The Sunday Express : Arthouse of rebels

As the Baroda school of art finds itself in the middle of a bitter row, eye profiles five brilliant, eccentric and controversial figures of this avant-garde bastion

Georgina Maddox

Posted online: Sunday, June 03, 2007 at 0000 hrs

Irreverence has always found a home and a canvas in the Faculty of Fine Arts of Baroda’s Maharaja Sayaji Rao University—from K.G. Subramanyan’s use of satire and black humour to Bhupen Khakhar’s impertinent, shibboleth-breaking work. No wonder, then, that this tiny department in a bustling city in Gujarat has been the birthplace of an eclectic stream of contemporary Indian art—the Baroda school.

“In Baroda, the bar is set high. Works and artists are expected to be extraordinary because the past generation has set very high standards,” says art critic Ina Puri. The department has been the training ground for leading artists of the country like Jyothi Bhatt, Dhruva Mistry, Rekha Rodwittiya, Nilima Sheikh, Surendran Nair, Gulammohammed Sheikh and many others.

One of its defining features, for example, is the narrative school of painting. Put simply, the artists told stories of their loves and lives, of the city around them and the influences that came from beyond its walls. They told these tales on their own terms, rebelling against the British academic style of painting being taught at the JJ School of Art in Bombay (now Mumbai) or the attempt to revive the Mughal and Rajasthani miniatures by the Bengal School.

It was also a time to look back at the past for inspiration. Far from being slaves to western traditions, Baroda artists like Gulammohammed Sheikh and Subramanyan revisited indigenous art, both ancient and tribal.

Subramanyan’s most path-breaking work at the time was the King of the Dark Chamber (1963), a glazed terracotta mural mounted at the Rabindralaya in Lucknow. The work symbolises the quest for indigenous alternatives to the modern western notions of art that favoured either a slavish realism or complete abstraction.

But even as it fostered scepticism, the school accommodated diverse strands of thought. It helped that the department was a melting pot of cultures and traditions. As Rodwittiya points out, “When I was a student, the faculty was made up of students from all over India. This brought many interesting influences to the campus.” The revival of the past and the referencing of roots has always been tempered by a critical note. “There was less fear to (sic) question authority. Resistance and protest were instruments of change that students incorporated (in their work) ,” says Rodwittiya.

In 1978, a new radical voice emerged in Baroda—that of Khakhar. The artist debunked the Western formalism that had crept into the university with his brand of irreverent and revolutionary kitsch. “Bhupen brought the bazaar with its common place vulgarisms, small business enterprises, even its cheap passing pleasures, to his canvas. He was known to cock a snoot at art’s high-mindedness,” says critic Gayatri Sinha. His openly homoerotic works did raise the ire of many conservatives. “Khakhar came out of the closet in Baroda. His works were very cutting-edge and he was a very confrontational artist. But at that time, there was a lot of admiration for this unconventional approach,” says Puri.

It’s a freedom that is under threat. “Given the history of infringements of artistic freedom during the last two decades, especially the campaign of vilification launched against M.F. Husain, and the rise of intolerance, the Faculty of Fine Arts appears to be under siege,” says art critic Ranjit Hoskote. But cast a look at its tradition of nonconformity and you can bet this house of rebels will fight back.

