According to news reports, the works of Indian artists now dominating the market have little in common with traditional sculptures or illustrations mostly associated with South Asian art.
One top seller is Francis Newton Souza, a painter born in Goa who died in 2002. Francis' paintings often feature bold portraits with abstract, distorted elements, appear to be highly influenced by Picasso. His painting."Man and Woman" recently sold for $1.4 million at Christie's. It was bought by Rajiv Chaudhri, a New York hedgefund manager. (He also bought another painting "Mahiasura" by Tyeb Mehta for $1.6 million). Julie Walsh of the Walsh Gallery in Chicago which specializes in contemporary Asian art says the buying environment for new Indian art is even more frenzied in India. If I hop on a plane and go to Delhi and Mumbai and visit the studios of an artist I'm interested in, not only is every single thing sold, but the freshly stretched canvases with one mark of paint on them are already sold as well," she says. Other Indian artists selling at top prices are V.S. Gaitonde ($1.5 "Untitled"), Syed Haider Raza ($744,000 "Tarangh"), Maqbool Fida Husain ($576,000 "Sita Hanuman"), Ram Kumar ($452,800 "Untitled"), and Atul Dodiya ($216,000 "Mirage"). On another note, Shilpa Ray a bluesy howler who grew up in a strict New Jersey household where Western music was forbidden, continues making waves on the New York music scene. Her group "Beat the Devil" recently played at Knitting Factory in Manhattan, includes a drummer and bassist and herself on harmonium (!) the lead instrument. She claims "I cant sing in any of the female keys (!) -- I have the range of an Indian man"...whatever that means! Yet that background has everything to do with her artistic identity, and not only because she was forced to play harmonium and sing from the age of eight. "My parents raised me to be incredibly humble and stupidly modest - I still hate them for that, because anytime someone criticizes my work, I lie awake at night wondering why. Would Mick Jagger do that?" Shilpa who is slim and slight doesn't appear to be someone who would front a band. Yet any such reservations disappear when she steps on stage and lets loose with her primal howl-and-rasp on lines that can be interlaced with @#$%!During a recent set, she informed the crowd that the show was tanking, then demanded alcohol. When someone from the audience handed her a drink, she thanked him sweetly before adding, "It better be whiskey, axxxxxe!" The music (if it can be called that) is a brutal blend of Jazz Age melody and bohemian folk, darkened with low end grit and seems to fit the contemporary groove if one has a penchant to endure the intolerable.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Goanet supports BMX, the alumni network of Britto's, St Mary's and Xavier's -- three prominent institutions in Mapusa, Goa. Events scheduled from Dec 16 to 21, 2006 For more details visit http://www.bmxgoa.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------
