Opinion The problem with the Indian art boom? It isn’t that Indian

Worse, entire categories of Indian artistic practice are excluded: Textiles, terracotta, leather, metal, and other traditional mediums — once central to our cultural economy — are too often dismissed as “craft”. A colonial hangover that split “fine art” from “decorative art” (denigrating a large part of traditional art as “decorative”, and of inferior value). The hierarchy remains intact in our art colleges, galleries, and the larger market. English-speaking artists, armed with catalogue essays and curatorial endorsements, gain disproportionate advantages. Regional languages, meanwhile, are absent from our discourse, galleries, and fairs. A token translated curatorial note is no substitute for a system that speaks to Indians in their own idioms. In effect, we continue to exoticise the Indian artist. Imagine the Bandwalas in Krishen Khanna’s painting ever being an audience to the works made about them.

Why not, instead, build a market rooted in our own strengths? An Indian art market for Indians, by Indians, and of Indians? Such a model would not look only at record-breaking prices internationally, but at validation through volume — what I call the RRV principle: Reach, Relevance, and Volume; valuing a work for how the larger audience responds to it, and its historic value. As Pooja Pillai wrote in these pages, Indian cuisine was long reduced abroad to butter chicken and dosas. Yet within India, we have learned to value its true diversity by creating markets that serve everything from street food to fine dining. Why can’t art follow a similar structure? We create a one-million-dollar sale by either selling one one-million-dollar artwork, or selling a million one-dollar works. The market benefits from the latter in the long run, and unfortunately, the current systems favour the former.

The Kala Melas — a commercially conducive, community-led platform that integrates ritual, performance, art, craft, aesthetic, and culinary traditions — is among the world’s oldest forms of art fairs, unable to attain the tag of one. The differentiator is the context: While melas remain deeply rooted in local culture and continue to enable and promote the commercial consumption of cultural commodities, international art fairs often cater to a narrow circuit of collectors, curators, and galleries seeking validation within an elite ecosystem. In the process, the broader potential of the art market: To expand participation, access, and economic growth — remains underexplored.

Our art market will never truly come of age if it remains dependent on the scaffolding of the West. We must reimagine value on our own terms — through scale, inclusivity, and cultural rootedness. It is only then that Indian art will stop being exoticised, even within India, and start being lived, shared, and owned by the people it was always meant for.

The writer is an art advisor and curator