Darwin’s stroke

Two years after the correction the art market has shown remarkable,though slow recovery,as the December Saffronart Auction indicates. With a total of Rs 20 crore in sales and a 78 per cent sales rate,the chief executive and co-founder of Saffronart,Dinesh Vazirani,insists it’s all about discerning buyers acquiring premium works.

“There will be an overall decline in sales in Modern Art as between 30-50 per cent and contemporary art,40-70 per cent,” he predicts. Geetu Hinduja of Fine Art Gallery reveals that their sales have been hit by approximately 50 per cent. Samina Lokhandwala of Sam’s Art Hub says that the beginning of the year was a really scary period for her gallery,“when we went for more than five months without selling a single piece”. Another gallery,on conditions of anonymity,revealed “The art market was doing so badly that one had to sell other assets like gold to keep paying the rent.”

Others like Farah Siddiqui and Aditya Ruia cut their losses and shut shop of FSCA and Bombay Art Gallery respectively. Ruia already had a small gallery at his sprawling Ruia Mansion on Mount Pleasant Road,while Siddiqui has had to operate out of her husband’s office in Tardeo.

Artists too are reeling under the impact of the economic slowdown. Saffronart had set the benchmark of Rs 4-5 crore for Subodh Gupta. In March,it slipped to Rs 79 lakh. Artists like F N Souza and T V Santosh have become more affordable. The market has leveled out for many mid-career artists like Jehangir Jani and Naina Kanodia,while young strugglers like Sanjay Barot,have had to price themselves dirt-cheap,between Rs 10,000 to Rs 30,000.

While the older and more established galleries have more or less weathered the storm,the country has witnessed a spate of gallery closures. Besides Ruia and Siddiqui,Bodhi art gallery has closed all its branches except the Mumbai one.

“Distress sales will only devalue the market further. Smaller galleries dependent on sales will naturally shut,” confirms Amit Swarup,president of private equity of Religare Enterprises.

But while art sales might have taken a beating,the recession,feels many,has had a filtering effect on the quality of art. “The market has become a collector’s market as opposed to an investor’s market,” feels Vazirani,asserting that art should be owned for the purpose of hanging on a wall and not as a commodity. “People are a lot more aware now. They want good-quality art as opposed to the bogus public art the boom phase had spawned.”

Mallika Advani,Christie’s first woman auctioneer of Indian origin,agrees. “The kind of trigger-happy spending till 2008 has stopped. There is more informed buying by collectors and the market today is more genuine.”

Vikram Sethi observes,“The market trends at the end of 2009 have indicated that 2010 will be the year of cautious buying and safe bets. The Moderns—S H Raza,F N Souza,Tyeb Mehta,M F Husian and Ram Kumar—are doing well at the auctions. This may not be true of all the Contemporaries,with exceptions like Subodh Gupta,” says Sethi.

Sagar echoes his sentiments adding “Hopefully there won’t be a tremendous spike and the growth will be in a measured and controlled manner.”

While artist Bose Krishnamachari feels that the trend is towards a juxtaposition of the contemporary with the traditional,Vazirani says that the next five years are going to be about infrastructure building,transparency and regulation.