Chennai emerging as hub of modern art

BS / Press Trust of India / Chennai May 5, 2008

Teeming with a young breed of high salaried professionals, Chennai is fast emerging as a hub of modern art as young artists from across the country are making a beeline to cash in on the new wave of interest in paintings.

There has been an emerging trend among the young professionals classified as High Networth Individuals (HNI) which mainly included top management staff of IT and ITES companies, to buy paintings as an investment option, industry experts said.

Lalit Kala Akademi Regional Secretary R M Palaniappan told PTI the akademi had hosted about 50 to 60 painting exhibitions of young painters last year.

The number of buyers for paintings had increased drastically and the young artists find the city a perfect platform to sell their works.

Of late, Chennai is catching up with Delhi and Mumbai, in attracting young artists to find buyers for their works.

There has been a fresh wave of interest among the high-salaried youngsters to buy paintings. They even do their home work by getting acquainted with different streams of art like modern and post-modern art, he said.

Instead of buying works of M F Hussain or Sobha Singh at very high prices, they opt for paintings of new artists, he said.

Sharan Apparao of Apparao Art Galleries said while young artists are making a beeline to showcase their works, top artists have not yet turned their attention to Chennai which does not have enough intellectual forums to attract them. As a result, buyers are opting for works of lesser know young painters.

Award winning artist K V Haridasan, settled at Cholamandalam artist village in the city, said the buyers were now looking at the works of the young artists as they can get it for a low price.
While it costs around Rs two lakh for a work of a senior and well known artist, it would be only around Rs 25,000 to Rs 40,000 for a work of an up and coming artist, he said.
The buyers, before buying a work, would evaluate the potential of a young artist to make it big in the coming years.

He said the speculative tendency was high in the art market in Chennai.The artists sell their works for a considerable low price to the buyers, whose main aim was to make profit.