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After the pioneering efforts of PC. Kejriwal back in 1968 to set up a truly meaningful art gallery for the benefit of both artists and collectors, a whole host of myopic endeavours on similar lines have been outlived by the more imaginative and resourceful few gallery owners who joined the fray subsequently. The paucity of local collectors/buyers as well as the burgeoning inrush of outside buyers into Kolkata to buy art objects of relatively high resale value gradually smartened up the city's artists and gallery owners alike to try and counter what they clearly saw a losing game. Some ambitious young artists shifted to Delhi to make their presence felt there, while a few enterprising gallery owners of Kolkata have started setting up outlets in the commercially vigorous metropolises, often extending their reach abroad as well.
This, by and large, was the kind of the scenario involving even the finest of artists in this part of the country. However, with the sudden unprecedented upswing in the art market, newer gallery owners have been ingressing into Kolkata fortified with spacious exhibition areas and other commercial appurtenances. Evidently, the changing scenario is already proving beneficial for both signature artists as well as for the less known yet promising younger painters who would have to wait much longer to make their mark or else recede into oblivion much like many of their worthy predecessors. Kolkota's artists are destined to carve a niche through the efforts of these highly professional galleries. But it must be reckoned that the trail blazer of the new-look gallery culture is Vikram Bachhawat who has the distinction of carrying the mantle of his father who studied ancient Indian history before aspiring to acquire objects of art as a self-styled connoisseur perse. The junior Bachhawat imbibed his father's laudable passion, but subsequently mulled the idea of marrying art to money in tune with the unfolding commercial prospects of his time. For one thing, he began selling his almost unwieldy collection when there was precious little storing space to maintain it. For another, he did not compromise his connoisseurship for lure of the lucre. Yet, what Vikram has proved in his belated commercial venture, starting out first with a sizeable gallery for exhibiting choicable paintings by both older and newer hands, and then increasing his gallery space by adding two more equally large rooms (one for the exclusive display of sculptures), speaks volumes for his imaginative venture. He thus stands apart from the general run of his predecessors in terms of his resourcefulness as well as space consciousness.
Vikram Bachhowat is an art connoisseur with a difference, who emerged on the scene exactly a year ago. His first show comprised his own collection of paintings by Kartick Chandra Pyne. Being inspired by the instant response of the cognoscenti on the occasion, Bachhawat organised a few more solo and group exhibitions, curated with an eye to accommodating some less known artists too, in the joint shows. He proved his point once again by being able to sell the latter works at a commendable price. Bachhawat does not believe in mounting frequent exhibitions a rare trait of today's gallery culture, which far too often turns out to be a mere money-spinner. On this occasion of the first anniversary exhibition, Aakriti Art Gallery deserves to be hailed by aficionados and others for reasons of its novelty.
Most collectors begin by acquiring works by established artists and slowly become more adventurous, moving tentatively into contemporary/unconventional art. The process offers an opportunity to contemporary viewers to meet and talk with artists about their work and to hear their opinions about the work of other artists young and old who were influencing their vision. It was through such conversations with Koons, Bickerton, Halley, Sherrie Levine, Heim Steinbach and other young artists that Dakis Joannou came to collect works of Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Edward Ruscha. The collection took place at a juncture when the tougher and more conceptual artists of the 1960s were still unappreciated by the mainstream mid-1980s art market. The course of contemporary art history had not yet made the 1960s works of Flavin et al as essential as they are now. Now that the works of Koons and other artists of the mid-1980 generation have themselves entered into art history, the historicising presence of the radical 1960s works is no longer necessary in Dakis Joannou's collection. These works are being sold as the collection's focus is changing to emphasise the connections between the 80's and 90s generations and today's emerging artists.
The above, somewhat outlandish story of past artistic events may throw important light on the shape of things to emerge on the still less adventurous, if sluggish contemporary Indian art market. A set of new-look paintings by K.G. Subramanyan, K. Murlidharan, Jogen Chowdhury, Haku Shah, Biswapati Maiti, P.R. Narvekar, Partha Pratim Deb, Manjari Chakravarti, Sourabh Jana, Tapas Konar and Madhvi Parekh, slated for a September 2006 exhibition "Folk in Modern" at Aakriti Gallery, along with a bunch of old style paintings by other artists, may turn out to be a minor yet important harbinger of an informed art market involving a new breed of aesthetically percipient art collectors.
--Samir Dasgupta
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