KOCHI: An array of signature artworks of modern and contemporary masters, ranging from the late Amrita Sher-Gil to A Ramachandran and from Vivan Sundaram to Subodh Gupta, will come under the hammer, as the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) is all set to organise a live and online fundraiser in Mumbai on October 31.
The auction of the artworks of 41 artists will be held at Saffronart’s office in Prabhadevi, a southern upscale locality of Mumbai. The auction is being held as a fundraiser for the upcoming fourth edition of the Biennale in 2018.The registration for the auction will start at 7 pm and the bidding will begin at 8 pm. Besides live auctioning, bidding will also take place online, on the phone and on the mobile app of Saffronart, the country’s leading art auction house.
A preview of these artworks will be held at the Mumbai offices of Saffronart on October 26. The auction will also feature prominent names in contemporary Indian art such as Sahej Rahal, Bharti Kher, Atul Dodiya, TV Santhosh, Pushpamala N., Abir Karmakar, Prajakta Potnis, Parvathi Nayar, Manjunath Kamath and Kerala artists Bhagyanath, Benitha Perciyal, P S Jalaja, KP Reji, Sosa Joseph, Vivek Vilasini and Gigi Scaria. Francesco Clemente, an Italian contemporary artist, is the only foreigner whose work will feature in the fundraiser auction list.
This will be the second such fundraiser art auction by KBF held in collaboration with Saffronart - the earlier being held in 2015 which raised an amount of `2.29 crore. Also, there is no buyer’s premium (additional charge on the hammer price) on the artworks and net proceeds will go towards supporting the cause and need of the Biennale. “This is the only revenue-generating activity undertaken by the KBF, and the auction is an unprecedented show of support by the Indian art fraternity for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale as all the works are donations by the artists,” said Bose Krishnamachari, KBF president.
KBF secretary Riyas Komu said the fundraiser auction in 2015 was conducted rather hurriedly to raise a corpus fund for the Biennale. “This time around, it is more organised. We believe live and online bidding will ensure greater participation of art aficionados and the public alike. We have also brought out a catalogue, which was missing in the previous auction,” he said.
“These artists are generously placing their works on auction without a buyer’s premium attached. The auction is a sign of the exceptional participation and sense of ownership the Indian art fraternity has felt towards this event,” he said.