Surprises marked the auction of South Asian modern and contemporary art at Christie’s in New York City on September 14, during Asian Art Week. An untitled painting by VS Gaitonde (India’s most expensive modern painter), valued at $1.8-2 million, did not sell. It was displayed front and centre in the auction hall and on the cover of the sale catalogue. A meditation in green, it radiated Gaitonde’s trademark serenity, but went unclaimed. Just four months earlier, in May, a Gaitonde painting sold for over $2 million at Christie’s London sale. Another featured painting, ‘L’Orage’ (The Tempest) by the great modernist SH Raza was valued upwards of a million dollars, but it too went unsold. Though it’s premature to make predictions based on a single sale, these results could be indicative of a larger trend sweeping the market and changing the way audiences perceive modern and contemporary Indian art. Second-tier modernists like Jamini Roy and Satish Gujral, and younger artists with significantly different vocabularies from the old masters performed very well at the auction, even exceeding expectations in some cases.

“There seems to be an appetite for works between $10,000 and $200,000,” said Deepanjana Klein, International Head of Department for South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art. She described the auction as an “anomaly” compared to previous seasons, but did not comment further. The New York sale contained works by at least three new artists, and others who have been on the auction platform only a few times before.

Christie’s conducts three sales a year in the category of ‘South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art’: London in May, New York in September, and Mumbai in December. The sale in New York offered new names that use styles and media that break the mould of the usual line-up. According to Klein, the process of identifying these boundary-pushing artists began over a year ago, with specialists researching the quality and consistency of their work and their success in the international exhibition circuit, Biennales and art fairs. “It was a bold step for us to pick installation art by someone like Shilpa Gupta,” said Klein.

Installations like Gupta’s (titled ‘Someone Else’) possess an immediacy and relevance that work on a very broad scale — a scale that surpasses traditional Indian themes with ideas that interest and concern viewers everywhere, whether or not they are Indian. Her piece consisted of 35 books published by real authors using pseudonyms. Gupta recreates these books by etching their covers in stainless steel and seating them on metal shelves. By building the books in metal, the artist extends the gravity and permanence associated with engraving to the reasons why these authors chose to hide their real names and adopt false ones — whether to protect themselves from persecution or to explore the freedom of a new identity. “There’s nothing Indian about it,” said Klein, referring to Gupta’s work. It uses a language that is universal. At 40, Gupta was one of the youngest artists featured.

Anila Quayyum Agha, winner of the esteemed ArtPrize 2014, was featured at Christie’s for the first time. Growing up in Lahore, Agha was acutely aware of the limitations placed on her as a young woman. She was denied entry into mosques — spaces reserved for men. A visit to the Al-Hambra in Spain as an adult, however, gave voice to this painful childhood memory.

In the piece featured in the auction, the artist recreates intricate floral and geometric motifs from Islamic architecture using embroidery and filigree-like work on paper. Its title, ‘All The Flowers Are For Me’, poignantly captures the release she has found in her art, and how she uses it to reclaim what was once forbidden.

The international success of these artists reveals a change in how markets are coming to redefine and view South Asian contemporary art. The ideas of identity and politics that concern newer South Asian artists stem from a global consciousness that is not tied to nationality. By investing in these new works, collectors have shown that they’re betting on the future.

Mary Ann Koruthis a New Jersey-based freelance writer

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