BIENNALE

A compassionate bid

About 40 Indian and international artists come together for an auction to help Kerala

Masterworks: amrita sher-gil’s female nude. Masterworks: amrita sher-gil’s female nude.

Last November, the Kochi Biennale Foundation floated an ark to rescue the flood-ravaged Kerala. It launched an initiative called Art Rises for Kerala, or ARK, conceived as a fundraising auction; the proceeds will go to the chief minister’s distress relief fund. The auction will be held at the Grand Hyatt Kochi on January 18.

“Like others, we had done our bit in post-flood rehabilitation efforts,” says Bose Krishnamachari, KBF’s cofounder and president. “But organising Kerala’s first live art auction is taking this to another level.”

Anish Kapoor’s untitled work. Anish Kapoor’s untitled work.

The foundation reached out to around 40 Indian and international artists it had shortlisted. “This is a donation-based auction,” says Mohita Ghosal of KBF. “We restricted the number to 42 works to avoid the auction taking too long.”

The response from the artists was so encouraging that KBF was able to collect the works and organise the auction in just a few weeks. “Normally, it takes quite long to organise auctions. But we managed to put it together in just one month,” says Manoj Nair, KBF’s editorial director.

Perhaps, the most generous contribution came from the British sculptor Anish Kapoor, whose installation called Descension was one of the major attractions of the 2014 Kochi-Muziris Biennale. For ARK, Kapoor contributed an untitled work—created using canvas, resin and pigment—that expresses his long-held fascination with apertures and cavities. The work is expected to fetch around Rs1.75 crore.

The surprise contribution, however, came from the painter-sculptor Vivan Sundaram. “When the package sent by him arrived, we thought it would be one of his own works,” says Nair. “Instead, we found that he had sent two rare drawings from his collection. The drawings were by Amrita Sher-Gil.”

Born in Budapest, Sher-Gil is regarded as one of the greatest avant-garde woman artists of the 20th century. She died in 1941, when she was just 28. Today, her works are among the most expensive in the Indian art scene. Sher-Gil’s two drawings that will go under the hammer in Kochi are from the archives inherited by Indira, her sister and Vivan Sundaram’s mother. The drawings—Female Nude (18x22 inch, charcoal on paper) and Head (19x19in, graphite on paper)—are expected to fetch around Rs22 lakh.

Parag Sonarghare’s untitled work. Parag Sonarghare’s untitled work.

The auction also includes works by top contemporary artists like Anju and Atul Dodiya, Gulammohammed Sheikh, V. Viswanadhan, Robert Montgomery, Francesco Clemente, Dayanita Singh and Probir Gupta. “I have contributed happily for this project, because it is for a cause,” says Gupta, whose Migrants and Scaffoldings (50x68in, acrylic and iron oxides on canvas) is expected to fetch around Rs7 lakh.

The auctioneer will be Dinesh Vazirani, cofounder and chief executive officer of SaffronArt, an international auction house that has more than 200 auctions to its credit. “We expect to raise Rs3 to Rs4 crore from the auction,” says Benjamin Bamnolkar of SaffronArt. There will be no buyer’s premium (an additional charge on the hammer price, paid to the auction house) on any work.

Founded in 2000, SaffronArt has been associated with KBF since 2015, when it raised funds for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale through the auction route. Last August, it conducted StoryLTD, an auction that raised Rs36 lakh for the chief minister’s distress relief fund.

The works that are part of the ARK auction are exhibited at Bastion Bungalow, a 400-year-old heritage structure in Fort Kochi. The bungalow is not far from Aspinwall House, the primary venue of the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

The ARK auction will be attended by the cream of the Indian art world, including collectors, gallerists and curators. The proceeds would go a long way in helping the state. But more importantly, it would help send the message that art can enrich our lives in so many ways. “As an element of cyclical recovery, the image of an ark is often understood as a buoyant symbol of hope,” reads the auction catalogue prepared by KBF. “This is our heartfelt, altruistic attempt to stand with those in need.”