Art and ashtray

Irrespective of which strata we came from, Indians used, consumed, ate, wore, and fought their wars with the accompaniment of art. From pre historic sarota( beetlenut cutter) to surahi, to medieval spears and swords, were embellished with soft delicate art. The precision of offensive and the precision of brush went hand in hand. The scale and scope of art still touches our lives. Though, the focus has shifted to finance. Art make news only in pages dedicated to finance.

So, it is exciting for the Indian artists and art lovers to see art investors mushrooming all around. Indian art has returned home glorified through Sotheby’s and Christies. The way Yoga took a detour, through American land to make its presence felt on the home turf. When F N Souza’s work goes for $ 2.8 million at Christie’s, art collectors gasp.

The moot question remains unanswered, how much of it goes to the artist? Since market forces control price and trend in art, and since investment in art shows better returns than many blue chip companies, entrepreneurs of varied shades are thinking of expanding business into art. Like it or not, in their euphoria, some gallery owners in Delhi have started printing art on every conceivable consumer item, from match boxes, coasters to ash trays. It is good to popularize art!
Only, the manner of production and sale of art by some of the houses will put Chinese assembly lines to shame! Artists are hired on contract, the gallery owner dictates public tastes, he knows what sells. So, the artist has to produce a required number of works on required themes, with required compositions within stipulated time. The works are guaranteed to be sold. The artist is taken on promotional tours and all that. The gallery decides the price tag and the artist sells. This way, artists can afford better life styles. It is a win- win situation.
When artists absorbed changing patterns of their times, sought newer ways of expressions, newer experiments came into fore. Artists and art acquired a higher pedestal by the new methods and techniques evolved to express complexity of life and mind. Orphism, cubism, Dadaism, surrealism, and many more experiments and experiences came into being when artists threw new challenges on the canvas to seek newer horizons of visual expressions.
Their contribution to the art made them great, immortal and their life style- flamboyant and expensive. Dali and Picasso are the best examples of popularizing art by their unique perspectives on canvas and on life. Their art was an expression of amazing thought currents, unabashed and uncompromised. Other subsidiaries that turned art into a movement; galleries, investors, auction houses, insurers, framers, restorers and critics came later.
Are we reversing the order to write the success story of Indian art? That’s our claim to innovation. After the group of Progressive Artists, who are now rocking and shocking Sotheby’s and Christie’s, where are the artists who give a new eye, a new vision to the masses to see the world with? Where are those volatile thinkers? Where are the path breaking metaphors and idioms? Where are our Dalis and Picassos, Cezannes and Pollocks?
Where are the celebrated critics, with their penetrating, scathing observations who made or mar an artist? Great art flourishes with collective
growth in consciousness. Is life too simplified for us to inspire great art?
Or, art is another casualty of compromise!