GULAMMOHAMMED SHEIKH

The dohas of Kabir and seething cities, trees that branch off into mystical worlds and a metaphorical journey back home—the works of Gulammohammed Sheikh, painter, art historian, and writer, merge different perspectives with striking ease. He is not just an important artist whose works fetch anything between Rs 45-50 lakh but is also one of the most erudite and distinguished alumni of the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University. Some of his major works are the Speaking Street and City for Sale, a depiction of the horrors of the Baroda riots of the mid-1980s that returned to haunt Gujarat in 2002. In his journey from birthplace Surendranagar in Kathiawar, this 64-year-old artist has always been inspired by tradition. He was an integral part of the development of the narrative school of painting that incorporated features from the Indian miniatures. As a student at the faculty, he was part of the Group of 1890, a radical artists’ collective spearheaded by the likes of J Swaminathan and Jeram Patel. He also taught at the faculty for three decades. With artist friends that included wife Nilima Sheikh, Bhupen Khakhar, Nasreen Mohamedi, Vivan Sundaram and art historian Geeta Kapur, Sheikh drew inspiration from subjects as varied as the mysticism of Sufi poetry to the mindscape of the city.
The alleys of urban life recur in his work. Baroda, especially, is an abiding inspiration. “The twisting lanes, the buildings whose architecture was inspirational, the old and the new city that merged yet held on to their own identities has all fed my art,” says the veteran.
In his Kahat Kabir series, Sheikh, also a poet, brings Kabir to canvas to set up a conversation between poetry and painting. Merging an urban narrative with Kabir’s secular idealism, Sheikh has come up with a brilliant metaphor for communal harmony.
Currently, the artist is experimenting with multimedia and Photoshop alongside his canvases and works on paper—proving that the thirst for adventure has nothing to do with age.

CHINTAN UPADHYAY

He is the rebel of the Baroda school. One of the most experimental painters of his times, Chintan Upadhyay was one of the first artists to challenge the norm in Baroda—that painters should stick to brushes and paints. He dabbled with soft sculpture, installations in galleries and interactive art work long before they became fashionable. One of his best-known works is the Designer Babies—a series of paintings that looks ahead to a future when babies will be commercially produced to meet specific demands. Upadhyay has sat in the buff in the same art gallery that was stormed by Niraj Jain in Baroda. His paintings have sold for Rs 30 lakh at the Christie’s auction in Hong Kong, but it has been quite a struggle for the non-conformist artist. “I was initially influenced by the narrative school of painting in Baroda. Gulam and Bhupen were my icons. I was interested in talking about the commodification of sex and sexuality and did many works relating to phallic objects,” says Upadhyay. Needless to say, works like his Phallic Telephone were difficult to sell. “I am not quite through with hammering out my argument against the establishment, but I do find my work changing. Now I am more concerned about issues of cloning, globalisation and migration,” says Upadhyay whose Designer Babies, Mutants and Clones are covered in the tale-tale miniatures reminiscent of the Baroda school. Even though he is known to experiment with various mediums, he calls himself a painter at heart. “I love working on a canvas, dabbling in paint and watching the work develop. I never start off with a fixed idea of what I am going to end up with,” says the artist.

NILIMA SHEIKH

The sweeping terrain of poetry and history is Nilima Sheikh’s canvas. Having completed her studies in history at the Delhi University, she joined the Faculty of Fine Arts in the ’70s where she met husband Gulammohammed and became a part of the Baroda group. Inspired by saintly figures like Virashava poet Mahadevi Akka, her key works include the series, When Champa Grew Up, that talks of the trials of a young girl sold into marriage and then burnt. Her more recent series deals with Kashmir. Titled Firdaus I, II and III, the work—tempera on canvas—explores how a land that was once a heaven on earth has been torn asunder by war. Her works fetch around Rs 12-15 lakh while larger scrolls fetch around Rs 25 lakh. Shireen Gandhy, who usually handles Sheikh’s work, believes that the artist is “conservative when it comes to her pricing.” Interactions with her guru K.G. Subramanyan were the shaping influence on her work. “He taught me about the interdependence of the plastic arts and arts like theatre, dance and poetry). We learnt of the non-hierarchical interweaving of craft and folk practice with art…,” says Sheikh. Put simply, she blended her studies in art and its history with the lived experience of the people of Baroda and other cites. From her other mentor Gulammohammed, she learnt the “passionate love for the world history of art and narratives of time”.

