Art of the matter

BUSINESS CLASS

Art galleries may rake in the moolah but what does it really mean for the avid collector?

Saffronarts' last auction sold 100 per cent, raising over US $12 million for the auction house and setting world records for over 20 artists including F N Souza, Akbar Padamsee, Krishen Khanna, Jogen Chowdhry, Himmat Shah,Chitrovanu Mazumdar, Natraj Sharma, Shibu Natesan, Subodh Gupta, Jagganath Panda and Manish Pushkale, to name a few.

On the surface, this might be great news for the art community but most outsiders are bewildered thinking of the art prices rising so quickly, so fast. Indian art at these levels no longer seems undervalued, and it's certainly no small change even for the deep pocketed NRIs.

Furthermore, collecting art has become a tedious and painful activity. Why? Because galleries that were selling art now keep most works for themselves and sell the odd bit at auctions that create hype and drive prices further up. Some artists like Akbar Padamsee have gone one step further and even eliminated the gallery by selling their works directly to auction houses!

While a plethora of SMSs, blog portals and private e-mails circulate around the art world slamming respected collectors who voice their concerns publicly, others accuse dealers and auction houses of informal partnerships. Even the press has taken notice, asking if the auction market needs a regulator.

Many point to the fact that two of the biggest auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, are represented here by two of India's largest dealers, which has ensured that their artists do exceedingly well at auction.

Add to that the fact that most dealers across India are not selling any of their favoured artists to collectors and are artificially limiting supply.

Collectors at this stage need to be cautious when buying at auction as India has no laws that ensure fair competition.

For instance, in the US where if an auction house owns a painting itself, or has a financial interest in it, it must be declared to the potential buyers. In America, this is a law simply to avoid a conflict of interest as an auction house might want to aggressively market its own holdings at the cost of other sellers.

On the one hand you can't really blame an auction house for record breaking prices if two individuals with vested interests decide to take some artists prices up, but a little more transparency in the auction world would certainly be welcome.