Moving towards stability?

In the last few years, the one thing that has moved artists, art buyers, gallery wallas, art investors and all those who had nothing to do with art, are prices of art. Now that both the tides of steep prices and the sudden crash have abated, it’s time to do a reality check.

In the last few years, the one thing that has moved artists, art buyers, gallery wallas, art investors and all those who had nothing to do with art, are prices of art. No prizes for guessing why, for, far more than the creative process of creating and appreciating the art in the last few years were the galloping prices and then the crashing prices.

The ones who had made their mega bucks when the sun was shining brightly on the palettes and canvases changed their lifestyles, bought palatial houses with EMIs to boot, looked on in utter disbelief and dismay as the art market crashed. But now that both the tides of steep prices and crashed prices have abated, it is time to do a reality check in the strictest sense of the term.

Manjit Bawa

Firstly, the feel good factor was that the price mart spared none.  The crazy gallop was reigned in for better control – in horsey terms! The investors didn’t understand that unlike any other share bazaar, the art mart was a totally different ball game. For instance, one share, say of Raymond is like any other, which is not true of art. Here the subjective factors are manifold. Even the top notch artist will have inconsistency in works or better or bad periods in his/her creative journey. Size, medium, year, thematic content etc., etc, all these have a bearing on prices of art works. But the so-called investors were in no mood to figure out and even those in the art world who knew better, were not willing to divulge these secrets. A few lone rangers like me who were willing to tell the truth were isolated for trying to throw spanner in the works.

But now when the prices are becoming realistic, which is a positive sign, artists or galleries will not be able to outprice any works and sound the death knell for eventual “death” – like a flavour of the month (who usually die a premature death) of artists. Both galleries and artists had raised prices unrealistically and forgot the long term perspective as they pushed some mid-level artists to ridiculous levels to price them like masters, which did them in – in every which way. 

Unrealistically priced artists were more affected. Sales saw a sharp drop where artists pretended to be sold out – they are the ones who had out priced themselves. 

Artists who walked the steady tract not only clocked sales in the lowest times, in fact did better than before, for buyers looked for bargains and with more discerning perspective. Time had come to buy art they genuinely liked and wanted to live with rather than merely names. So, good, tried and tested artists whose rise may have been slow and steady still remained players. After all, how often does one want to ride a roller coaster?!  

Art auctions – less than two decades old in India – even till as late at the 80s, would put a c grade Bollywood to shame. These unprofessional auctions – would then be the water mark for setting the prices, which was often higher than a gallery price would be taken as the base price for an artist. Auction catalogues become the reference point for prices. 

M.F. Husain

With no historical perspective of art, any work whether or not auction worthy was thrown into the market. No context, just playing on sentiment. 

With the entry of foreign auction houses auctions became slick, well managed affairs and people started getting wiser, not buying garbage in the name of auction. Auction prices became mere indicators of prices and not setting prices. My contention is that there should be clarity as to what determines art pricing – why is an artist said to 'go' for so much when artist's work varies? Who then should be the last word on pricing? The answer is not too far to find: If an artist or gallery seeks “x” price for the work of an artist’s work and gets it consistently, is what determines pricing. Work varies, so should prices. Size determining factor is ridiculous – are you selling land per sq feet?! Do artists think less for a smaller work?

 It is my belief that this correction is here to stay, and prices are set to rise again in the near future, but will not gallop in an unbridled manner. Market correction will lead to more rooted and discerning rise by next year as prices are often cyclical. 

Till then the smarter buyers will still manage to get bargains and the fence sitters will cry over missed opportunities!

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