REKHA RODWITTIYA

One of the foremost artists of her time, Rekha Rodwittiya has consistently foregrounded feminist concerns in her works. Born in Bangalore, this 48-year-old moved to Baroda in 1967 where she spent her childhood and later her student life at the Faculty of Fine Arts. Her prominent works include Two Figures on a Horse, that talks about the violence that disfigures women, and Small Openings Give Way to Large, which is more celebratory in tone. In Rodwittiya’s works, the figures of women in voluminous clothes fend off the gaze of the voyeur. However, the artist believes each of her work is an important milestone. “As a painter my challenge lies in every new work that I struggle to bring articulation and coherence to. Sometimes it is the works that fail miserably—and which may be ultimately discarded—that become the touchstones.” Rekha is in the process of revising her pricing before her London exhibition Second Skin, which is presented by Sakshi Gallery and opens in London on June 19. “I hope my works are affordable,” she says. Married to painter Surendran Nair, the couple shares an intimate bond. “ We were friends before we became lovers and I think this has been the anchor of our relationship that spans 22 years… Our closeness has not obliterated the individuality of our personalities. We both delight in each other’s works and yet maintain the space for critique.”

NATRAJ SHARMA

He is one of the most reclusive artists of the country and also one of the most prolific, second only to Atul Dodiya. He exhibits once every year, or sometimes once in two years. But his oeuvre is slowly finding its place in the sun—he won the Sotheby’s prize for Contemporary Indian Art in 2000. His works have been recently displayed in the US but the 49-year-old continues to live and paint in Baroda and travel around the country to attend workshops in Delhi, Bangalore and Goa. Having studied in the city, he also spent time teaching in the university’s department of painting. Besides Marcel Duchamp, Sharma draws a lot of his influences from the Baroda school of art, its flair for simultaneous narration and its referencing of the urban landscape. “The Baroda school has given Indian art a new direction. It is one of the most vibrant schools today,” says the artist, whose images recalls the jagged, cold spaces of industrialised life. Sharma’s prints and sculptures are priced at Rs 20 lakh while his large oils fetch around Rs 27-30 lakh. One of his more acclaimed works is the Freedom Bus, which was displayed at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai. Cutouts of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and aide Sardar Patel stare out of the windows of a rickety rattletrap—it’s a work that comments on how stirring political ideologies have been dumbed down to a few pin-up images. “I got the impulse to make Freedom Bus while at the KHOJ workshop in Delhi, from my interactions with a metal smith Habibbhai,” says Sharma.

The Times of India: The case of the fake Bawa

Manjit Bawa's daughter Bhavna alleges that fakes of her father's paintings are circulating in the art market.

3 Jun, 2007 l 0000 hrs ISTlJAYA DRONA /AGENCIES

While Indian art is going places and transcending barriers, there is an ugly development shaping up in the art circuit too. Artist Manjit Bawa's daughter Bhavna Bawa claims that her father's paintings are being faked. "I have learnt that about three of dad's works have been faked in the last one-and-a-half years.

One of the reasons behind this is the increasing prices. Since dad went into coma, the prices of his works are increasing by lakhs every few months. I will not like to take any names, but I know about the works that have been faked. One is a painting with a yellow background that has Radha-Krishna painted in the centre ," she explains. So, how will a buyer distinguish between the real thing and a fake?

"The figure in this painting is bad and a person who knows Manjit Bawa's work will make out the difference within minutes . Dad used certain signs to show ageing in his paintings, which these fakes lack. Also, none of dad's paintings are perfect," she says. "In yet another painting, dad's old style of painting has been copied. To show that the painting is old, there's oil leakage on it, and also the effect of termites . The effort has been made to show that the painting is damaged and is a masterpiece. All this is only to bluff the restorer," she adds. Bhavna is planning to take legal recourse. "I have met my lawyer in this regard and I may file a case. I am looking at various aspects," she says.

The Times of India: Art's foreign attack

With summer here, artists are shifting their focus to art shows abroad where they are collaborating with actors, business honchos and politicians.

