An elephant in the bedroom

(Published in TOI-Crest, August 21, 2010)

They are often big (ref: Jitish Kallat), sometimes transient (ref: Anish Kapoor) and occasionally need a context (ref: Nalini Malani). But today installations in art are part of the modes of creative expression that artists use. They can be fascinating, as with Vivan Sundaram’s disintegrating shoe-sole cots, amusing yet pointed, as with Shilpa Chavan’s lady of the dustpans, or deeply moving and strangely comforting, as in Reena Saini Kallat’s warm ‘red room’. Whatever their form and however they may say what they are trying to say, who takes these works home when their day is done?

Answers come from various sources. The much-vaunted sculpture The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own by Bharti Kher, the figure of a life-sized dying female elephant covered with bindis that delineate contour and, somehow, magically, emotion, has just sold at the Sotheby’s auction for a triumphant £993,250 / $1,493,947, the highest price for the artist and a record for work by a female Indian contemporary artist at auction. “It wasn’t meant to be a gold bar in a vault,” Kher has said, though the price may have bought a few of those!

The difficulty with buying installation art is that, by definition, it is site-specific, three-dimensional and designed to transform the perception of a space and the emotions of the viewer. As Sundaram has said in the context of his installation Twelve Bed Ward, part of his show Trash, which used garbage to make various salient points, “Private galleries today agree to build whole rooms and walls to create the desired environment.” Putting together his works to tell the story he wanted was “about a content relationship, the space available in each location”. It could be permanent, as with large sculptural pieces, or temporary, as with heaps of coloured powder or an audio-video loop. Installations may be good investments, but they need to be bought with a certain caution: Is there space enough to install it to best effect? When installed, does it still say what the artist wanted to say when it was created?

As art expert Ashish Balram Nagpal says, “Earlier it was only museums that bought installations, but now collectors too are buying them across the globe. If the work has to be put up in a gallery, then it may need explanation.” Siddharth Grover of Mumbai’s Sans Tache gallery believes that “It all depends on the quality of the work and how open one is to buying such work.” For super-creative fashion-maven and artist Chavan’s work, “it’s mostly been galleries and collectives” doing the buying. “I like my work to speak through its title, but it’s not always easy to have your installation self-explanatory, as there are so many elements juxtaposed,” as with her piece for the Bose Krishnamachari-curated show, A Woman’s Work is Never Done, which had a mannequin adorned with dust pans, mosquito netting, kitchen implements and attitude.

Do these works have an expiry date? Like Chavan, Grover does not think so. He says, “Fine art does not and technically should not expire; art, culture and heritage are to be passed down generations. One could have spent a good chunk of money to purchase a work, and it is the duty of an artisan to ensure longevity in his/her work.” Nagpal has a more practical view: “It depends on the installation. If it is made of durable material then, yes, it can last, but normally it is not! Once it is sold, it normally is the collector who has to look after it; however, if the artist is dedicated to his passion and is not merely making money then, yes, he will be available to rectify damages if needed.”

It is likely then, that to suit the market – a consciousness any artist will perforce have today – works are created with the logical end in mind: sale. Nagpal, with the cynicism of someone who has weathered a storm or two in the business, says, “There is rarely a work of art that is created without sale or sponsorship in mind.” Chavan’s ethos is rather less pragmatic. According to her, “I find that if I get practical, I stop being creative. It’s stagnating. Whether it’s the fashion or the art pieces I do, practicality has always been way too far out! I create with what comes to mind, irrespective of practicality and dimensions and raw materials.”

Grover, as gallerist, is more cautious. “An artist who explores his creativity without any preconceived notions on the artworks practicality/sale ability is definitely letting his creativity out to the fullest without stubbing any feelings or emotions that may arise at that time towards the work, and is a truly genuine artist who ends up ‘creating’. Those are the ones who do rare work!” Apart from the viewer’s own interpretation of what the work is about, “The thoughts of an artist paragraphed alongside a work does give the viewer/buyer an added insight.”

Creativity is the hallmark of Jitish Kallat’s work, though praticality plays no role. His pieces are enormous, to put it mildly, his latest at Pilane being a record 100 feet, stretching over the undulating landscape and asking, ‘When Will You Be Happy?’ - “It had to be subtly audible in the landscape which demanded the scale in response to the context.” When he made Public Notice II, a resin-bone transcript of Mahatma Gandhi’s speech, “The only practical thing I thought about was arrangements for storage. If I was practical about it, it would be just 7 foot long!” That work was acquired by the Charles Saatchi Gallery (private collection). For those without that space to keep and show art, size does indeed matter. Nagpal explains that “A smaller work always finds buyers more easily, given the size of homes we live in these days.”

Much installation art today uses audio-video segments. These, says Nagpal, are “sold to collectors just like any other work of art. It does, however, involve a lot of paperwork regarding the exclusive ownership of the work, to avoid duplication.” Grover agrees and adds that “The AV would be on a signed DVD mentioning the editions. And if the work has any special hardware that the artist has improvised or tweaked which the buyer would not have, then it would sell along with the apparatus.”

Perhaps superseding all these aspects is the artist’s own temperament. Chavan tries to make sure her pieces are sold “as intact or having their own balances. If there is an option of setting it up or displaying it in various ways, it is discussed as an option with the curator when the piece is submitted.” Since fashion is almost always an undercurrent, if not a direct inspiration, “often my works get mounted on mannequins and then transferred on to a wall or off the ceiling post the show.” Grover is insistent that “The work must be shown in its correct format at a gallery and at a buyer’s premises once it is sold. The level of difficulty will vary with the nature of the installation and where it is being placed. This really would matter most to the artist and the gallery and I’m certain they would go out of their way to ensure the setting is right!”

It is not just the setting in a gallery that matters, but also the environment in the space that a buyer selects for a work. Ashwini Kakkar, a passionate art collector, has concentrated on modern and contemporary Indian art dating from 1880 to the present, but is leery of buying installations, “a pity”, he feels, since without including it, “a whole significant and major style of art today is passed over”. This avoidance does not stem from preference, but from experience. Some years ago he bought a piece by a young artist from Goa that combined various materials, including fibreglass and stone, but found that “the problem was that it – and others of this kind – was very difficult to maintain. It not only accumulated dust, but “when you try and clean it, a small piece can easily come off! I had a really difficult time with it. It was very appealing, fascinating, very nicely and elegantly done, sort of everyman’s story that looked outstanding. I had never bought one before, so I thought I would try this.” Kakkar explains that “Unless it is really rugged and built in a manner that will prevent erosion or damage, I would be a bit shy of buying any more installations.” Technology, too, is not for him, as “if the video stops working, or there is something wrong with the technology used, or the physical features, how do you get it fixed? The artist part you may really like and can deal with, but the rest is scary! Sunil Padwal had a fantastic work in a major show about 20 months ago, but it had hundreds of little pieces, so it would have needed greater maintenance. So there are practical issues with installations. Clearly sculptures have an edge, especially if they are made of rugged material.”