Corporate Mumbai, its deep-pocket collectors and the motley set of swish investors may miss Tina Ambani’s much sought annual art mart, the Harmony Art Show, organised by her eponymous foundation this year.
Since 1995, Tina Ambani, herself a collector and patron, along with her industrialist husband, Anil, has been promoting the show as a flagship platform for emerging and established local artists. A talking point of Maximum City’s summer art calendar, the show has over the years been a launch pad for many current cult names, including Paresh Maity and Subodh Gupta.
The organisers, however, seem undecided over this year’s show. Curators and officials involved say that so far there has been no communication from Harmony’s management.
Many argue this indecision is symptomatic of the sobering times. After equities, commodities and real estate went through the tailspin, Indian art now seems to be having a brush with the ongoing slowdown.
It is clear the Ambani pet project will miss its usual March-April schedule. Last year, a curated show got pushed to August, but even that timeline looks tough at the moment. “Considering that it takes four to six months to plan, curate and commission works, even an August deadline looks remote at the moment,” said an official involved with the project, on condition of anonymity.
The foundation may, however, do a different kind of event later in the year, in a smaller scale.
Harmony Art Foundation’s spokesperson is hopeful of hosting a 2012 show. “In recent years, the Harmony Art Show has been held at varying times of the year. We will continue to adhere to this practice,” he said.
He went on to highlight that Harmony Art Foundation conducts activities through the year to promote emerging Indian artists and practices, both contemporary and traditional. This ongoing engagement manifests in diverse events such as art-in-residencies, public space exhibitions along the Delhi Airport Metro Express, as well as the Harmony Art Show. “As part of our annual programme, we have already conducted an art-in-residency at Reliance Group’s DAKC campus in Navi Mumbai that featured artists from across the country, this January,” he adds
But associates do admit a cautious environment has indeed made unique events like Harmony more challenging and financially less viable. It’s a trophy oriented market at present that makes it easier for a retrospective of the masters, not a show of untouched talent.
In the recent past, Tina Ambani has taken calls and downsized her show, depending on the market mood. For example, in the backdrop of the post-Lehman meltdown and 26/11 trauma, the 2009 show on Indian miniatures was muted in contrast to the 2008 show that had 350 works by a record 173 artists.
The current dip is not as perilous as the collapse four years ago, but curators and collectors agree that it’s still not a happy market. The mood is cautious and it’s taking much longer to seal a deal, with spontaneous purchase of art slowing down drastically.
Even then, a no-show from Harmony this year is bound to raise eyebrows, as it is backed by a huge corporate group like Reliance ADAG. They themselves have been buying considerable art from the show for their own collection. So, there’s an existing captive market. “Now, their internal reservoir has also gone up as they are buying a lot of art for the public spaces in their metro stations in Delhi and Mumbai. I am sure they are also influential enough among their peers to get more buyers even today,” said a Delhi-based gallerist and art collector.
But are the signs of a slowdown palpable? Are people getting wary of Indian art as a value-accretive asset class?
Jaws dropped when this March, the iconic 90-year-old contemporary pioneer S H Raza’s ‘Village with Church’, from the private collection of John D Rockfeller III had no takers at a New York Sotheby’s auction. The hoopla and the pre-auction expectations failed to find a buyer for this Rs 12.5 crore masterpiece when just two years ago his ‘Saurashtra’ created a price record at Christie’s, going under the hammer for Rs 16.42 crore. That made him one of the most expensive contemporary artists from the 1947 Progressive Artists’ Group.
Some like Delhi-based art curator and impresario Ina Puri would call it a “one-off disappointment,” but even she admits that buyers on Wednesday are generally looking at more quality names and works. “The giddiness, frenzy has gone down. It’s a more cautious approach today.”
Independent art critics say since the euphoria of 2006, Indian art-scape has lost much of its vivacity of the past. The Chinese have made a far bigger splash globally and buoyed by the Arab Spring, there’s a renaissance in West Asia.
In India, there have been occasional outbursts. Especially in 2010 when a Bharti Kher or an Arpita Singh sold for Rs 7 crore and above or when a Subodh Gupta became a global toast.
But, on an average, post-2009, prices have seen a sharp 30-70 per cent erosion for most contemporary names after nearly doubling in the preceding years. Some of the ‘decorative’ contemporaries had pockets of interests and they managed to sustain. On the flip side, galleries like Bodhi with branches in Mumbai, Delhi, Singapore and New York perished as did the artists they promoted.
Even the A-listers — an elite group of around 20 masters, including Husain, Raza, Souza, Tyeb Mehta, Ram Kumar — have also seen a 10-20 per cent “hiccup” in prices, but their brand equity and historical provenance make them a lot more resilient to the volatility.
“It’s a lot like real estate. Prices are depressed, but not at rock bottom,” says Geetha Mehra, wholetime director at Mumbai’s Sakshi Gallery.
Bankers who advise their high net worth clients to explore art as an investment option concur. “The ultra high-net-worth segment remains price-insensitive and good art is always on demand for their private collection. Overall, though, investment transactions in art have been far fewer post the Lehman crisis. India art is still not a real investment option,” feels Pankaj Narain, head of private clients, banking & investments — Deutsche Bank India.
But even for these collectors who are generally decoupled from any slowdown, the demand continues to be low. The prices of (MF) Husain's paintings went up a few notches after his death, but the increase was still lower than the market expectations.
“For serious, long-term aficionados, the value appreciation angle is not necessarily critical. Even then, I do see a slowdown in the number of transactions, but not in the number of people who continue to remain interested,” said Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder & CEO, Saffronart.
Additional reporting by Somasroy Chakraborty