4 Jun, 2007 l 0000 hrs ISTlJAYA DRONA & NIKHILA PANT /TIMES NEWS NETWORK

This summer, Indian art is shifting abroad and its mantra is 'collaboration' . Indian artists are collaborating with Bollywood stars, politicos and corporate honchos in the cool environs of London or Vienna to come up with some interesting results.

DRAMATIC PERSONAE:

Bollywood personalities are taking up painting in a big way this summer. The latest to join the bandwagon are Abhishek and Aishwarya Bachchan. Says Priya Pall, an art consultant working with an NGO, "Aishwarya and Abhishek are painting with their cousin Namrata (Ajitabh and Ramola's daughter) for a show in October. Others who will be painting for that show include Saif Ali Khan with Nikhil Chaganlal, Preity Zinta with Laxman Shrestha, Naseeruddin Shah with Riyaz Komu, Karan Johar with Farhan Mujib, and Kumar Mangalam Birla with Anjolie Ela Menon."

While this art activity has just kickstarted, several other artists are already gathering in London for a show at Bonhams on June 7 and 11.

Here, Shah Rukh Khan will be painting live with MF Husain.

THE VENUE:

Indian artists are now holding individual exhibitions. Sunaina Anand, director of an art gallery, has recently returned after attending an exhibition of 10 Indian artists in London. She says, "Summer in India is the right time to take one's works abroad . You get a great response to our works there." Anand will soon take the works of about 40 young artists to the Royal College of Art in London.

A Bangalore-based art gallery tried another innovation recently. They got nine fashion designers, product designers and artists together to synergise fashion, lifestyle and art. Artist Bose Krishnamachari explains, "Such ideas are important to take us to the next level . The good news is that many curators and art collectors are coming to India this year from Vienna, Paris etc."

Nstional Public Radio : M.F. Husain in the Center of India Art Controversy

by Philip Reeves

May 29, 2007 · Artists in India say they're being subjected to the worst campaign of politically inspired censorship in years.

They say that what they term a "moral police of cultural vigilantes" have targeted art, literature and films. The issue has thrown the focus back to the case of one man, believed by many to be the father of modern Indian art: M.F. Husain.

Some years back, Husain, who's Muslim, painted some works in which Hindu deities were picture in the nude. There was a huge outcry from hardline Hindu activists. They attacked a gallery and destroyed some of his works.

Some people compare M.F. Husain with Picasso, but he disagrees.

"I am an Indian and a painter, that's all," Husain, 92, says.

Husain fails to mention he is perhaps the biggest figure in the artistic life of one of the world's most populous nations.

"If you go out on an Indian street, you will see a splurge of color which is just unparalleled anywhere in the world," says Rajeev Dhavan, an author and advocate in India's Supreme Court. "You take all those colors and put them all in the mind of Husain with an element of structure in them and you see something that is quite magnificent in his range of art."

Visual artist and activist Ram Rahman says Husain represents a new India.

"For many of us he has been a symbol of the new India that came up after Independence," Rahman says. "Secular, modern India. A culture which was shared by all. And he's been remarkable as a contemporary artist because he's one of — actually he's the only artist who has mined our mythological traditions."

You won't find Husain at home. These days he prefers to stay away from India, despite what Dhavan calls "the wishes of his countrymen."

He mostly spreads his time between Dubai and London.

"India reveres Husain," Dhavan says. "It is politically motivated Hindus who have decided to target him as somebody whom they take great exception to in the hope that these terribly cowardly acts that they indulge in will win them support in society and votes when it comes to voting for the right-wing Hindu parties of India."

Not long ago, the activists mobilized again. This time, Husain had done a painting in which a map of India is portrayed as a semi-naked woman – an image assumed to represent the sacred mother India.

The hardliners got a court order to seize Husain's property – although the order was put on hold by the Supreme Court.

Husain supporters point out that in India, there's nothing uncommon about erotic religious images, including naked figures carved in ancient temples.

"And the sad thing is that it's having a terrible impact on our contemporary culture because once you unleash a campaign of hatred as they have done, it gets very hard to pull back from it," Rahman says.

