By Uma Nair, IANS
New Delhi : Will a whiff of caution touch the season’s first Indian contemporary art auctions beginning September in New York?
A dealer in Manhattan, who wishes to remain anonymous, prophesies that art prices will decline as a result of losses by hedge funds and other large contemporary art collectors in New York.
This time, a few days before Christie’s and Sotheby’s put up their sales, the latter has split its Indian sale into two parts: 101 Lots on Sep 19 and 81 lots on Sep 21. The Christie’s Indian sale, sandwiched between, comes along with its South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art Sale Sep 20.
Collectors and dealers of Indian contemporary art are stating that the bids will be driven by demand focused on strong examples and perceived bargains. So prices zooming above estimates will be for superlative works and not for mediocrity.
Bidders in the past few months have shown more resistance to overpaying for younger artists whose works are already saddled with hefty estimates.
“There will be a correction with certain artists who have been slotted in the ridiculous range of pricing,” says the Manhattan dealer.
“Some works of contemporary Indian art really don’t deserve to be where they are,” he says adding, however, that for a great work of art there should not be any price slippage at the high end of the market.
Said billionaire Eli Broad to newspapers in New York: “Many buyers of contemporary art have been hedge fund managers and other investors who are obviously having a difficult time and have lost lots of money.”
Broad had in the month of June predicted the art market may be heading for a crash like that of the 1990s, when values halved.
“The art market will soften, and an adjustment in values will take place, but it may not happen for six months to a year,” says Broad.
Back on Indian soil, Saffronart sales performed very well with both Atul Dodiya and Subodh Gupta crossing the Rs.10 million threshold. Dinesh Vazirani was relieved at the momentum that had gathered specifically with foreign bidders which changes the complexion of collectors.
But dealers in New York say Indian art is nowhere in the legion of Chinese art. “Chinese art is really going gangbusters,” said Joe-Hynn Yang, head of Sotheby’s Chinese ceramics and works of art department in New York. “We’ve more than quadrupled our totals in four years.”
Chinese antiques and paintings accounted for more than half of the $43 million in Asian art that Sotheby’s sold during four auctions last September. Christie’s held seven sales last year, including ceramics owned by the late philanthropist Evelyn Annenberg Hall, and grossed about $40 million.
New York’s Asia-week auctions last September totalled a record $52.9 million. Prices for Asian contemporary art have tripled in the past three years, according to an index created by ArtAsiaPacific, a contemporary Asian art magazine. There are now art funds focusing on Chinese works, and the number of contemporary galleries in China is growing exponentially. The Shanghai Art Fair is testimony to the growing demand and interest in Chinese and Asian art.
Both auction houses have in the past expanded their sales of contemporary and modern Indian art. Christie’s New York and Sotheby’s publish separate catalogues – the March sale this year had 166 lots, valued at up to $9.4 million. The Sotheby’s sale also focused on modern and contemporary painting. That part of the sale was estimated to fetch as much as $9.1 million.
But the ides of March gave way to mayhem in May in London. London’s contemporary South Asian art auctions had a bumpy start at Christie’s International. Almost one in five lots failed to find a buyer as new taxes deterred some Indian collectors.
The sale, totalling 4.5 million pounds ($8.9 million) including commissions, was the first of three South Asian art auctions that week. The top lot, a 1968 abstract work by Vasudeo Gaitonde, had a hammer price of 420,000 pounds from a telephone buyer, compared with a presale low estimate of 450,000 pounds.
Nineteen percent of the works at Christie’s didn’t sell, the auction house said. But Sotheby’s that followed had a further slump. Around 36 works went unsold at Sotheby’s and the fact that Sotheby’s did not send out a press release added to the speculation and the reaffirmation of the market crash.
In 2005 and 2006 rising wealth in India has encouraged buyers to bid up prices as much as 20-25 fold for works by Francis Newton Souza, Syed Haider Raza and Tyeb Mehta. But the same collectors who bid furiously and fervently are now a discerning, savvy lot – they will pay premium prices for premium works. Collectors now are digging in their heels as the quality on offer falls and India’s announcement of an increase in taxes on transactions is being seen as a dampener.
Last year’s hottest bargain was Souza’s “Amsterdam Landscape”, which raised 624,000 pounds ($1.2 million) at Sotheby’s Holdings Inc in London, indicating wealthy buyers weren’t deterred by a drop in the Indian stock market.
The painting of bent Amsterdam houses, bought by a telephone bidder for almost eight times its top estimate, was the highest-priced lot in an auction of Indian art that raised 4.2 million pounds, beating its target by more than a third. India’s Sensitive Index fell more than 10 percent on May 22, 2006, before rebounding.
According to auction sales and market analysis, the momentum of 2006 has somewhat reduced over the few months of 2007.
“Certain works do very well,” says Dinesh Vazirani of Saffronart. “But mediocre and poor examples do not. Buyers are now more distinctive and discerning in their tastes.”