Mega-buck art
Indian artists are fetching big money in the international market. Nonika Singh checks out if these sky-high prices are just a flash in the pan

With crores becoming the new benchmark at art auctions around the world, the buzzword in the artistic circles for some time has been money and big-time money at that. After all, 2010 saw legendary artist S. H. Raza break all conceivable records when his Saurashtra sold for Rs 16.3 crore at the Christies in London. Bharti Kher’s trademark bindi sculpture, The Skin Speaks a Language Not its Own, was auctioned for a whopping Rs 6.9 crore. By the end of the year, Arpita Singh’s mammoth mural, The Wish Dream, which connoisseurs dub as equivalent to one solo show akin to 14 canvases put together, fetched Rs 9.6 crore....
Dinesh Vazirnai, CEO of SaffronArt, says there is a strong demand for works of highest quality. Not surprisingly, at least 80 per cent of the 100 modern Indian contemporary works were sold for Rs 30 crore last year. An F. N. Souza painting fetched Rs 1.4 crore, a S. H. Raza’s work Rs 1.5 crore and an M. F. Husain piece of art Rs 1.2 crore.

Boom time

S. H. Raza’s Saurashtra sold for Rs 16.3 crore at the Christies in London last year

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For a tangle-free Holi
Anushka Sharma is here with tips to protect that luscious mane this festival of colours, writes Deepa Karmalkar
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