As we reach the last of our series of special editions on Indian art, we concentrate on Indian artists born after 1950. It is the artists from this period who have made the most traceable marks on the world art market scenario. They may not yet be the big guns in the global perspective, but they are savvy, which is part of the package.
Take for example Anish Kapoor. This Indian born sculptor had with his mirror images taken the US and the UK by storm as far back as the middle of the last decade. In fact, the world had woken up to his talent much before India did, thus enabling him to carve out his own niche.
This issue covers some of them-- Subodh Gupta, TV Santosh, Anish Kapoor, Atul Dodhiya, Raqib Shaw etc whether in the form of articles or in the form of interviews. We have our regular features, overview of contemporary art and Gennext artist, Chinese contemporary artists, Art Summit etc. My special gratitude to Mr H A Anil Kumar from Bengaluru, an art historian par excellence, who agreed to guest edit this issue.
A word of caution about the so-called projections of the Indian art market and its strengths. Most of the art market surveys are based on assumption and on a few selected artists. For art market survey's professionals within the Indian art industry are assigned to vote on who they think is the top artist. These assumptions are based on positive voting, meaning if a particular artist, gallery gets a 20% positive vote they figure in the list of 'top 5 whatever' list and therefore not necessarily accurate. As you will understand after reading this small anecdote, one should not take everything said in an art-market survey for granted as the bodies concerned themselves admit it's not completely unbiased and a true reflection of the market.
What we need is a thorough research and a compilation of factual figures. Then only will we be able to gauge the strength of the Indian art market. We have done some research and had compiled auction results of top 5 selling artists with details on their performance at auctions since 1990 to 2010 that will give you an insight to the ups and downs in Indian art.
Happy reading.