INDIAN ART IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT

The hitherto unexplored potential of the India Modern & Contemporary Art market and what's needed.

- NEVILLE TULI

It has been nearly thirty years since the power base for the Indian Modern and Contemporary Arts market started to shift its financial power-base away from New York and London and towards Mumbai and New Delhi. The change was triggered by HEART's (Tuli Foundation for Holistic Education and Art) pathbreaking auction: 'The Intuitive-Logic II' (November 1997, Mumbai). The market has seen a major boom (2000-07) and a significant stagnancy and fall (2010-18) to the current sustained rise.

Today, with the ongoing growth in sale volumes and its collector-base diversity, regular price highs, widening market confidence in a growing number of collectibles, improving arts infrastructure, greater and more transparent knowledge-dissemination, a paradigm shift in the maturity of the modern fine arts market is evident.

The key focus now should be to recognise our minor international presence and stake and to build a stronger, more transparent and knowledgeable arts and cultural eco-system, to significantly increase our global market share.