The need to celebrate art

Around the world there is an obsessive, vicarious interest in the art celebrities are collecting

The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing was inaugurated a decade ago, and sees a million footfalls annually. Its promoters, Myriam and Guy Ullens, are Belgian. In Cape Town, South Africa, collector Jochen Zeitz is going to open the largest museum of contemporary African art in September this year. Zeitz is German. Art collectors Leah and Charles Justin are so passionate about their collection of art that when it became too large, they moved to a larger house in Victoria, Australia, which they opened to strangers as the Justin Art House Museum. Samlung Hoffman in Berlin and Maison Particuliere in Brussels offer similar house museum experiences. Palaces elsewhere may be regarded as sacred territory, but in Oxfordshire, England, Lord Edward-Spencer Churchill has chosen to exhibit contemporary art in its somewhat forbidding interiors.

Art, its collectors and promoters have the ability to surprise, and from around the world, news flows in nonstop: Adrian Cheng has opened the world’s first “art mall” in Hong Kong; in Amsterdam, Kai van Hasselt’s collection of art is based on the esoteric theme of “transformation”; actor Leonardo DiCaprio buys works of artists Takashi Murakami and Jean-Michel Basquiat; the go-to online site for acquiring contemporary Chinese art is artshare.com; oh, and — happy find! — Taipei music maker Yao Chien just happens to own a T V Santosh in his collection. 

Around the world, there is an obsessive interest in the art celebrities are collecting. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, for example, buys the works of Takashi Murakami. Photo: Reuters

While we in India still fixate over values and auction prices and find little else to fill up up newspaper and magazine pages, or our conversations, when it comes to art, around the rest of the world there is an obsessive, vicarious interest in the art celebrities are collecting (or simply buying); our only example of a collector opening up her collection to build a museum is Kiran Nadar; and when it comes to people using their art collections to share with others, loan to museums or exhibitions, or innovate in any manner, we have almost no comparisons to offer. In part, it is because the art constituency itself is so tiny, there is truly so little that happens that even that creates no interest. Art is about patronage and affluence, so collecting obsessions and the thrill of the chase simply do not make exciting enough stories for our media and its demographic of readers or viewers. When was the last time, if ever, that you read about the passion that makes up an Indian collector’s commitment and life? 

Of course, it’s a case of the chicken and the egg — which comes first? As a people, we celebrate so much: food, fashion, cinema, weddings, even homes, that it’s a surprise why we care so little about art, its patronage, mentorship, or longevity. There is a silliness when it comes to our need to know about film and cricket stars that nothing else seems to matter. That we are not a nation known to encourage hobbies could be another reason why we fail to rise above our ordinary selves. We have our collectors, but they are too few; and the art community is too fragmented to celebrate divergences. 

As the India Art Fair nears, there are hundreds of stories there to be picked up — artists and their muse, collectors large and small, innovators with technology shopping around for ideas, the celebration of the surprising and the unexpected. The media is ill-chosen to pick these for you, but as you look around, ask, be curious, don’t let politeness or lack of knowledge dull your perceptions: meet, engage, talk — for you are as much part of the unravelling story as any of the constituents who make up the exciting dialogue of our still evolving art world. 

Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated