The International scene

The Indian artists on the world ramp

It is noteworthy at this point that in the 1990s, there was vitually no secondary art market in India. Another interesting trend is that between 2000 and 2008, the price index of Indian contemporary art multiplied by seven times. And the biggest benefactors of this had been Anish Kapoor, Subodh Gupta and TV Santosh.

Kapoor's works has an auction track record going back 20 years. However, Kapoor has not had any 7-figure results over recent months and his most expensive works have all been bought in. On 11 November 2008, a splendid alabaster sculpture estimated at 2 to 3 million dollars went unsold at Sotheby's.  Indeed, his current record was set on 1 July at Sotheby's in London for another alabaster sculpture which fetched £1.72m (€2.17m or $3.42m). Kapoor experienced a further setback on 24 November 2008 when his monumental aluminium installation (5 metres wide) Mountain was bought in at Bonhams in Dubai. However, on 5 February 2009, an sans titre work in stainless steel (1996) actually fetched more than expected when it sold for £840,000 (c. €936,000) versus an upper estimate of £700,000, at Sotheby's in London.

On the other hand, Subodh Gupta, who was unknown to the international art market before 2005, (works he created in the 1990s could be acquired for between €10,000 and €50,000), started experiencing a very high demand from 2006. One of his pieces, 'Before the Plunge', quadrupled its price estimate that year fetching the equivalent of €35,300 on 29 March 2006 at Sotheby's in London. From then on, demand for his work became so intense that not one single Subodh Gupta auction lot remained unsold, until the month of October 2008. At the Hong-Kong sale of his works, on 4 Ocotber a 4-metre canvas by Gupta had to be bought in by Sotheby's. Since then, eleven pieces have been bought in at all the major international auction venues including Paris, London, and New York. In November 2008, the failed sale of Vehicle for Seven Seas III at Christie's New York (estimated $300,000 - $400,000) confirmed a sharp contraction. In fact, on 3 April 2008, a very similar work from the same series had tripled its lower estimate at Artcurial in Paris when it fetched €425,000. Subodh Gupta has a solid international reputation and his work has been acquired by a number of private and public collections.

Kapoor and Gupta are regarded among the world's fifteen top-selling Contemporary artists. However, the third top-selling Indian artist, TV Santosh had a revenue total only one tenth of his peers' (€1.2m). His very first painting to sell at a New York auction in March 2006 (for the equivalent of €11,600) doubled its estimated price. In September 2007, Santosh posted his first auction result above €100,000. The painting, 'Across an Unresolved Story' (2005), more than quadruped its upper estimate when it sold for $180,000 (c. €130,000) at Christie's in New York. In 2008, he crossed the €100,000 line on six other occasions. However, he took a beating in 2009, never achieving the magic figure. His best result in 2009 has been €55,400 for an oil on canvas painted in 2005 entitled 'Hundred Square Feet of Curses' at Christie's on 24 May. Since the beginning of 2009, the price fall is harsh: around -45% between January and June 2009.

On the other hand, Modern Indian artists have been showing better resistance to the art market crisis. In fact, compared to the contemporary artists, they give an impression of immunity to the downturn.

Jogen Chowdhury, and Francis Newton Souza both tripled their estimates supplied by Sotheby's at its Indian Art sale on 16 June 2009. Chowdhury even signed his new record with a 1979 water-colour entitled 'Day Dreaming' which fetched £310,000 (€364,000). According to some sources, the good results at this sale (where 69% of the lots found buyers) were linked to the morale-boosting effect of the May elections in India.
In fact Jitish Kallat, the youngest among the three also seemed to have benefited from the election effect. The sale of his works at Christie's Asian art sale was scheduled eight days after the elections, on 24 May 2009 and saw two of his works eliciting very good results. Rickshawpolis 9 actually fetched twice its estimate at HKD1.3m (€105,000).

Predicting the art market is a hard task. However, according to the trends set at the closing of 2009, there seems to be hope for the secondary art market picking up once again, and the focus this year may as well be on modern painters across the world.