23rd June, 2008
INDIAN art should get ready to crown its new poster boy —Subodh Gupta. The
money that has changed hands for just top seven canvases and installations by
Gupta in auctions since January 2008 stands at awhopping Rs 20.43 crore. This
outstanding figure makes him the only new generation Indian artist to have
consistently done well at prestigious auctions held in New York, London, Paris,
Mumbai and even online, in the first six months of the year. Gupta bettered
his personal auction record twice in aspan of 10 days. While art afficionados
were still marvelling at the record of Rs 5.1 crore that his untitled
installation made of stainless steel utensils garnered at the Christies auction
of South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art in London on June 11, soon followed
the next record of Rs 5.7 crore for his untitled oil on canvas at Saffron Arts
online auction on June 18- 19. Afavourite of the art collectors in the West,
this 44- year- old Gurgaon- based artist has earned the sobriquet of being the
Damien Hurst of India as The Guardian once, in one of its rare praises,
generously described him. The newspaper had gone on to call him the current
darling of booming Indian art market.” The feat is truly astonishing for an
artist of his age —he came in agood 30 years or more later on the scene than the
revered masters of Indian art like the late F. N. Souza and J. Swaminathan or
the still active M. F. Hussain, S. H. Raza, Tyeb Mehta and Ram Kumar, who are
known for making big bucks at art auctions. The artist himself, however, refuses
to speak on auctions. In an earlier interview with MAIL TODAY ,he had said,
“Iwill not speak on auctions at all. Im open to talking on anything else.” On
his strength as an artist, he said, “Ithink my biggest strength is that even
when Iwas starving in pursuit of art, Ididnt give up and continued to work
hard.” From the little known Khagaul in Bihar, where he was born and raised, to
being afavourite of Francois Pinnault, an important French collector who is
better known as the owner of Gucci and part owner of the renowned auction house
Christies, Gupta surely has come along way. He hasnt lost sight of his roots,
though. Some of his best works are straight out of rural Indian milieu —cow dung
cakes crafted in brass and pots and pans made of stainless steel, aluminium and
iron pyrites. So, are we looking at the new Hussain of our times?
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