Osian's Auction Catalogue India The Passionate Detachment | February 2001

12 Twisting through the religious and economic forces of change are the caste and regional lobby groups, cutting away corners wherever the centralised vision has failed. Whatever the role of previous injustice, insufficient financial resources and political corruption in building these divisive regional blocs, it is also the failure of an artistic-cultural-educational ethos to provide a daily alternative, which must be addressed. Amid this seething cauldron lies the discredited intelligentsia and academia, now maybe more aware of their neglected duties. Yet the urgent need is for this sector to regalvanise itself, to create the space and structures by which the religious, economic and divisive forces are disciplined into working towards a humanistic idealism. It is here that the creative mind faces its deepest dilemma. To strengthen the intelligentsia and academia is essential, yet how to ally with an educational system rotting at the roots? To amend and mould the system is definitely not the answer; to re-invent the ground rules is the only option. With this background there is the need for the intelligentsia and academia to re-examine their relationship with wealth. Many preconceptions about creativity facing a slow and sure corruption when gaining greater contact with wealth generation are justified. Nevertheless, this does not imply that artistic creativity and wealth generation are mutually exclusive in all forms of union. There must be certain institutional frameworks which can bring out the best in both, so as to serve a wider developmental strategy. Hand in hand with re-examining the above, the creative communities need to build platforms of interaction amongst ourselves, without falling into the trap of groupism. Without a national and universal agenda being prioritized, and placed beside local and regional demands, no long term infrastructure can be nurtured. The failure to address these human dimension elements of infrastructure-building, especially in an insecure environment, where many feel their merit has not been given due acclaim, is responsible for much of the present frustration and inability to function with trust and generosity. A Personal Note Since returning to India in 1994, I have tried to study many perspectives on Indian art, especially its modern traditions. The medium term (five to seven years) objective also included a need to understand our artistic and cultural systems at every level. Putting on hold my own creativity, I traveled across the country, visiting hundreds of cities, towns, villages & monuments, trying to grasp the relationship of various individuals & entities to artistic creativity. The Indian fine arts, cinema and architectural heritage disciplines were explored anew, finding their place amid my previous fields of knowledge in philosophy, literature and development economics. Naturally the scale of subject-matter demanded I focus on the underlying institutional and educational aspects for these subjects. In 1996, I established HEART with the support of a few friends so as to help build a quality-conscious infrastructure for the Indian fine arts. Four years later we have changed the system for the better, though there is a very long way to go. The quality of the publications and documentation; the standard and scale of art exhibitions & auctions; the degree of transparency and the historical documentation in establishing pricing benchmarks; the potential of Charity becoming a self-sufficient entity so as to function in helping to nurture the arts; creating a focus on infrastructure- building issues related to the arts; are some of the areas in which we have influenced behavior and mindsets. From these early steps of creating an awareness it is now time to consolidate and grow anew, learning from experiments gone astray, reinforcing and widening the existing infrastructure to take us forward. Achieving this demands that we strengthen our financial foundations. I have always been uncomfortable with relating finance to artistic creativity, and yet ironically that is what I have been driven deeper into. This is probably not the place to talk of such dilemmas or contradictions, so suffice to say that I believed a redefined Charity could take on the task of building an infrastructure for the arts on its own terms; that volunteer and good-intentioned efforts could be mobilized so as to tackle certain key institution-building requirements on a national scale. I was wrong to some extent. Without a professional and financially independent establishment certain problems cannot be tackled in India, irrespective of the idealism and vision. Thus today there is a need to absorb corporate structures within the larger scheme of things, without disrupting the integrity of the idealism. It is a major risk, and on many philosophical levels very unsettling, yet without sounding too morose, there seems to be no choice. With this background I set about establishing Osian’s.