[[[pull_quote]]]

NEW DELHI—It is no secret that the market for Indian contemporary art is expanding, both internationally and on the subcontinent, selling briskly in salesrooms and in galleries. But many observers may not know one of the key players in this vibrant scene: Anupam Poddar. In just a few years, this young New Delhi–based collector has acquired hundreds of works by artists from India, and along the way has helped draw international attention to the Indian art scene while remaining committed to supporting it locally.

The 34-year-old Poddar is tall and poised, with a manner both courtly and informal. His family, from Rajasthan, made its fortune in the paper industry and also owns a luxury resort, the Devi Garh, in a restored 18th-century palace near the city of Udaipur. Poddar oversees hotel operations, but lately he has devoted much of his energy to establishing a not-for-profit contemporary-art foundation—the first such institution in India—and adding to his collection. Whether the works are displayed at the foundation or in his Delhi residence, the idea is to “promote India,” he says.

Although he is a major player in contemporary Indian art, Poddar seems immune to the speculation-driven frenzy that currently characterizes that market. He insists he does not acquire pieces as investments. “I am very glad that certain Indian artists can live well from their work,” he says. “But, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who listen to the market too much, and some artists content themselves with repeating the same works over and over again simply to meet the demand.”

Poddar makes his purchases mainly through Indian dealers, including Gallery Chemould, in Mumbai; Nature Morte, in Delhi; and Gallery Ske, in Bangalore. Fairs, he claims, are worth visiting and he does attend such events “to see art, but it is not really a context in which I like buying.” As for auctions: “What’s on offer there doesn’t correspond to what interests me.”

What does interest Poddar is art that is challenging and often provocative. He displays these works throughout his Delhi residence, an expansive concrete-and-glass structure designed by the architect Inni Chatterjee and completed in 1996. It’s something of a family compound: His parents, major collectors in their own right, live on the first floor, while his brother resides in a separate house on the other side of the garden. Poddar himself occupies the floor above his parents. Shortly after moving in, he began acquiring art avidly, and every room, even those occupied by other family members, is filled with artworks that he has selected.

“There is much care that goes into choosing what is installed,” he says. “It is important for me to be continuously interested in the work and able to live with it.” One acquisition that a less-adventurous connoisseur might relegate to the garage—Sudarshan Shettys Love, 2006, a massive stainless-steel sculpture of a T. rex skeleton with a mechanized phallus thrusting continually against the bumper of a cream-colored vintage convertible—is given pride of place in the main reception room. On this day, the metal beast’s repeated movements cause a glass on a nearby table to rock. The outrageous contraption is humorous, but Poddar also perceives a poignancy in it. “The artist is dealing with the question of love, and perhaps also its disappearance. The Tyrannosaurus, after all, is extinct.”

Such large-scale pieces can create logistical problems, but Poddar is willing to adjust his living space to accommodate art. “Often I have installed a work that I like even if it meant getting rid of furniture!” he exclaims.

The house might feel like a museum if it were less comfortable. Patterned rugs are scattered across the stone floors, and low plush sofas offer vantages from which to view artworks as well as the leafy, parklike grounds. “The house is ‘curated’ in the sense that I select artists whose works I want people to see,” Poddar says. “I try to set up a dialogue between the works in a room.”

In one hallway, Bharti Khers sculpture Arione’s Sister, 2006, a female figure holding shopping bags, faces a series of the artist’s startling “Hybrid” series of photographic prints of part animal, part female bodies. Another work that makes reference to the human body is Anita Dubes Silence (Blood Wedding), 1997, a 13-part sculpture that runs down the center of a long dining room table. Each element, made with pieces of actual bone covered with beading, lace and knots of red velvet that look like flesh and internal organs, is housed in a transparent container. Poddar explains that while the artist was making the piece, her father, a doctor, was ill with cancer. “Dube puts her soul into her work,” he says.

Poddar has always been surrounded by art. His family owns about 1,500 Indian folk and tribal objects and textiles, and in the 1970s and ’80s, Lekha, his mother, became a major collector of the Bombay Progressive artists—including F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza, Tyeb Mehta and M. F. Hussainalong with painters from the previous generation, such as Ramkinkar Baij, Nandalal Bose and others of the early 20th-century Bengal School. Although he greatly admires those artists, Poddar has developed his own aesthetic sense. “Art was not a new thing for me,” he says. “I had been interested in it since childhood. We would visit museums abroad every summer. But it was a foreign view.”

For seven years, he lived outside India, spending time in Paris, Madrid, New York and various parts of the U.K. and attending the European Business School London, from which he received a degree in business management. In 1997 he returned home with a changed perspective. “I became conscious of the existence of a whole new generation of artists with whom I had things in common. They had traveled. They had access to information. What interested me was this international India in contact with the rest of the world.”

Subodh Gupta, one of the artists he noticed then and with whom he has become particularly close, is now a global star. Gupta’s work is influenced by Marcel Duchamp, although his readymades are familiar objects of contemporary Indian, not Western European, culture; he transforms them by shifting the context. His The Other Thing (Chimta), 2005–06, composed of hundreds of the metal tongs traditionally used to serve naan bread arranged in a glittering pom-pom, is anchored to the wall in one of Poddar’s sitting rooms. The first work by Gupta that the collector acquired was Rani, 2001, a sculpture of a cow in fuchsia fiberglass. The animal, of course, is sacred in India, and such a bold treatment made it “a totally avant-garde work for India at the time,” Poddar says, explaining that Gupta’s conceptual approach has appeared only recently in the nation’s art.

In the middle of Poddar’s parents’ dining room is yet another of Gupta’s creations—Poddar tends to acquire artists in-depth, often creating “solo spaces” in the house. A centerpiece of the collection, the 2006 My Mother and Me, a hut made out of cow dung, references Gupta’s early life: He lost his father when he was very young, and it was his mother who encouraged him to become an artist. The structure is womblike, offering protection and shelter, but it was, at least initially, somewhat disquieting. When it was set up in its luxurious setting, the manure was still fresh and quite malodorous. “Of course it wasn’t easy at first,” says Poddar. “It smelled bad. But luckily the installation took place at a time when my parents were on their summer trip to England.”

“Anupam is obsessed with art,” says his mother. “We talk a lot, particularly about young artists. He looks at society in a totally new way, thanks to art. And thanks to his fresh eye, I am able to see a lot further too.” She collaborated with her son on the Devi Art Foundation, which opened its doors at the end of August in the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon. The 7,500-square-foot space, designed by the young Indian architect Aniket Bhagwat, will hold three exhibitions annually. Its first show, on view through November, is “Still/Moving Image.” It was organized by the Delhi-based art historian and curator Deeksha Nath, who selected from Poddar’s collection photographs, videos and installations by 24 artists, including Shilpa Gupta, Tejal Shah and Vivan Sundaram.

“Our objective is to become a place that celebrates the experimental undertakings of cutting-edge artists in the region,” not, as popularly supposed, “to sell the works discreetly, behind closed doors,” says Poddar, who adds that when he and his family buy, “we ask ourselves how to better complete our collection.”

For India, where museums are virtually nonexistent and a commercial-gallery scene is just beginning to develop, the foundation represents a significant step forward. For Poddar, it is a natural outgrowth of his passionate commitment to the art that he needs to be surrounded by to thrive. “Once you begin to install artworks in your house, the space is much more active,” he says. “There are so many conversations all the time. It is a feeling that gives me immense joy and satisfaction.”

"Taking It All In" 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.