Daimler Contemporary       
19 January - 3 June 2007

Introduction

List of Artists

Exhibition Views

A discussion about private versus corporate collecting
and the contemporary art scene in India

Participants:
Dr. Renate Wiehager, head of DaimlerArt Collection (RW)
Anupam Poddar, collector Delhi, India (AP)
Ranjana Steinrücke, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India (RS)
The discussion took place in the home of Anupam Poddar, Delhi, spring 2005

RW: Anupam, would you be so kind to explain how the collection started?

AP: Well, my mother had been buying a lot of Indian contemporary art from her generation in the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, which were contemporary at that point in time. If I'm not mistaken, by about 1995, she stopped buying art for various reasons, we were involved in many business projects and moreover didn't want to continue acquiring art if there wasn't space to show it.

We moved into a new house and in my part of the house, I found the art my parents collected somewhat disconnected with my life, because it wasn't my generation, and it did not speak to me. In addition, the scale of certain things was wrong. In our new house, I wanted to focus on just a few works, so I started to buy art in 2000. I would buy things specifically for a particular wall but that changed over time, because once all the walls were full we wanted to continue to buy art. We were doing it because we wanted to enjoy it, and with the hope of being able to live with the works at some point of time even though it wasn't immediately possible.
 

Anupam Poddar vor einer Arbeit von Subodh Gupta,

Over time, it became a passionate obsession in a very lovely way. I think it's truly an addiction, and one that I enjoy, because in many ways it keeps my thoughts off work, and all the serious things of life. I also find that art really opens up my mind, because it makes me look at the same thing - it could be an object or an idea - in a fresh way. I think artists who create interesting art have great courage to be able to look at our world that way, it's courage that I don't have, so I also enjoy it from their viewpoint.

RW: And was it a definite decision in the beginning to go on acquiring Indian art or did you consider the opportunity to also include international art in your collection later?

AP: No, it was very clear that we wanted to stay with Indian art - also because while we were slowly building up the collection, we weren't really aware of doing it - we were simply buying things and we wanted to promote India, not necessarily just art. It could have been textiles, architecture, or design. We wanted to remain true to giving Indians an opportunity that they might not have in other ways. While we continued to collect art, the collection became distinctly Indian, containing a few important pieces from this particular generation. We found pieces, which were historically or politically quite important that we might not have considered before. Another shift that happened was that at a certain point we started thinking of creating a foundation, hosted in Delhi. In India right now not many spaces exist in the art world, which are not based on profit. With this, our collection started to evolve in a different direction. To make it more interesting within the region where we are based, we wanted the subcontinent to come in at a later stage, which is what we're doing now by making comparisons with Indian art. You know, being in India we might be very close, physically, to Pakistan or Afghanistan, but we don't know what is happening in the art world in those countries. For example, it would be interesting to see video art from Afghanistan.

 

 
RW: Would you yourself consider it as being a progress, that you started with painting, graphic and wall works and then you went on to include media art?

AP: Absolutely. We certainly started with paintings and works, which one is able to mount on a wall quite easily, then progressed quickly to sculpture. I think also because the space permitted us to display sculptures and installations. Our consideration was: could we enter a room and live with the installation. We were restricted by the fact that a lot of available space would be taken up by these kinds of pieces.

There are all kinds of inhibitions in our minds and as we get deeper into the art world, it's important to break these rules. I don't know what the next step will be, but I do keep saying that we are looking at art with a fresh eye without the restraints of space, not just with regards to display but even with the concept of storage, without putting restraints on medium. For example five, ten years ago video [art] would have been a new and exciting medium, today it's widely used by many people across the world. However, painting can also still be new and fresh.

RW: …. Anupam, everybody is always so interested to learn a little bit about the history of the family, besides the art obsession.

AP: Well, I come from a background where both sides of my family are heavily involved in industry in India, in different ways. We are from Rajasthan from a community called Marwaris who were traditionally the traders and moneylenders in the community. So, having come from that background…

RW: What business? Can you specify…

AP: The main business of the family is a paper company in South India, [which is] probably [one of the] three largest paper factories in India. The other business is the hotel, which I look after. We also have a family-run charity, including a charity for animals.
 

Bharti Kher,
Spit
Bindi (gefärbter Filz und Klebstoff), Bettlaken

Esszimmer mit Skulptur von Ravinder Reddy,

RW: And how long have your parents been living in Delhi now?

