Often trends are based on the current economical and political situations. Given the current scenario, the buzz in business has been rather dull and this affects the art market directly. Its affects are seen not only in commerce but also in creativity as well. The art market has always been fuelled by patronage, be it the Medicis during the Italian Renaissance, or the Latin American cartels propelled by the money from the drug lords, or closer home when the Quit India Movement created an entire school of thinkers who fought for their own identity looking toward independence from the tyrannical manipulations of the British. The art movement has been and will always be linked to the environment. The climatic conditions in India have been such that clients/collectors have been cautious in their purchases in the last couple of years.
Good blue chip works have seen fantastically high prices either at auction or privately, and works that were bad or lacked pizzazz or were priced too high were left unsold. This certainly points to the fact that the market is mature and collectors know what they want and are willing to buy good works. It is this very maturity that allows people to also recognise poor art.This trend is bound to continue. Collectors will separate the wheat from the chaff in art as well. Yes, one has to read the writing on the wall.
In terms of the artists and new work, there has been very little new or exciting activity. This is largely due to the fact that for the first time, artists have realised they cannot be vocal, honest or bold. Vociferous artists have not and will not be visible since one does not know who will be attacked for works that are misunderstood.
In a country with a past so rich and deep-rooted, I sense a deep fear among the creative community. I never thought I would live to see a day when an artist asked if it was okay to exhibit nudes. In Indian philosophy, nudity was not vulgarity and somewhere these lines have blurred, and the visual language has suffered a great loss not because of the absence of a female body but because of the inability to differentiate between what acceptable and unacceptable communication is. After all, art is a narrative, art is a communication. This is a sad situation as artists were always chroniclers of “the time”.
As in China, during the revolution or in the Middle East, this suppression only leads, eventually, to very dramatic visible strong voices and idioms in visual cultures. This will happen in India as well. This oppression is the silver lining in the clouds.
This calm we are witnessing before the storm is not likely to produce wildly important works. We have seen a rather dry time in creativity and I feel this will continue till this oppressiveness remains, and only in response to this dismal situation, will we see a burst of energy in the arts.
However, in the country—which gave the world the shunya, the dot and embryonic beginning of life—there has been a great understanding of abstraction and a simplification of thought. Look what has happened to Gaitonde, Nasreen Mohamedi and other abstract artists whose works are now witnessing a great surge of interest. Metaphysical ideas from Zarina Hashmi to Jeyram Patel, Sohan Qadri to Rm Palaniappan, will always remain. It is certainly a great time to look at the sublime, non-controversial uncomplicated works. Those looking to collect the abstract and decorate will find a great booty, while curators looking for new exciting works will have too look far and look hard. There certainly is an absence in newness, and the advantage is that classical and historic work will see a great resurgence. Personally, I feel the trend towards safe and old classical work is what we are going to see, while the strong statements will stay beneath the surface.
I would urge one to look at among the younger group in India, N Ramachandran, Rohini Singh, Yuvan Bothi, Puneet Kaushik, Sanjeevaa Rao, Srinivas Reddy, and collectives like desire machine etc.—not to leave out the new surge in authorship of the crafts. The recognition time for the “other masters”, our skilled crafts people with generations of craft in their blood, will come to stay. To me, 2016 seems like a turning point which is going to force us to search within and find newer and newer identities as we are confronted with unprecedented realities.
The author is the founder of Apparao Galleries, Chennai