An evening with JMS Mani

Last week I went for Ananya Drushya’s interactive session with the artist of the month. This month features JMS Mani, who most of you will know from his very popular ‘Badami’ series. Mani was invited to talk about his art and events that have shaped his artistic career. Initially reluctant to speak, Mani did talk at length about his early days with RM Hadpad (Founder of Ken School of Art), his exposure to different media, making prints, turning down a seat at the MS University, Baroda (which he admitted he regrets sometimes) and so many other lesser known facts associated with his life. He sportingly shared anecdotes that were not only delightful but refreshingly honest and sans frills. Such a pity that there were so few of us in the audience! Fortunately, (SG) Vasudev felt the need to repeat the interactive session at a later date and hopefully it will happen again sometime this month.Incidentally, Mani studied and then taught at Ken School of Art and retired from there as the Principal recently. The prints of his works that were on exhibit offered a valuable insight into his growth as an artist – lithographs, drawings and paintings from his early days to the present were on display. As Vasudev pointed out, Ananya attempts to showcase a retrospective wherever possible. I liked Mani’s early black and white works much more than the colourful men and women from the ‘Badami’ series. But, it so happens that this series is what defines him. The rustic appeal and the apparent spontaneity of vibrant colours in these paintings draw the viewer. For so many successful artists this can be such a vicious trap – they are forced to paint what the buyers want, but then critics pan them for repeating their works and not trying out anything new. A Catch 22 situation for them, don’t you think? Maybe sometimes we are too quick in judging artists; it helps to remember that at the end of the day this too is a profession for them. Artists also need to make ends meet and have families to support.
But then, I find artists today are much more experimental in their approach and are willing to take risks. If you look at the results of a few past auctions, what stands out is that contemporary artists who are trying out different media and genre are doing exceptionally well.

Contemporary art commanding high prices

The much-awaited Sotheby’s auction of Indian art far exceeded expectations. The recently held auction fetched £4.28 million, which in fact is much higher than the pre sale estimate of £2.4-3.4 million. At the auction 79% of the lots were sold. According to a press release from Sotheby’s, 67% of the lots sold for prices higher than their pre-sale high estimate and 11 new auction records were established for names including Rabindranath Tagore and Jitish Kallat, among others. F N Souza’s ‘The Red Road’ fetched £5,80,000 against an estimate of £2,50,000-3,50,000.A new auction record by medium was also set for Subodh Gupta. An Untitled canvas by Subodh Gupta was the top selling work of this group, achieving £264,500 against a pre-sale estimate of £70,000-100,000 and establishing a new auction record for a canvas by the artist. Amongst other notable results, Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Death Scene’, which made £144,500 against an estimate of £15,000-20,000 and his ‘Bird’, which sold for £70,100; and Jamini Roy’s ‘Santal Couple’ which sold for £29,300. Incidentally, Tagore’s ‘Death Scene’ established a new auction record for the artist. Along with Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, TV Santosh, Jitish Kallat, Thukral and Tagra performed exceedingly well.
One can safely say that the auction results reiterate the interest and acceptance worldwide for Indian contemporary artists. International themes combined with Indian ethos appear to be winning over global audiences.


Coming up next is the ‘Celebration of South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art at the Christie’s auction next month. This auction in fact will also see the Ambanis put up 12 works from the Harmony Art Foundation in association with Barclays Wealth. The proceeds will go to the Harmony Foundation, which was established by Tina Ambani in 1995. The artworks are estimated to raise more than Rs 81 crores. Christie’s will also be exhibiting 32 works from Tina and Anil Ambani’s private collection, which includes artists such as M F Husain, Tyeb Mehta and S H Raza along with leading names in contemporary art such as Atul Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, TV Santhosh and Riyas Komu.