AP: About 30 years,

RW: 30 years? And you, how long have you been abroad?

AP: I went to England to do my A-levels and then stayed there for university, as well as getting experience working for certain banks, so I was away for seven years in total.

RW: In London?

AP: In different parts of England including London, but traveling around a lot. Every summer I took the opportunity to either learn a language or work in a different country, as the university course enabled that. So, by the time I came back to India I had lived in London, of course, New York, Madrid, Paris, and also Germany for six months. It was exciting; just being able to see the world at such a young age. When I came back my family said, we think you should be living here in India working on the hotel project. So I gave it a try and I must say I don't think I could be happier anywhere in the world. The opportunities that India offers today are immense, and I think there are people with a certain education background who can make a difference in any field. It's interesting to be a part of this India.

RW: And you have tried, as I understood, to also integrate artists with commissioned projects in your hotel business you are building. Is that right? Can you explain this a little?

AP: That was actually an idea to work much more with craft people, because Rajasthan - where we were renovating an old building into a hotel called Devi Garh, it's an old fort palace from the 18th century - has such a rich heritage of craft. All the rooms are different because of the structure. Even in a house today, nobody creates all the rooms in exactly the same manner. Hotels do tend to do that for various reasons of efficiency but the building forced us to do things in a different way and we wanted to use local craftsmen and the local materials, to present the new face of India. The mix of the old and new [in the hotel] is also what India is about and that is heavily based on craft. Our work includes wall paintings, frescos and inlays, amongst other things. The hotel also has commercial aspects to it, but the scale is such that one can dream of and design interesting things in these architectural projects. It is fascinating. You can incorporate different crafts and materials and India allows it, because there is every material available, there are also people who can work with those materials and it's affordable. Today, we cannot construct these buildings in the west easily, but it's possible here.

RS : It's a living tradition that we still have - that is the unique thing about India. We've got the industrialization but we still have all the handicrafts, and all of it is still a way of life and not only something that belongs in a box.

AP: It's a living culture on every level, just like you say, and of course it's a large country, with a diverse culture. So a lot of these things co-exist and are around at the moment, which also shows up in the art world. You see people with different backgrounds who have been influenced by the region or by their childhood.
 

RW: And over the last two days, we have been discussing the problem that somehow the prices for the most important artists in India are extremely imbalanced. How do you deal with this strangely overheated market?

AP: For me it's like art has been turned into a commodity and people are looking at it as an investment and talking about it as something to be traded almost like vegetables, or the stock exchange. People will buy it and sell it to make a profit. I think people have forgotten how to look at art and how to recognize if they really want to live with a particular work for the rest of their life. For me the criterion to be able to want to buy an artwork is: that I can't live without it.
At the moment, the art market is certainly enjoying its own peak, which is a good thing, the artists are prospering and they are able to create larger and more adventurous works at a certain level, though some people are too busy making quick works and the quality is suffering. In the long run I think, we will look back and realize that it wasn't the best way for the Indian art market to develop.

RW: As you mentioned today when you talked about the art market in the USA in the 1980's, when there were all these really strange stories about artists being hidden in the basement, who had to work in the gallery somehow and couldn't go out before they had finished. And I think it's so strange that in a way it seems to be part of a certain development that cannot be avoided somehow. I mean, India is going through it and China has gone through it and is still doing so.

AP: But having said all this, in the last two years all assets in India, whether it be property, the stock market, art, the price of gold internationally, or jewellery: anything, which could be viewed as an investment in India, has skyrocketed. This is also what is happening with the art world.
The economy is booming, there is money, people don't know how to invest it at the moment and art seems to be a viable option because of the media hype. But there's also this quality of wanting to be appreciated for being intellectual or sophisticated, or as having taste. It's this whole competition thing of wanting to keep up with the neighbors. It's a little bit of a game at the moment, but people will hopefully grow out of this, but we'll see.
 

Anita Dube
Blood Wedding
13 Knochenobjekte mti rotem Samt

Subodh Gupta,
Title: High Life II; 2002
Stahlkännchen auf Drahtgerüst

RW: When you lived in London, in Paris and wherever you've been, did you follow contemporary art exhibitions?

