Subodh Gupta

Dealers have gone back into their cages

Subodh Gupta looks back at the boom and bust and tells Meera Menezes about those who have dared collect his gigantic, glittering artworks

TWO YEARS AGO, THINGS WENT A BIT crazy. There was too much hype. If you were an artist, your work was sold – it applied to both young and old. Galleries played a doubleedged role – but I suppose even galleries had no choice. If one gallery did not pick up an artist, another one would. What happened? Artists stopped experimenting. I have been an artist for 25 years – you have seen me in Mayur Vihar. My success occurred over the last five years, but I struggled for 15 years before that and never compromised with my ideas. If young artists sell their work immediately, when will they learn to experiment and make great mistakes that take them somewhere they never intended?

Of course, with the hype good things happened too. People who might have bought gold, started buying art instead. People became aware of art because of television and the media. But, they talked more about money and less about art. Especially, the new dealers – dealers who are not collectors are the most dangerous people in the art world. Whoever lives for and loves art talks more about art and less about money. We are in the best situation right now.

I work with my galleries and the only thing I want from them is that they put me in the right place and in the right collections. That is why I believe in working with good galleries and that stops you from having to sell work from your studio. Thank God, today, I am working with people who I believe in as much as they do in me: Hauser & Wirth, Fabienne Leclerc and Nature Morte – if they know you are a dealer they will not sell you work.

I’m collected more abroad than in India. In India, not many have dared to collect my work Anupam Poddar is the only one who has had the guts and I would like to say that nobody has bought installations like Anupam has. I think Praful Shah has a fantastic collection too, because he has Bhupen Khakhar’s estate to look after. Bhupen was one of the top artists in our country and since Bhupen gave him his collection to look after, I have a lot of respect for him. We have only a handful of great contemporary collectors and our museums have nothing.

Most Indian collectors buy pretty conventional work. That’s the sad part. To have a contemporary collection, you have to keep buying art continuously and follow artist’s careers long term. That is what we lack in India: sustained focus. Don’t forget that the richest people in our country have no interest in art at all. It’s completely the opposite in the West. If big time industrialists started collecting art or even developing an interest in culture, think what it would mean for the country? It would be phenomenal. They are also the ones who can afford to bring international art to India. The cost would be miniscule for them. Look at the government. Do they think about art, do they blink about art? But there is nobody to write about this lack of attention to culture. Artists need to work. I can talk about the problem to you but it’s not my first and foremost job. We have no good art critics. Just look at the papers … all the critics have been replaced by lifestyle writers.