Other artists have been attacked as well.

A protest recently broke out in New Delhi over a student-produced image of the Hindu Deity Kali wielding weapons and giving birth.

Art professor Parul Dave Mukherjee says the student's work hadn't yet gone on public display.

The debate over the boundaries of free speech in India goes beyond paintings. It's also about the rise in raunchy Western-style material in India's media. Even the smallest incident can trigger outrage, as Richard Gere found out when he publicly kissed the actress Shilpa Shetty.

"We always try to cover our own bodies and at least our Mother Goddess. We always try to have the best of images of our Mother Goddess not naked images," says Ashwini Mahajan of the radical Hindu VHP group.

At 92, Husain still paints for five hours a day. His works sell for millions.

"Mostly people are ignorant, what is the language of painting. You know, they're ignorant. It is so difficult to make them aware, but time will teach them," he says.

Many say it will be important to the future of artists for Husain to return to his native India.

"For the artist community here Husain, if he dies outside our country, it's a shame that we will never overcome," Rahman says.

MSN India : Tehelka to auction Indian art in London

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

New Delhi: India's political newspaper Tehelka will promote, preview and auction Indian art at a summit it will host in London next week to explain the growing economic and social importance of India.

An exhibition that begins at the Asia House in London Wednesday will showcase 85 canvases by renowned Indian artists and 50 paintings by their new generation counterparts.

This will be followed by an auction at Bonhams on June 11, said an announcement Tuesday on behalf of the Tehelka group.

The works to figure in the exhibition include those of legendary M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, V.S. Gaitonde, Akbar Padamsee, and S.H. Raza besides Laila Khan Rajpal, Partha Shaw, Seema Kohli and several others from the younger generation.

In order to keep art enthusiasts riveted to Indian art and artefacts, Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal has also decided to organise a summit 'The Challenge of India' at the Royal Society of Arts in London on June 7 and 8.

Tejpal said: "Most forums on India interpret it through a monochromatic lens. Shining India. Buoyant economy. Huge consumer market."

"But the truth about India is much more complex than this. To successfully engage with India, one has to understand its complex socio-political realities."

Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath and former law minister Ram Jethmalani will attend the summit as 'keynote speakers' to explain these issues, Tejpal said.

Besides, social activist Aruna Roy, Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, National Conference president Omar Abdullah, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and a host of others are also likely to attend the summit.

New Statesman : A view from the east

Indian art nets record prices even as its makers suffer threats to their freedom of expression.

Salil Tripathi
Published 04 June 2007

A year ago, a group of Hindu activists attacked two paintings by Maqbool Fida Husain, India's best-known painter. The artist, now aged 91, had offended their sensibilities by drawing Hindu goddesses in the nude. Judging the zeitgeist - the attack happened during the time of the dispute about the Danish Muhammad cartoons - the organisers hastily closed the exhibition. It was not the first attack on Husain's work; for nearly a decade, he has borne the brunt of Hindu nationalists' anger. Today he lives in self-imposed exile, dividing his time between Dubai and London. What was unusual about this particular act of mob censorship and vandalism, however, was that it occurred in the heart of central London, at Asia House.

A sale at Bonhams and Asia House this month will include 85 works by major Indian artists, including Husain. The profits from "Art for Freedom" will go towards another champion of freedom of expression, the Indian weekly newspaper Tehelka, which is backed by such luminaries as V S Naipaul and Arundhati Roy, and for which I also write. Since its launch in 2000, the publi cation has used investigative guile, outright subterfuge and spycam techniques to break several stories in India - betting scandals in international cricket, corruption in defence deals and, most recently, unlawful killings of Muslims in Gujarat. The paper was closed down by the government after breaking a story on corruption, only to relaunch in 2004. Appropriately, the word tehelka means sensation.

