12th March, 2007

Indian art rakes in big moolah

How much money is Indian art raking in? A lot and if you had any doubts, here is what happened at the Saffronart's online auction. With March being the month when crores worth of Indian art goes under the hammer the world over, Saffronart's auction of contemporary Indian art has already set the tone by making and breaking records.

Saffronart concludes its contemporary Indian art auction at an astounding value of approximately Rs 19 crore. At no1 is a larger-than-life work by Ravinder Reddy called 'Radha 2007' that sold for Rs 1.5 crore.

At no.2 was a Anju Dodiya, which sold at roughly Rs 78 lakhs and no.3 was saucepan man and artist Subodh Gupta, whose art sold at roughly Rs 75 lakhs.

The real question though is: is it fair to buy and sell contemporary works of art that are as recent as 2005 and 2006 at an auction being held in 2007? And is it fair to pay the same price for these recent works that you would pay for works by the masters?

'You have works from 2007 in the Chinese contemporary art which could sell for $2.5 million . It's very difficult to tell a market that now is the time to sell. That discretion should be left to the person who has to buy the art,' said Dinesh Vazirani, Director, Saffron Art.

Well here is a little bit of advice for the neophytes. The key lies in understanding that, the price you pay for an artist at an auction should not translate into the price you pay for that artist in the primary market or at the gallery.

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