Heart over head
ART OF THE MATTER
by Renu Modi
All that effort should be about creting art heritage, not just art marta
I Tpains me to see how artistictic intent andimpulse, a genuine love for the arts is today being subveted into a crass commercial proposition alone. A gallery owner complaintng about commercialisation of art? Sounds quite like tile devil quoting scrip ture, However, I can explain the point I'm trying to make, Today, art is buzzword, the wannabe's visa into the cocktail circuit. Artists grace Page Three more often than not. Ironically, so do we gallerists. Films, that most honest mirror-on-Jndi-an-walls today reflect the ground reality of art as equity. The recent blockbuster Cotporate featured diamond dripping industrialist wife who orchestrated art auctions and anxiously entreated hus, band to come meet the "top artists'... Meanwhile news mag azines are running reams about Art Corpus Funds a la mutual funds where gallery owners/ art experts would help youmultipiy your money on the art stockmarkets. Idngon the cake? Now banks arc accepting art as collateral.
Good thing too. But does this mean art 'has arrived? Yes and No. My assent on,the subject remains a qualified one. Commerce has arrived. Art has not. Not in the sense I understand it. Art only arrives when the sensibility that makes it endure comes into being. If art remains mere fiscal investment, it might well crash into oblivion like countlss other stocks on the Exchange. What we are creating are not collectors that nurture the arts but investors who gross it out. The need of the hour? Why don't corporates earmark investment funds to nurture new talent? It is a Catch-22 situation. IqdiViduals, institutions put their chips on dedared winners. Never on dark horses their instincts or even bettertheir hearts tell them to back.That, to them would mean bad business," So what am 1 espousing here? Art is passion. By all means think with your head. But do put the heart back in art. The Godrej, rata, Sarabhai art: collections were built by rasiks who genuinely soureed and appreciated art. And put their money where their mouths were at a time when nobody else did. YoungHusain. Raza, Gaitonde and many others of their ilk found encouragement and sustenance only because these visiomirtes bucked them along. Going rorther back, the art collections that grace great Cnettinad mansions, the shekhawati. frescos that evoke lyric frenzy among all art affidanados were not commissioned by people looking to cash in on an investment. They were created by people who wanted to patronise. showcase arid hon ourthe dazzling talentthat they loved and saw around them. These were not by seths looking for bargain basement Husains. My beliefthert? Think with your head. But love art with your heart. That would sustain art heritage. Not art marts alone.
(The writer' Owns Gallery Espace in New Delhi)
