Upcoming private museums hope to bring the aam aadmi closer to the arcana of artA cream-coloured Jaguar stands in collector Anupam Poddar’s drawing room, with a giant dinosaur clambering on to it from behind; a work by Mumbai-based artist Sudarshan Shetty. Mother Lekha’s bedroom has an elephant covered with sperm-shaped bindis (Bharti Kher) and in the dining area is Subodh Gupta’s cow-dung cave. The edgiest of Indian contemporary art might be home décor for the Poddars, but for the average Indian, the Subodhs and the Shettys belong to a world much fussed over but rarely seen or understood. Early this month, though, Poddar gave India what is being touted as its first museum of contemporary art — a 7,500 sq feet centre that showcases artwork from his collection—one baby step in familiarising the aam aadmi with the arcana of art. Five years from now, India’s museum map will have several new landmarks — from Neville Tuli’s long-awaited Osianama in Mumbai to Rakhi Sarkar’s Kolkata Museum of Modern Art in Kolkata and museums by SH Raza and Arun Vadehra in Delhi. “In the current scenario, to have more museums is one of the primary requirements. People are interested in buying art, but before that it is important for them to know about art,” says Vadehra, director of Vadehra Art Gallery, who has purchased land on the outskirts of Delhi for his museum. It’s a common grouse among artists that art hardly gets to engage with the public for lack of space. Says Tuli, “Given our population of one billion, our infrastructure is woefully short.” Agrees artist G.R. Iranna, “A major drawback of the National Gallery of Modern Art is the lack of substantial contemporary art in its collection.” And this is where people like Tuli step in. The Osian head has over 15,000 works of fine art and another 4,00,000 popular artwork, including vintage film memorabilia; the highlights range from an 1881 Raja Ravi Varma canvas acquired by him from Bonhams for Rs 6 crore and vintage Hollywood lobby cards from the Leonard Schrader Collection. His Osianama is scheduled to open next year, at the old Minerva Theatre building in Mumbai. It will include an art museum, gallery, art and film archive, cinema hall, library, book and design house and separate sections for film and sports memorabilia. “Each section represents and speaks to a different audience, taking forward different manners of interfacing with creativity,” says Tuli. The challenge, says 34-year-old Anupam Poddar, is to move beyond the white cube space of the gallery into different arenas. Each corner of his Gurgaon centre has an artwork on display, which will be replaced every three months. Parking lot included. While Vivan Sundaram’s installation Great Indian Bazaar shares the parking space with photographs from Tushar Joag’s celebrated Jataka Trilogy, the inaugural exhibition had Ranbir Kaleka’s Video Man With Cockrel II displayed at the entrance. Poddar bought his first artwork in 1999, a life-size pink fiberglass cow by Subodh Gupta. “I was looking for art that articulated concerns of my generation and the kind of works that would interact with the space within my house. I would buy works that struck a chord with me by their subject matter, their tongue-in-cheek approach or because they showed an artist’s courageous engagement with an issue,” he says. His collection stands at an astounding 3,000 works of contemporary art, besides folk and tribal art. With a millennia-old history of art, India is home to many such treasures. Sudhanva Ranade, joint director of Kelkar museum in Pune, for example, is looking for space to showcase part of his maternal grandfather’s collection. “The collection includes over 20,000 works and only 2,500 are on display in the current museum,” he says. At the new museum he is planning, he hopes to have a temperature-controlled area, touchscreens and educational programmes and lectures. “After all, the primary aim of a museum is to educate,” says Ranade. That’s a commitment from all museum owners. Poddar will initiate study tours and projects with art students; Tuli will bring to India the concept of a debating chamber. Interaction with several artists will be possible at the Raza Foundation museum that the veteran Paris-based artist has planned in Delhi. “This will feature Raza’s art collection which includes work of numerous artists and will bring together fine art and performing art like theatre, music and dance,” says artist Manish Pushkale, who is involved in Raza’s venture. In the east, Rakhi Sarkar’s KMOMA promises to provide a similar forum. Constructed on a 10-acre plot in Rajarhat, the public-private venture estimated at a budget of Rs 550 crore will exhibit art from 15th century to the modern times, with a separate wing for national, eastern and western art. Acclaimed Swiss duo Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron will lend an international appeal to the museum architecture. Another museum planned in Kolkata is Vikram Bachhawat’s Emami Chisel Art Centre, which will focus on contemporary art. With more museums for people to walk in to, one hopes the mysteries of art will be less daunting. As Arpana Caur, who has been running the Museum of Miniature and Folk Art in Delhi for three years now, says, “ For a mature art market, people need to understand art, not merely invest in it. And museums are essential for that.”