The defence of free speech seems particularly important this year, as India marks the 60th anniversary of her independence. The country has surprised cynics and sceptics by remaining true to constitutional parliamentary democracy (except for an interruption of 21 months in the mid-1970s when Indira Gandhi imposed a national emergency). On paper, and often in practice, India's film-makers, writers and artists enjoy the kinds of freedom that their counterparts in the west take for granted but which, unfortunately, are far from the norm in the developing world.

In the past decade, however, activists of vir tually all faiths have objected vociferously to such freedom for artists. They have sought to get film screenings cancelled, scripts rewritten, exhibitions closed and books banned - and have often succeeded. The Indian state stands by, a passive spectator.

In the latest assault, on 9 May, Chandramohan Srilamantula, an award-winning final-year student in the prestigious Faculty of Fine Arts at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, was arrested on antiquated obscenity charges after a bunch of Hindu agitators, joined by a number of Christians, protested against the works he was displaying on campus. His paintings included a nude deity giving birth (inspired by Lajja Gauri, an image from Hindu iconography that dates back to the beginning of time) and a crucifix shaped like a penis with a commode beneath. The university's dean supported Chandramohan, so the cowardly administrators suspended the dean and declined to help the artist. A higher court released the artist five days later, with some restrictions placed on his movements.

M F Husain has not been arrested yet, but early last month a court tried (unsuccessfully) to attack his Indian property. Husain has more than 1,200 cases pending against him all over India for having painted various Hindu gods - the elephant-headed Ganesh, the goddess of learning, Saraswati, the monkey-god Hanuman, Rama's wife, Sita, and assorted others including the secular deity Mother India - in the nude. Hindu nationalists are particularly upset with him because he is a Muslim and, in many ways, a symbol of secular India. They question why he does not paint the Prophet's wives in the nude - as if artists had to cater to every faith.

One could argue that Husain is not a radical. He has, in fact, been criticised as a sarkari (pro-government) artist, as he often documents national achievements in didactic, sentimental paintings. Yet he has also created breathtakingly energetic canvases with firm brushstrokes, using vivid colours and encapsulating a complex reality with a uniquely Indian vision. By painting Hindu goddesses in the nude, Husain is not challenging the conventions of Indian art; he is imitating its millennium-old tradition of seeing the gods as uncovered and pure, and by striving towards formlessness. He is not alone in this: as the other canvases on display in London show, nudity is commonplace in Indian art.

In the colonial era, as Victorian morality seeped into the thinking of administrators and sections of India's elite, Indian art became realistic, dull and derivative. It took the boldness of Amrita Sher-Gil - a fiery, Indo-Hungarian painter who inspired the Aurora Zogoiby character in Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh - to forge a national artistic identity by drawing on the legacy of cave paintings and miniatures.

At independence, Husain was one of six painters who formed the Progressive Artists' Group in Mumbai, which aimed to cultivate a modern Indian sensibility. The other founder members of the group were Krishnaji Howlaji Ara, Francis Newton Souza, Syed Haider Raza, Sadanand Bakre and Hari Ambadas Gade. They created large canvases covered in confident brushstrokes, drawing on traditions but conveying a contemporary reality. Souza's and Ara's nudes shocked viewers in their time; Raza drew inspiration from the precise geometry of tantric art; and Husain revelled in painting horses. Among the works being shown at Bonhams are examples of the pale subtlety of Jehangir Sabavala, the neo-realism of Yusuf Arakkal, the photomontages of Vivan Sundaram (Sher-Gil's nephew), the subtle humour of Atul Dodiya and the fluid grace of Jogen Chowdhury.

Today, Indian art commands prices that were unheard-of even three years ago: Tyeb Mehta's Mahishasura fetched more than $1.5m at auction at Christie's in 2005; the following year a Sher-Gil canvas called Village Scene was sold for $1.6m. In the past year, the Indian art market has grown in size from $52m to $150m. With a burgeoning middle class at home and a prosperous diaspora scattered all over the world, Indian painters have a large market. Not that it is confined to those of Indian descent - the American collectors Davida and Chester Herwitz inspired German bankers and Swiss investors to buy Indian art.

