Christie's auction in S'pore: India moves onto art scene

By Agus Dermawan T

SINGAPORE (JP): The room at Grand Hyatt Hotel and another at Regent Hotel, Singapore, were crowded by an assemblage of some 300 people, most of whom were busy putting up their paddle bids.

Roger McRoy, Christie's famed auctioneer, faithfully guided interested buyers to get the paintings they were after. In a similar situation at another hotel, auctioneer and senior director of Sotheby's, Quek Chin Yeow, kindly asked the bidders to join the race towards the highest price.

"Another one, ma'am?!" he said. The lady enthusiastically raised her paddle bid once again. The price got higher, and higher and higher.

As usual, this semi-annual auction in Singapore was held with great pomp. On April 1, 2001, Christie's South-East Asian Pictures and 20th Century Indian Pictures, held at Grand Hyatt Hotel, could sell 80 percent of all 169 paintings included in the auction, with total proceeds of some S$4,442,795 (about Rp 24 billion at an exchange rate of Rp 5,500 to the dollar).

On the same day but at a different time, another auction was held at Regent Hotel. Sotheby's South-East Asian Painting could sell 124 of all 160 works offered, bringing in a total of $4,677,670.

"The proceeds are very good given the present austere economic situation in ASEAN and the thinning pockets of Indonesian collectors," so said the management of the painting auction bureaus.

Some even said that quite a few Indonesian collectors had shown themselves to be the main bidders, demonstrating their limitless spirit in art hunting. They gave the impression as if Indonesia were not in the grip of an economic crisis.

In the auction by Christie's, a painting by Le Mayeur, Balinese Girls in the Garden ( 100 cm x 120 cm) fetched $427,750. The same bureau also sold one of Hendra Gunawan's work titled Eggplant Seller (110 cm x 160 cm) at $273,750. As for Sotheby's, they successfully let go of a painting by Walter Spies, Rechlandschaft in Jembrana (63 cm x 79 cm) at a hammer- price of $1.4 million, the record high in that day's auction.

Masters

Amid this merriment, however, the auction bureaus were often caught by surprise when they secretly realized that they were short-supplied for the auction. A painting school, until then the prime object of the auction, is slowly disappearing.

As is known, in the past 8 years, the ASEAN art auction forum in Singapore has witnessed the presence of 3 categories based on art schools. The first is the Old Masters category, which is sub- divided into three parts, namely the Dutch Indies group (Le Mayeur, Rudolf Bonnet and their buddies), the group of "physical revolution artists" (Sudjojono, Affandi, Basoeki Abdullah, Dullah, Hendra Gunawan and so forth), and then the Balinese School, which includes Balinese artists from early 20th century until the figures of Pitamaha, who actively created their words in 1935 (Ida Magus Made, Putu Bedil, Anak Agung Gde Sobrat, Ida Bagus Made Nadera and so forth.)

The second category is that of "top masters", such as Srihadi, Soedarsono, Popo Iskandar, Djoko Pekik and so on. The third category, the "contemporary category" includes among others Sunaryo, Dede Eri Supria, Made Wianta and Heri Dono. Then there is also the "new contemporary" category, which includes relatively young artists like Erica, Nasirun and so on.

The two categories, "the Dutch Indies Old Masters" and "the painters from the physical revolution times" have been feared to disappear altogether from auction events. When the auction of Indonesian paintings was first held in the Netherlands in 1993, continued later in Singapore in 1994 and onward, the works by the Old Masters have been touted as the leading items.

The works of Rudolf Bonnet, Adolfs, Basoeki Abdullah and Sudjojono were entered into the lot again and again and every time they received a good response, followed frequently with surprising hammer-prices and great applause. Roughly calculated, no fewer than 3,000 Old Masters' paintings have been brought to these auction centers in the past eight years.

The management of the auction bureaus have said that the Old Masters' works have given the greatest prestige to date, and, more importantly, they have given the biggest profit. Many collectors love them and the bidders are usually fanatical, ready to go higher and higher in their bidding to be able to purchase the paintings. What follows is easy to guess: the disappearance of the Old Masters' works in auction events mean the loss of a gold mine to auction houses usually earning 10 percent of the proceeds received by the seller and between 15 percent and 17.5 percent from the price paid by the buyer.

Solution

So, a solution is being found to make up for the lack of items to be auctioned. Christie's has for the past few years smartly intensified the inclusion of Vietnamese masters in its auction events. Today, the works of Le Pho, Nguyen Trung and Bu Xuan Phai have become an important part of the auction. Next come the works by Philippine artists, like F.C. Amorsolo and Anita Magsaysay-Ho, the latter being the mascot. On the auction held on April 1, unexpectedly Christie's brought out modern Indian paintings, such as the works of Hemendranath Maxumdar, Syed Hayder Raza, Maqbool Fida Husain and Ram Kumar. It is interesting to note that of 26 works put on auction, 24 were sold. The work of Akbar Padamsee (b. 1928), very simple in nature, could fetch $47,000.

Sotheby's, meanwhile, experimented in their offer with the works of new contemporary artists, painters now prolifically producing their works such as Ugo Untoro, Entang Wiharso, Pupuk DP and Ketut Taman, although in commercial terms this did not hold out a promise as a lucrative business. These works were offered at between $2,000 and $5,000 only. A painting by Made Duatmika, for example, ws estimated at only $1,200. For a giant commercial auction bureau, this lot is just a trifle, given the fact that between $300 and 400 will be needed for inclusion in the catalog alone.

Finally, it is still a question mark whether the works of Indonesia's top masters, contemporary artists and new contemporary painters will be able take over the position long occupied by to the works of Indonesia's Old Masters now that the works of Vietnamese, Philippine and Indian artists have made their presence strongly felt as competitors.

The writer is an art critic based in Jakarta