Fresh strokes

At a time when the art market is experiencing a low,with even work of renowned artists failing to find buyers,the new breed of gallerists —all under 40—are defying conservative parameters. “There are takers for all kind of art,” says Farah Siddiqui,director of Farah Siddiqui Contemporary Art in Mumbai. The Sydenham College graduate has curated exhibitions that comprised art from Bangladesh and a group show of women artists like Anjolie Ela Menon and Vasundhara Broota. The opening show at the 27-year-old’s Mumbai gallery in October had works by Pakistani artists Mehreen Murtaza,Sajjad Ahmed and Faiza Butt,New York-based Chitra Ganesh and Mumbai artists Riyas Komu and Prajakta Palav. “We recorded a sale of over 75 per cent,” she says. Playing at her gallery in December were avant-garde films from the ‘20s and ‘30s by masters like Salvador Dali,Louis Bunuel,Hans Richter and Francis Picabia. “It was about building art awareness. The films hardly travel to the subcontinent otherwise,” she says.

Art education also drove 34-year-old Anupam Poddar to start the Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon. “We endeavor fostering creativity among artists through commissions,projects and collaborations. The market can discourage experimentation,instead satisfying popular demand and trends as it is more financially secure,” he says.

New mediums are also being explored in the otherwise canvas-struck art world. If Devi Art Foundation has on display Sudarshan Shetty’s Love which is a life-size model of an antique cream-coloured Jaguar with a giant dinosaur mounting it from behind,36-year-old Devika Daulet Singh established Photoink in 2001,when the concept of a photo agency was still to takeoff in India. Seven years later,Photoink syndicates through Contact Press Images in the US and France,Focus in Germany and Grazia Neri in Italy and has several publications to its credit,apart from a gallery in Delhi. “Even the best art galleries did not address technical aspects like lighting in a way which really suits photographs,so we had to start our own space,” says Singh.   

For Khanjan Dalal,introducing the concept of art as a potential investment option in Ahmedabad was a challenge. “Not many here consider art an investment,unlike Delhi or Mumbai,” says the 34-year-old MS University graduate who established Lemongrasshopper gallery in 2005. A conservative approach might woo more collectors,but Dalal would rather wait longer and promote less popular mediums. In 2007,he took eight artists to Goa and handed them bikes to zoom across the city and sketchbooks to document their experiences. He later organised an exhibition of prints by Gulammohammed Sheikh,Jyoti Bhatt and Akbar Padamsee.

At Qadir Rangwala’s DNA11 gallery in Colaba,art meets science. The 26-year-old dispatches kits to art enthusiasts across the country to attain a sample of their DNA—a kiss imprint or fingerprints—and replicates these on a canvas at a laboratory in Canada. The science postgraduate stumbled upon the concept during a visit to The Museum of Modern Art,New York,where he first spotted an artwork based on individual DNA. “I instantly knew the fascinating concept will work in India,” he says. A few months after he met DNA11 founders Adrian Salamunovic and Nazim Ahmed,Rangwala introduced DNA art in Mumbai in September. He now has orders pouring from across the country,with people queuing for canvases that depict the sequences of their genome in a palette of over 20 colour options. “I followed my instinct. The logistics are important but in the initial stages of a venture,economic benefit can’t be the sole objective,” adds Rangwala.

The economics,however,cannot be ignored. Poddar may be content with keeping his foundation not-for-profit,but Dalal admits he’s eager to progress from the current breakeven to profitable. In Delhi,Assomull is following international standards. “My rates have to be competitive. I’m much below the standard 33 per cent charge levied by galleries in India for a transaction,but I need to strengthen my base first,” he says as he packs his bag for a trip to Geneva,where he’ll visit artists’ studios and possibly bring some of their works back home.