The year that was

(By Nalini S Malaviya)

It’s that time of the year, once again, to look back, reflect and evaluate how the art scene progressed through the year. Art activities unfolded quite hesitantly this year with most of the auctions showing average results, while some fared very poorly, as well. Although, during the art summit, sales picked up but then became sketchy once again during the later months. Fortunately, the last Saffron Art auction which happened a couple of weeks ago, performed really well under the circumstances. The highlights of this year in terms of auction reults have to be the exceptional amounts fetched for works by Jogen Choudhury at the Sotheby’s auction and Manjit Bawa at the recently held Saffron Art auction.

In Bangalore, the art scene was quite diffident with very few exhibitions being organized by galleries. On the other hand, there was a phenomenal rise in self sponsored shows with many self taught painters exhibiting their works at rented spaces. Incidentally, most of the bigger artists preferred to defer their shows until next year or at least to the later part of this year.
In effect, one came across a lot of poor and average quality works, and repetitive ones by the same painters. Still, there were some interesting works for instance, digital collages by Sudarshan Shetty, photographs by Atul Bhalla, Gigi Scaria, Vivek Vilasini, installations by Sakshi Gupta and a few other group shows with a list of artists too long to mention here.. Interestingly, the art activity was quite feverish through the year even though sales in the primary market were practically nil. While, some galleries have started reporting an increase in sales (where buyers are primarily from outside Bangalore), others are yet to see any noticeable difference.

In a way the recession helped in putting things in perspective, for instance many artists realized the futility of compromising on quality, or how over production could lead to a lowering of their market worth. During this phase, most speculators lost a lot of money as many had hoarded art in order to create an artificial demand and to inflate prices of a few select artists. Also, investors who had bought art blindly on the advice of unscrupulous galleries and dealers, learned their lesson, albeit the hard way. One hopes that the experiences that one went through during the lean period will help buyers and investors in the future to be able to make better judgment when it comes to art.

(Published in Bangalore Mirror)

Art Buzz (Bangalore) Street Exhibition

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

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Happy New Year!

(On vacation till Jan 3, 2010)

An arts education initiative

(By Nalini S Malaviya)

It cannot be denied that arts education in our country requires the necessary impetus in order to facilitate a more holistic environment for learning. Most schools follow the archaic system of having one or two classes of ‘music’ or ‘drawing’ in a week, however these are stand alone sessions that are not really integrated with the process of learning. The integration of arts education at the school level is a matter of grave concern and to address this issue, an arts education conference is being organized by the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore and the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) later this week on 11 - 12th of December.

In the recent past, the film Taare Zameen Par, helped dramatically in creating awareness about the importance of arts in the process of learning. Although, the film highlighted the role of arts in facilitating learning in children with special needs, in fact, music, fine arts, theatre, puppetry and other creative practices are important tools that assist in the overall development of a child. And, with a little bit of an effort these can be adopted as part of the curricula in a conventional schooling system.

In the background note released by the IFA, according to the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, Paris in 2001, ‘Culture and the arts, in their broadest sense, are a critical mediatory force in the quest for understanding, empathy and dialogue between divergent thoughts, dogmas, ideologies and world-views.” This conference is an extension of Kali-Kalisu project that deals with the empowerment of school teachers through arts pedagogy training workshops, and through it the organizers hope to articulate frameworks and directions for arts education in the country. Some of the topics that will be discussed include the current legislative scenario and arts education, the structures of the arts education, arts and early childhood education, language, poetry and creativity, puppetry, music and movement arts.

In my opinion, an initiative such as this will not only help in creating the basis for supporting arts education, but also in creating wider awareness that will help in the actualization of various proposals that focus on the holistic development of every child. Legislations, children’s rights and bills, and proposals to ease pressures of examinations are all steps towards the right direction, but these have to be combined with a broader approach that stresses on the role of arts in providing quality education.

(Published in Bangalore Mirror)

The fine art of collecting

(By Nalini S Malaviya)

Now, that once more there is an interest in art, there are people who are looking at art either as a financial investment or as a collectible. To begin an art collection it is important to identify the motives behind it. One of the main reasons why people collect art is that they are passionate about it.

There are collectors who buy representative art from various periods or they focus on a specific school, style of painting, era or artist. Again, it is important to be clear whether the collection is going to be a private one or if it could be put on public display at a later date. It is also essential to realize that an art collection, unlike one comprising of smaller collectibles needs a lot of space, and special care in terms of lighting and maintenance.

Once you have identified the kind of collection that you are looking at building, you can begin by making a list of artists or works that you wish to acquire. In fact, there are some people who might begin collecting in a small way and then get so passionate about it that they decide to convert it into a more organized and larger collection. There are some people who prefer to collect only modern art or contemporary works, or old prints or only new media works. Sometimes, the choice of the collector is governed by considerations such as budget, available space, and time required to dedicate to such an activity.

Whatever the reason behind collecting, the process of buying art can be an exciting and rewarding one. However, there will be times, when one is forced to overlook personal tastes in favor of more intelligent choices, which would benefit the entire collection as a whole.

When one is collecting art, irrespective of the initial investment, the overall value of the collection is bound to go up with time. Therefore, it is important that you do the necessary research and take the time to build one that will be significant in terms of historical content and also its financial worth.

(Published in Financial Times)