MOVERS+SHAKERS

India Rising

By Meredith Mendelsohn

Published: September 1, 2008

Aicon Gallery

F. N. Souza's "Pope and Pilate" (1956) from the inaugural show at Aicon's new Manhattan gallery

September 2008 Movers+Shakers

Francis Newton Souza Subodh Gupta Riyas Komu T V Santhosh Less Is More at This Year’s Frieze Subodh Gupta 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale "Where In the World?"

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NEW YORK— As the market for modern and contemporary Indian and Pakistani art continues to grow, so do its most prominent dealers. This month the New York gallery Aicon moves from its fifth-floor, 2,500-square-foot space in the Flatiron district to an 8,500-square-foot location on Great Jones Street, near the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

“The market has been skyrocketing since 2005,” says Priyanka Mathew, the director of the gallery, which also has branches in London and Palo Alto, California. “It was unusual to find a contemporary Indian work for over $15,000 before. Now it’s common to find works at auction above $100,000, and some artists, such as Subodh Gupta, are selling for over $1 million.”

Around two-thirds of the new space will be used for exhibitions. The inaugural show, “The Ghost of Souza,” on view from September 18 through October 17, showcases new paintings, sculpture, photography and videos by about 15 artists, such as Riyas Komu and T. V. Santhosh, who have reinterpreted works by the Indian modern master F. N. Souza.

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“Interest [in Indian art] is more intense in Europe right now,” says Mathew. “We’re hoping the launch of this gallery will move the process along in America.”

"India Rising" originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2008 Table of Contents.

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