It pains me to see how artistic intent and impulse, a genuine love for the arts is today being subverted into a crass commercial proposition alone.

A gallery owner complaining about commercialization of art? Sounds quite like the devil quoting scripture. However I can explain the point I’m trying to make.

Today ART is buzzword, the wannabe’s visa into the the cocktail circuit. Artists grace Page Three more often than not. Ironically, so do we gallerists. Films, that most honest mirror-on-Indian-walls today reflect the ground reality of art as equity. The recent blockbuster Corporate featured diamond dripping industrialist wife who orchestrated art auctions and anxiously entreated husband to come meet the “top artists”… Meanwhile news magazines are running reams about Art Corpus Funds a la mutual funds where gallery owners/art experts would help you multiply your money on the art stock markets. Icing on the cake? Now banks are 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 countless 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. Individuals, institutions put their chips on declared winners. NEVER on dark horses their instincts or even better their hearts tell them to back. That, to them would mean bad business.

So what am I espousing here?. Art is passion. By all means think with your head. But do put the heart back in art. The Godrej, Tata, Sarabhai art collections were built by rasiks who genuinely sourced and appreciated art. And put their money where their mouths were at a time when nobody else did. Young Husain, Raza, Gaitonde and many others of their ilk found encouragement and sustenance only because these visionaries bucked them along. Going further back the art collections that grace great Chettinad mansions, the Shekhawati frescos that evoke lyric frenzy among all art afficianados were not commissioned by people looking to cash in on an investment. They were created by people who wanted to patronize, showcase and honour the dazzling talent that they loved and saw around them. These were not by seths looking for bargain basement Husains.

My belief then? Think with your head. BUT love art with your heart. That would sustain Art Heritage. Not Art Marts alone.

RENU MODI