Why auction houses are still a no-go in India

‘Investors’ be warned — auction houses are an idea whose time has not yet arrived in India.

Earlier this week, a person who claimed to be an “investor” in art showed up to meet me to seek advice on whether or not he should open an auction house in Delhi. He said he had a very large space in sylvan environs in the poshest part of North Delhi where all the old money resides and persisted in wanting to show me around it. I loathe stepping out of my charmed 10-km radius for anything. But he was so persistent that I gave in and agreed to see the space. I wasted practically an entire day in travelling up and down across the city and came away feeling very disturbed, yet I couldn’t place my finger on what was disturbing me.

My mind went to all the international auction houses in the past that have tried to make forays into India and failed rather miserably. Even highly established auction houses like Sotheby’s, Bonham’s or Christie’s have all tried and failed. Some of it has to do with their reputation of allegedly questionable dealings and “suspect” manner of acquiring artefacts. The redoubtable former director of the National Museum, Dr L.P. Sihare, was known to be highly opposed to their entry into India citing instances of them allegedly smuggling out large caches of artefacts, including precious gold and silver from the West Asian region and other parts of the world. I have no way of checking the veracity of his statements but remember two very explicit articles he wrote in The Pioneer in the mid-90s about suspect dealings of foreign auction houses.

One auction in the 90s by a foreign auction house I will never forget is when they mopped up a whole lot of Raj memorabilia, large and small Western-style paintings of not-so-known ateliers and older work of some well-known contemporary Indian artists from all over the country, and put together a fabulous catalogue. On the day of the auction, while the entire lot of western paintings was grabbed mostly by foreigners, the Indian artists’ works that belonged to their pre-signature style all languished.

Yet not so long ago, prices garnered at art auctions often became reference points for artists and galleries to raise their prices to ridiculous levels, not taking into account the quality of the same artist’s other works. The logic being that not every art work of any artist is auction worthy and needn’t command top of the line prices. Neither Indian artists nor gallerists made this connection and tried to push for prices at par with auctions. Of course as expected, they fell flat on their face and ended up doing a huge disservice to the cause of art.

This is one of the major reasons why Indian auction houses are still nascent and are yet to make any sizeable dent into the art market. What is it that stops them from gaining ground Is it our cultural ethos which sees every cultural symbol in a flowing river syndrome In the sense, that like a river more will come so why preserve We are happier to do visarjan of slightly damaged figurines of deities rather than sending them to a museum. Drag any riverbed and you will find a veritable treasure of icons over centuries. Or, for that matter, virtually any arty stuff like figurines will more often than not be found in small time antique shops mixed with some fake and some real, or even in kabadi markets. We have superstitious reasons why we refuse to place pre-used stuff in our homes. It is such a cultural thing.

Another cultural thing is the word ‘auction’ itself. It conjures up images of a diwalia or penniless raja or nawab a la Hindi cinema and nilami or auction in its worst form. A few decades ago art dealers would make forays into thikanas and palaces and convince the nawabs and erstwhile raja sahibs to part with small or big pieces for a song. Gradually all the thikanadaars and raja sahibs got wise and started selling moveable assets, including art, themselves outside their town or even abroad. Which is why I told this so-called “investor” that his space was not suitable for an auction house for it was too close to the old money who are so snobbish anyway that they wouldn’t come to an auction house in the neighbourhood and the South Delhi wallas don’t want to go anywhere outside South Delhi anyway. The other parts of Delhi in any case are not that culturally inclined and so the net result is the same!

Apart from that, there is the fact that the business of art auctions itself is fraught with problems at every level. The first and foremost is to acquire the artworks with a provenance, checking its authenticity, its history, its status, its physical health and many wheels within wheels of dealing with families of dead artists. I shared my gut feel with our “investor” fellow and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that an auction house is an idea whose time has not come yet.

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com.