NOVEMBER 1: HEART, the Tuli Foundation for Holistic Education and Art, operates on one fundamental premise: ``The redefinition and integration of charity, artistic creativity, scholarship and risk-taking''. Art, feels HEART's founder-president Neville Tuli, cannot survive on a merely intellectual or a creative level.'' Tuli's latest project, `Intuitive Logic: The Next Step, addresses exactly this issue.The project has culminated in a three-day preview exhibition of contemporary, classical, tribal and folk miniatures and textiles which opened at Mumbai's National Gallery of Modern Arts on Monday evening. It follows a day-long seminar-cum-debate titled `A Passionate-Detachment: Infrastructure-Building for the Indian Arts' at Godrej Dance Academy Theatre, NCPA on Wednesday.``A yawning gap between the individual and institution ails the world of Indian art. The creative vision of an artist isn't enough for his creation to reach out and endure. He needs an economically viable platform, that can provide therequisite infrastructure to disseminate and hand down his ideas and visions. Look at Shantiniketan. It certainly isn't what Tagore meant it to be. Such a gap can only be bridged with the involvement of the thinktank, artists, the connoisseur, the government and the corporates,'' feels Tuli.And he has ensured that the thinktank has been in step with his vision. Today's seminar had Ashish Banerjee, INTACH director Dr Mallika Sarabhai, architect Charles Correa, Anmol Vellani, Executive Director, India Foundation for the Art and a host of others in the panel discussing issues that must be addressed ``to revolutionise an infrastructure for the arts'' - be it fine arts, architecture, cinema or literature. The issues up for debate included the nature and role of charity, creativity and scholarship in creating an alternative space and set of values for infrastructure-building, the role of auctions and auction houses in establishing transparency in support systems for nurturing the arts, nature and role of thecorporate-government-media linkage, patronage systems and preservation of India's culture heritage monuments.A couple of auction sessions, with which the preview exhibitions end in Delhi, takes care of the economic aspect of it. This will be HEART's second auction; the first, held in 1997, totted up sales of Rs 2.80 crore. In fact, Raja Ravi Verma's The Begum's Bath which sold for for Rs 32 lakh, fetched the highest price ever for an Indian artist.Says Tuli, ``The success of the exhibition-auction created new levels of tranparency in the domestic art market, establishing clearer price benchmarks and a deeper understanding between the historical relevance of the painting and its price.'' He expects this project to play a crucial role in the fledgling art and antiques market, which is riddled with black money and lacks public accountability and transparency. While 75 per cent of the funds will go to the owners of the ancient artefacs and paintings on display, HEART will form a joint fund of Rs 50lakh with the National Culture Fund and the rest will be ploughed back for future projects of this kind. ``We are also contemplating opening an independent auction house, in keeping with HEART's larger goal of perpetuation and preservation of the arts, although we haven't gone into the nitty-gritties yet,'' says Tuli.And just like HEART's earlier exhibitions, this one boasts of artefacts that date back to as early as the 16th century, collected from all over the country: ``The people concerned were only to willing to come forward. The effort was in putting together the works.'' All for art with a heart.
