India Art Summit 2009

Portrait of Young India

Lively! Vivacious? Animated. Pulsating! Energetic. Alive?
No, why am I trying? I don’t think my visit to India Art Summit 2009 can be described in words.

OK, let’s see – effervescent? Does this word describe the feeling I am trying to express?

Yes. That bubbly, bouncy, sparkling and being young, feeling. Young - because a large number of young artists exhibited their works. Young - because the Modern Masters’ works radiated young and vibrant energy. And Young – because this summit was put together by people in their 20s.

Bird’s eye view of stalls at the India Art Summit 2009.
Bottom (foreground) 143 x 78 inch Untitled by Subodh Gupta

It was evident that an entire new generation of artists and art lovers is driving Indian art and pushing its boundaries. India’s economic boom has led to mushrooming of art galleries in the metros and art prices are skyrocketing, making contemporary art as sought after as luxury cars and branded watches among the newly rich.

The four-day India Art Summit held at Delhi showcased collections from 54 galleries from around the world, displaying Rs. 40 to 50 Crores worth of art under one roof. Close to 40,000 visitors experienced the pulsating energy of India’s Modern and Contemporary Art Market and 200 works of art were sold aggregating Rs 26 Crores.

Vast canvases of oil paintings from some of India's most renowned painters shared space with a variety of art forms from younger, more contemporary artists including sculptures, video and digital art installations.

At the entrance was the showpiece - three giant sculptures by one of the country's leading contemporary artists, Subodh Gupta, depicting three monkeys made of bronze, steel and old utensils.

It was an unforgettable experience of actually ‘touching’ the works of SH Raza, FN Souza, Jamini Roy, GR Santosh and MF Husain (On 100” Plasma TV) at the Delhi Art Gallery Stall. Thanks to Bodhi Art, I got the opportunity observe works of contemporary artists like Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodia, Jitish Kalat and Zarina Hashmi.

The art summit also saw some impressive buying and selling. A piece by the British-Indian artist, Anish Kapoor, has sold for half a million pounds, highest price for a work of art at the summit. Sales continued throughout the four-day summit. A well-reputed Mumbai gallery, Sakshi, went on to sell two of three editions of Sunil Gawde’s 2009 sculpture Heart Beat - Beat Heart, a series of red hearts with nails in them, for $32,000 each.

Despite the art market reflecting the global downturn, gallery analysts are predicting a more positive state for Indian art market which is pegged as the fourth most buoyant in the world projecting an annual growth of 30-35%.

As India has become a competitive force in the global marketplace, Indian art has in turn become a global phenomenon. The explosive growth in interest in the arts and the developing art market infrastructure has allowed artists to gain much more exposure and long-awaited attention on a global level.

All in all, India Art Summit was a sight to behold.

Art Appreciation

Today’s Business Leaders drape big canvases in their offices, boardrooms and drawing rooms. They go to the art galleries as a social visit and Invest in art as never before. Through this feature I will try to make you ‘more aware’ and ‘better informed’ about Visual Arts. It is an attempt to eventually, make you enlightened and equipped for more informed discussions on All Thing Art.

Appreciating Visual Arts

Let's start with a simple question. What is art? Art is something that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing to our eyes. Art is something that makes us more thoughtful and well-rounded humans. On the other hand, art is such a large part of our everyday lives; we hardly even stop to think about it. Look at the computer or a laptop in front of you, right this minute. Someone designed that. It is art. The shape of your car is art. Your coffee cup is art. Your tie or a well-stitched dress is art. Ask your children the impact that lack of graphics would have on their favorite video game or a TV cartoon character. It is hard to imagine, even for a minute, a world without art!

To appreciate art, one must have the knowledge of the elements of art. They are the ‘Building Blocks’ of any work of art. Artists manipulate these elements, mix them in with principles of design and compose a work of art.

The elements of art are line, shape, form, space, texture, value and colour.

Musicians talk in ‘common language’ about the key of "A," and they all know it means - a pitch relating to 440 oscillations per second of vibration. Similarly, understanding these principals enable us to describe what an artist has done, analyze what is going on in a particular piece and communicate our thoughts and findings using a ‘common language’.

While line isn't something found in nature, it is absolutely essential to depict objects and define shapes. It can define a space, create an outline or pattern, imply movement or texture and allude to mass or volume. A painter makes form and space appear in two-dimensional works through the use of perspective and shading. A sculptor, by default, has to have both elements in a sculpture, because these elements are three-dimensional.

No, I am not going to give any dope on colour but value of the colour is something, which the painters always play with. It is the lightness and darkness of a colour. Artists use them to create dimensions and moods on flat surface.

Next time you see a work or art, see if you can identify which elements of art have been ‘exploited’ to convey a message or to create a mood.

Master of Elements

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the first artist to use ‘value’ consistently across colors. This skillful use of light and dark paints to define three-dimensional shape became known as chiaroscuro, a style of shading that dominates tone (brightness) more than colour.

Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), ca. 1503-06 by Leonardo da Vinci

(Italian, 1452-1519). Oil on poplar wood. 77 x 53 cm

Da Vinci believed that the human body was the outward & visible expression of the soul and it was shaped by its spirit. A painter must reverse the process and by constructing a body, give expression to a spirit. Leonardo considered this the artist’s highest purpose and he himself excelled therein. His portrait of Mona Lisa has always been considered a masterpiece for its expression of an inner life. It is almost certainly the most famous painting in the world and probably the only one that virtually everyone can recognize and name.

Leonardo made the ‘lines’ blend into one another through miniscule brushstrokes, which made for a rather hazy, albeit more realistic, depiction of light and color. Mona Lisa is an early, wonderful example of this technique called sfumato, which lends the mysterious qualities to the painting.

As we now see it, the Mona Lisa is collaboration between art and time, impossible to look at with fresh eyes or to imagine other than it is. Only when we read Georgio Vasari, (the author of Lives of the Artists, written over 400 years ago) who drew a word-picture of Mona Lisa’s lustrous eyes, rosy flesh tones and red lips, do we realize how much her appearance has been modified by age and varnish. Mona Lisa’s smile was described by Vasari as ‘more divine than human’. Vasari tells us that Leonardo employed musicians and jesters to prevent his sitter (model) Madonna Lisa Gioconda (‘Mona’ is simply a contraction of ‘Madonna’) from losing her smile and lapsing into an expression of conventional melancholy. After spending 4 years on it, Leonardo could not part with his work and eventually carried it off with him to France, the reason why it is in the possession of the Louvre today.

While we cannot put a price tag on Mona Lisa, we can certainly invest in art which we like, understand and afford. The big question comes to the mind first is – How much should I pay for a work of art? The best place to start is at an auction. The price that a work of art sells for at auction is generally accepted to be an accurate estimate of fair market value. At auction, art is generally required to sell immediately, with no fanfare or restrictions, to the highest bidders. Another good estimate of fair market value is the price that a retail gallery pays for a work of art before they mark it up. This "dealer price" is considered to be the value of the art, and is generally considered a reasonable indicator of a work of art's fair market value.

In the forthcoming months, I will give you more information on investing in art and make you more aware of All Things Art.