The Indian Art Boom

This decade sees an exponential growth of the market for work by Indian artists, particularly those of Modernists associated with the Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG). The boom emerges as a consequence of multiple factors. Among these are large-scale exhibitions of Indian art that began registering an interest from the 1980s onwards, such as the Festival of India in the USA and Magiciens de la Terre in France; the production of art historical and critical writing by Indian historians and critics that lead to a consolidation of periodisation, styles and oeuvres of prominent Indian artists; and the consequent incorporation of works by Indian artists in sales by auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s. 

The influx of capital leads to the formation of two significant auction houses in India, Saffronart and Osian’s, and proves fundamental in crystallising the careers of a younger generation of contemporary artists whose work rises in value through speculation. All of this leads to what is now known as the Indian Art Boom of the early 2000s. The period establishes the careers of several emerging artists in India such as Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat, Shilpa Gupta and Reena Kallat, and sees the canonisation of Modernist art following the work of writers like Geeta Kapur, who lay out a historical backdrop for Indian Modernism. Due to the rapid changes in the commercial infrastructure for Indian art, the Boom is often criticised as the beginning of an era of opportunism, exclusivity and elitism in the Indian art community.

Bracketed between the liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991 and the 2008 global recession, the boom initially sees investment from an international roster of patrons, but this diminishes as the recession takes hold. With no governmental or external support to sustain it, it collapses.