Indian Art Summit 2008

Eminent artist Anjolie Ela Menon who is in Bangalore briefly took a little time off from her busy schedule to talk to me about the upcoming India Art Summit 2008 to be held in New Delhi later this year. The summit aimed towards the development and business of art is modelled on international art fair formats. Anjolie Ela Menon explains, “A summit like this is a great idea that will help to bring in all the players associated with the art scene – artists, critics, gallery owners, framers, publishers and others together on a common platform.”
The Art Summit is an initiative by Hanmer and Partners who have been involved earlier with charity art auctions and Anjolie decided to be involved with their proposed summit as she was impressed with their professionalism and their grasp on topics and issues related to art.


To be held at the Pragati Maidan, Delhi in August, Anjolie feels the venue itself will help draw in people from across all strata. According to her, “At art galleries one finds only the elite classes whereas a venue like this makes it much more accessible to all. There are many galleries from across the country participating in the events. Then are seminars planned which will see noted speakers from across the world talk about development and growth of Indian art.”
She feels that the summit will also offer the general public an excellent opportunity to mingle and interact with the artists, which does not happen usually.
With this we come to en end to the conversation about the art summit and discuss a little bit about the investment scene in the country before signing off.

(Published in part in Bangalore Mirror)

Young talent with potential

We hear and read about successful artists only, but the truth is that for every Husain or Subodh Gupta there are many more artists who are struggling to find a foothold in the world of art. Many have been around for years while others have just begun their artistic trysts, but, on the flip side, there are those with average or mediocre talent who produce poor quality work and still expect to make it to the big league.
Anyway, in this week’s column, I’ve decided to draw attention to two young artists Tikendra Kumar Sahu and Sataban Sarkar who are participating for the very first time in a duo-exhibition. Their works may not be outstanding as of now but seem to have the potential to evolve and mature.

Sataban is studying for a master’s degree in print making at Nandan Kala Bhavan in Shantiniketan, while Tikendra has a bachelor’s degree in painting from Chhattisgarh and a master’s degree in Graphics from Bangalore University.
When I went to the gallery, I met Tikendra who was actively involved in the display of his paintings. He struck me as an intelligent and a very focused young artist who was quite clear about what he was painting and what he wanted to paint in the future. In this series Tikendra has combined relief work with painting on white paper. Using watercolours on embossed sheets, Tikendra internalises dogmas and ingrained values in an effort to question and rationalise them. He uses symbols to convey his thoughts, which sometimes are too literal and tend to focus on being decorative.

However, in his other works, emotional depths to erotic senses are presented subtly and gracefully. An introspective quality characterises these other paintings and there is sophistication in the handling of the theme, as well. In fact, if he can move away from his preoccupation with the decorative style he can do phenomenally better, which luckily he is aware of.

On the other hand, Sataban’s prints on rice paper and cloth are a combination of satire and wit as they comment upon political and social evils. The prints are produced skilfully and those on a single piece of cloth appear far better than a few paper ones. Undoubtedly, there is a raw quality evident in his works, but overall are quite interesting.

(The exhibition is on till May 2 at Right Lines Art Gallery).

(Published in Bangalore Mirror)

Harsha does it again!

Not so long ago, in fact last year in November, NS Harsha created a record when his painting ‘Mass Marriage’ sold for a whopping HK$ 6.4 million at the Christie’s auction of Asian contemporary art held in Hong Kong.

Last week Harsha was awarded UK’s prestigious 40,000 pound Artes Mundi Prize at the National Museum, Cardiff. The award was in recognition of his art that combines story telling with the miniature form of Indian art that he has adapted in a unique style. Harsha’s paintings bring out social and political incongruity with ease and wit. The minute figures form part of an intricate narrative that appears unremarkable on the surface but reveals layers of absurdities and satirical humour on closer scrutiny.
Harsha beat 8 other nominees to win the prize that is considered to be one of the largest international art awards.
Harsha studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University Baroda in 1995. He lives and works in Mysore, Karnataka.

To read an earlier interview with NS Harsha click here (you may have to scroll down quite a bit).