrecognised, but more that they're not the stuff of auction sales, and that has been this season's most refreshing trend: Viswanath Nageshkar, for instance, has hardly been seen outside of galleries.

Will this trend last? The forthcoming Saffronart sale on March 1-2, 2005 seems to suggest not, limited as it is to that absolutely safe category of "masters" "" nine this time round, and including M F Husain, S H Raza, Jehangir Sabavala, Ram Kumar, F N Souza, K G Subramanyan, Krishen Khanna, Akbar Padamsee and J Swaminathan.

Clearly, the important thing beyond finding representations of the best contemporary art in India seems to be establishing new benchmarks. Expect more records to be set.

The reason auctions fetch higher prices than galleries (though this has never been firmly established since galleries take payments in cash while auctions are bound to accept only cheque payments) is because provenance etc are usually above board or can be publicly challenged (the recent controversy over Bhupen Khakhar at Osian's is a case in point), and there is always the excitement of a competitive buy-out.

But because there are now only two players in the Indian market, this has formed the impression of a price race between the two.

The reality is that the earliest markets were created by Christie's and Sotheby's, but bureaucratic legislation has seen their interest wane in India.

While Osian's and Saffronart have remained serious players (and have professionalised the business), Bowring's had to bow out because of allegations of illegal selling, promising to return only once the courts had cleared it of all charges.

Till it returns (if ever), and Bonham's delivers on its interest in the Indian market, we seem counterpoised between the highs reported at Saffronart and Osian's sales "" creating benchmarks for the community of art collectors in India and among NRIs overseas.