AP: Yes, my holidays were extremely hectic holidays. We visited all the museums, all the architectural sites in any country that we went to and we tried to go to a new country every year and spend a week or two looking around there. I would go to all the art exhibitions in London and because I don't think many of my friends were interested, I would go alone, which retrospectively is interesting, because I learned how to make my own decisions [and appreciations]. So it's a strange sort of adventure.

There is a great companionship in it, between just looking at the works and following what's happening in the art world, but also getting to know the artists and seeing how they think and how they evolve and what their next shows or projects are like. I look forward to the next show like a child might look forward to a toy store.

RW: We have discussed the problem that for a broader community there is no real opportunity to gain access to contemporary Indian art or international art, because there are no places, no museums, just a few galleries, and there are no art critics, as you said. What do you think, how can this develop in the future? How can the next step be made?

AP: I think it may change very quickly, because in the last couple of years a lot of international museums and institutions, like yours for example, have now started to have really large group shows of Indian contemporary art in the west. All of this is about people being curious about what's happening in India. This is the first step towards being able to get some kind of information.

Slowly, as this continues to develop more, I think there will be institutions, which will be set up in India because the people who are involved in the art world want to be involved at different levels. This is kind of a general problem of any developing country in the world, not just India, where the basic infrastructure and the basic needs of a lot of people must be met before a certain luxurious, elitist concept of art gets promoted or paid attention to.

 
RS: The private sector for example often funds hospitals and provides basics which in any developed country, the government would be responsible for. They support society in that way. But whether one approaches the private or public sector for sponsorship of major exhibitions, the answer is usually that they don't have the money for such things as they are still trying to provide basics to society, and art is a luxury.
 

Jagannath Panda,
Second Skin; 2005
Fiberglass, Stoff, Acrylfarbe

T.V. Santosh
Elusive Solutions/ Need Sharp Scriptures; 2004
Oil on Canvas
140 x 360 cm

AP: But don't you think people would be interested?

RS: They would be, because art has become much more prominent and is something that seems to be viewed more importantly in society, though some years ago this was not the case. And I guess again, the economic factor plays a role, because art has become economically interesting. The work of even the major artists had been selling for 10-15.000 USD and is now selling for a hundred times as much, which makes much more sense, because their work was very under-priced. It wasn't even looked at or taken seriously.

AP: The economic value at the moment is now also giving art credibility. There is intense pressure on the government to maybe set up organizations to promote contemporary or classical art. It might just be that the private sector steps in and not the government and things will move on from there.

RS: Or it might be that there will be other investors, like the Guggenheim. You never know. It might be that we have a Guggenheim before we have a National Gallery.

RW: Are there some corporate collections in India of interest, you would mention, since we have a private/corporate dialogue?

AP: I think some of the larger corporations, do have collections, but whether they are described as corporate collections or private collections is another thing. But then they are also extremely structured in terms of opting for the names which are important or fashionable. So, a corporate collection in India tends not to be an exercise in curatorship, but an exercise in power.

RS: The chairmen do have collections, they just don't do it professionally. You know Anupam, I think you are the first person here who has hired a curator for his collection. Corporate collections are very, very mixed, including some of the worst works of art you can imagine combined with a few interesting pieces. Now things have taken a new direction, in that there's a sort of passion or driving force behind it. But still, people mostly just make desperate shots in the dark to pick something up.

AP: It's also a generation thing, I'm sorry to put it like that, but it is also because I'm responding to a lot of works at this time of my life. 20 or 30 years later, when there might be something that requires a lot more effort and work, I might shrink away from that responsibility. I might just be tired, exhausted, and too busy with other things.

I think it's also a question of creating a balance between finding the time and doing it at a comfortable level. My generation is so involved in knowing the artists, knowing the works they are going to make in advance, being in touch with the studios and the galleries and building a rapport you have with these people. Because now 500 people are fighting for each work, so very few people have easy access to good contemporary art in India - there are very few shows that do not sell out in India.
 

RS: Most of the galleries don't even want to tell their clients when they are opening a show. You try to avoid telling too many people beforehand. Because people can be very pushy, so it's sometimes unpleasant and you just try to filter the news out little by little. The most unpleasant situation is when you have something available, and everybody pulling in different directions.

AP: Every show is pre-sold, by the time you get to the preview. If you think you have the chance to buy something at the preview, forget about it.

RS: But this situation also existed in Europe sometime back when people stood waiting at the gates of art fairs, to dash in the second they opened.

