Looking back, looking forward

Back in 1994, when Christie's, the leading art auction house, opened its office in Mumbai, the world was a very different place. The city, for one, was still called Bombay. There were no regular auctions, few exhibitions, artworks sold very little, if at all, and only a handful could think of making a living out of art. The scene 25 years on is as different as can be, and Christie's can take some credit for this. There is, as Dr Bertold Mueller says, a new momentum in the Indian art world. Mueller, who is Christie's managing director for Continental Europe, Middle East, Russia and India, was in Delhi recently for the preview of Christie's South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art sale in New York on March 20 and met this writer for an interview. Edited excerpts:

What are your plans for India?

The 25 years that we have been here have been very successful. We have been able to foster a lot of relations with collectors, institutions, festival, biennales, and so on. In addition, we will not only focus on Indian art, but also on other categories. For instance, we'll be present at the Mumbai Luxury Lifestyle weekend with watches and handbags. We've already had good experiences with the wine category.

Why did Christie's stop the India sale?

We had four successful India sales. But internationally, when the art crowd thinks of big sales, they usually associate it with London, New York and Hong Kong, which we added as a sale centre for Indian art last year. If we sell works of art in these three main centres, it sends out the message that this is something of importance. The aura around these centres carries over into the auctions. And it has proven to be a good decision. In New York, for instance, sales almost doubled from 10 million to 19 million in one year.

Christie's show, 'The Modern Connoisseur', in Mumbai last November, was more like a gallery exhibition than a sale preview. 

Yes, sometimes, we have shows with works that we offer on private sale, or those that collectors loan us, alongside the auction works being previewed. The Modern Connoisseur was like that. We've done that in other places, never before in India though.

Online seems to be the next big growth area in art, as with everything else. How is it playing out for Christie's?

There has been a strong growth in our online sales. We started online auctions in 2011 with a sales turnover of $3 million; we are now at 88 sales and $90 million. If you add live online bidding in offline sales at Christie's, then we are at $250 million this year. The average price paid in an online auction at Christie's is around $8,000, which makes it very accessible to new buyers. Almost half the traffic on our website last year was by way of mobile devices from 180 countries; we had 11 million unique visitors.

Have the number of Indian buyers in art and other categories grown globally?

Last year, we had 40 per cent more registrations of Indian clients in 2018 than the year before.

Prices of Indian art have gone up over the past 25 years, but are nowhere near those of international masters.

I am confident it will happen over time. Some of the artists – Gaitonde, for instance – have international appeal, and can stand up with the best in any international collection. The interest in SH Raza's Tapovan last year in New York was a broad one from different backgrounds, not limited to the same two or three collectors.