ARTICLE 1092 - Indian artists get bigger canvas abroad as West shows interest

[30 Mar 2009, 0021 hrs IST] Ashoke Nag for ET Bureau

KOLKATA: Indian art is set to witness increasing interest in the West. Together with galleries in the western world, which are run by Indians, western galleries are showing an enhanced focus on Indian artworks. Director, international program at New York's The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Jay A Levenson, told ET that he is planning to visit India with at least five curators to boost networking with the Indian art world and understanding of this brand of world art. "I was in India five years ago with a team of five curators and participated in a workshop at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. This is an experience I would like to repeat. You can't get a sense of Indian art sitting in New York. As world attention gets trained on India's economic growth, the non-Indian community abroad is looking at Indian art that is a window to the country's culture," Dr Levenson said.

He added that the museum has earmarked funds for curators to travel around the world. This is taking them to newer regions, such as Latin America and East Europe. At the same time, the art specialists are touring Asian nations, such as Taiwan, China, Japan and Singapore. This Asia thrust should also percolate to India in time. He was speaking on the sidelines of an international symposium on 'Museums of the Future' fielded by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the planned Kolkata Museum of Modern Art. MoMA's collections, he said, is made up of around 150,000 works spread over paintings, sculptures, prints and elements revolving around architecture and design. Interestingly, the museum also harbours a film archive, which stocks contemporary movies and titles dating back to the 1880s. It has built up a very modest repository of Indian paintings and photographs, too, numbering 35. The artists in the collection embrace N Krishna Reddy, Satish Gujral, Krishen Khanna, Jyoti Shah, Raghubir Singh, Raqib Shaw and Nasreen Muhamadi. Dr Levenson said that MoMA is certainly keen on acquiring more Indian paintings and artworks.

"But, high art prices today sometimes make life difficult for museums and come in the way of acquiring more artworks from internal resources," he said. Western museums have concentrated on Indian art up to the 19th century. The knowledge among western people about 20th century Indian art is still not adequate, he said. "The knowledge base is still very limited. Publications on modern Indian art are not enough. Americans still have a mindset where they perceive of India as an ancient land. They can’t view it as a young nation," Dr Levenson said. He felt that Indian art prices, especially tags of top quality works, could rise further, if the western audience enters Indian art in a big way. "The phenomenal rise in European and US art prices was actually triggered by collectors, who had made unimaginable sums in the financial markets," he said.

Article Courtesy: ECONOMIC TIMES