RW: This happens still. I mean, I was never part of it, but I know the stories. Everybody with a mobile phone, running around the fair and making phone calls.

AP: But I never go to art previews now, because you can't get to see the art and everything is sold, so I have to go before. I mean at some point before to the studios or the galleries as they are installing the works.

RS: I think the interesting collections in India certainly include that of the Deutsche Bank, built around 12 years ago. They made a concept and traveled all over the country and selected fresh young talent, and works by masters, and put it all together very professionally with the involvement of an art committee. At that time there was nobody in India who did it like this. When their board member, Dr. Herbert Zapp, inaugurated their Bombay collection at the Tata Palace, he said "I feel I'm launching the first contemporary art museum in Bombay". It has fantastic works by artists from three or four generations.

MN: I would be interested to know more about the point you mentioned, to compare the art in India with other countries in Asia, not so much with Europe. How would you describe that situation?

AP: The borders, the boundaries, the languages, the people, the food, the religion - everything in this region has shifted. But there are so many overlaps and similarities and differences within the region, that's why the comparison is interesting. Also from within, because we understand the problems and appreciate the difficulties ahead and those in the past, we ignore many of these difficulties, because we also take things for granted and we focus on the things that are of interest to us. That is why the region is important in my mind. India certainly plays a leading role in the region at the moment as far as the art world goes - for various reasons: maybe the economics of it, or the scale and the size and the diversity of the art world available within India.

Having said that I think a lot of exciting work is happening in different countries, which nobody has seen. For example, in Pakistan, I would say the quality of art is amazing. Extremely young artists straight out of college have a strength that I have not seen in many people who have worked on their career for twenty years. So it would be exciting to see how that develops. But a lot of people don't go to Pakistan and do not have access to see that art, because of travel restrictions imposed by their governments.

I think the contemporary art forms other than painting and photography and video are more stimulating, and installation work and sculpture still has to mature a little bit. The same goes for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which is all that I've seen so far. We haven't got to Bhutan, Nepal or Tibet yet. They are sparks, it's how India used to be five or ten years ago. It's very similar, it's like deja-vu almost, because you go and see a lot of art in this intense manner and there are few very inspiring artists. A lot of it might seem too dull to us, but these few sparks will be fascinating to follow to see what happens next. And I think they need the support of maybe even India.

RS: Absolutely!

AP: Because, even economically a lot of people from Pakistan show their works in India at prices which we would compare to the west, so they are showing their works in Europe or in India at the same price. But they're showing it in Pakistan at a lower price. So, India becomes the foreign country which in their minds has the same economic power as Europe. We should encourage them, saying we like some of the works they are making and we would like to invite them to the show in India. Let's have a dialogue, let's have an exchange.

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MN: What makes the art in India so unique compared to the other regions?

AP: I think we just had a longer and stronger tradition, which means actually that I think all the countries have an equally long tradition, but over the years, the tradition has survived in India. It has been encouraged, there have been patrons who have always wanted to create interesting art forms, not necessarily just art, and have kind of developed regions of artisans and artists who are extremely skilled and have taken their craft to another level.

RS: This kind of patronage has been more prevalent in India. For example, my mother recently went to Vietnam and she found that this kind of cultural segment is lacking there. It's all very basic.

AP: India isn't isolated, a lot of these other countries are isolated, to pick up on what you were saying. It's difficult for them to travel, it's difficult for them to get visas and also to go to other parts of the world. It's very expensive, not a lot of people can afford it, it's the same in India, it is expensive, but I think a lot more Indians interact with the west by traveling and then come back with fresh ideas and that helps India evolve.

RS: This is also an issue. Thirteen years ago when my husband first came to India and started to collect art for the Deutsche Bank, he asked a leading artist the big question: "what is Indian about Indian contemporary art?" And this artist retaliated with "what is German about German contemporary art?" But of course we all know that German contemporary art is indeed very German. All their social and political situations were infused into their art which was not happening for quite some time in India - or if, then on a very superficial level.

AP: But for the young generation now all this has been infusing into the art as well.

RS: It is, that's right, but I tell you for instance, I have just made a studio visit to Kiki Smith in New York and if you look at her books and publications and you talk to her, you will be amazed at how many artists in India are lifting her ideas. I talked to another very astute collector in Bombay, who became conscious and aware of these issues of 'derivation' after starting to visit Documenta and Venice, and Basel. It's something to consider.

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