A thousand-year-old tradition is a heavy burden to carry. Indian artists have an inheritance of medieval miniatures, folk art and work by the anonymous craftspeople and sculptors who carved ancient erotic masterpieces and the sublime Taj Mahal. Contemporary artists are able to emerge from a similar anonymity because they have a story to tell. It is the story of an unfettered India that is syncretic and modern, inclusive and vibrant. Sure, some within India are threatened by such art. But that is the whole point.

"Art for Freedom" previews at Asia House, London W1, until 6 June. Auctions at Bonhams, London W1, on 7 June and Asia House on 11 June. http://www.asiahouse.org and http://www.bonhams.com

Maqbool Fida Husain will paint a canvas together with the Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan live at Bonhams on 7 June

For info on "Art for Freedom" and other Tehelka projects visit: http://www.criticalfutures.org

The Economic Times : Christie's Hong Kong canvas takes on Indian hue

ASHOKE NAG

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, JUNE 01, 2007

KOLKATA: As many as 25 Indian and Pakistani paintings, of which 20 were Indian, have picked up $1 million at the Christie’s sale of Asian Contemporary Art in Hong Kong. Atul Dodiya’s Vishal swung the highest value of $4 lakh-plus among the lot.

The Indian and Pakistani painters created 11 world records for themselves. Of these, 10 were pulled off by the Indian painters. Together with these two categories of painters, Chinese, Korean and Japanese participated in the auction, too.

Along with Dodiya, the other contemporary Indian painters who set up world records included Sheba Chhachhi whose Initiations series fetched a sale price of $12,480 against an estimate of $10,300-15,400.

At the same time, TV Santosh’s Hundred Square Feet of Curses sold for $1 lakh-plus compared to an estimate $25,600-32,100. Atul Bhalla’s Piaos drew a buyer at $7,020 when the estimate was placed in the region of $5,800-7,700 while Disconnect from Justin Ponmany attracted a final bid of $59,280 when the valuation was pegged at $35,900-44,900.

The other record levels were attained by Farhad Hussain’s Untitled, which went for $12,480 in comparison to the estimated value of $10,300-15,400; Probir Gupta’s In the Chambers of the Monkey God that was bought out for $62,000 against the estimate of $38,500-51,300 and Thukral and Tagra that were lapped up by for $85,800 as against the estimated value of $44,900-57,700. Records were also set by a Hema Upadhyay Untitled which sold for $29,640 against an estimated $11,500-15,400 and Chintan Upadhyay, who hit a high of $74,880 for his painting sorry does not make any difference II compared to a modest valuation of $19,200-25,600.

In step with the record-setting paintings, the other Indian painters who made their mark here are N Pushpamala who saw four paintings from The Anguished Heart series sell for $11,700, $4,992, $12,480 and $11,700; Bharti Kher whose Untitled saw a price of $18,720; Atul Bhalla who sold for $4,680 and the Target by Ashim Purkayastha which was snapped up at $14,820. Keeping company with these are Chitra Ganesh’s Untitled at $5,460 and Surendran Nair’s Darwaza Kholo $11,700.

In an e-mail to ET from London, Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at Christie’s, said: “The sale reaffirms the vibrancy of the Indian contemporary art market with new collectors bidding robustly across the globe, vying for top quality works. Christie’s unique context for including Indian and Pakistani works in the Asian Contemporary Art sale in Hong Kong appeals to the international audience as witnessed by record sales of Atul Dodiya, TV Santosh and Thukral and Tagra.”

Mehta added, “The 11 artist records, including a Pakistani one, achieved in Christie’s Hong Kong sale build on the successful Modern & Contemporary Indian Art sale last week at Christie’s London and is a testimony to Christie’s understanding of the market and the finely curated and great selectivity in works offered for sale. We look forward to Christie’s Modern and Contemporary Indian Art sale in September in New York.”