Christie’s night

Christie’s auction sale night at Taj Mahal palace in Mumbai, that saw record sales of paintings by Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, seemed to represent the polar opposites of existence- otherworldliness and blatant materialism; light and darkness; creation and destruction. The aggressive bidding for the paintings was almost tantamount to crass commercialism driven by boorish insensitivity and profiteering motives. And the more frightening fact is that death and destruction is always so much stronger than life and creation. The divine creations of the super-talented artists are perhaps destined to be valued by sloppy-minded amateurs. Thankfully, some of these great painters like Gaintonde who solely pursued ‘art for art’s sake’ are not alive to witness the fate of their creations. Gaitonde, especially, was said to be completely averse to the idea of selling art for the sake of business. Paintings should only be sold to patrons who truly understand it, according to Vincent Van Gogh. Nevertheless, some of these legendary artists apart, largely the lot of them are ever so dependent on rich patrons for survival and acclaim. For a fact, it is one thing to be born with a great gift, and quite another thing to give the product of ‘the gift’ its right place in the world. And, then again, it is a completely different thing to know what one stands for and the real value of one’s creation. Sadly, artists, in the course of their lifetime and after that, once they are proven and acclaimed, no longer remain isolated individuals. They then belong to the world, to the public and largely to the collective wishes of the people. Hence, they end up at the mercy of institutions, companies and so on and so forth.  French wine-swilling Christie’s night too faded into collective memory of the public as just another elitist event, out of the grasp of the common people, what with all the mindboggling prices of paintings such as Rs 23.7 crore for a Gaitonde painting, even when the mist lay cold and white along the sea-side road outside Taj while the paintings called out for a starry starry night.

Meghna Maiti