Osian's Auction Catalogue Forty Masterpieces | March 2003

18 19 After nearly eight years of work, there is a need to pause, given the leap of responsibility one is about to take within these coming months. The Osian’s Archive, Documentation & Research Centre (ADRC) for Fine Arts & Cinema should become accessible to the public by June, and the foundation stone for The University of Osian’s will be laid by August 2003. Thus the unique Auction House-Archive-University model will come into existence. It will be the first attempt anywhere in the world to build an Arts Institution on such idealistic and integrated terms, without seeking patronage from any of the three traditional pillars of funding, i.e. governmental, corporate sponsorship or private philanthropy. The question is its sustainability. This brief note is also probably the first time I am sharing certain thoughts on one’s work in a relatively direct manner. At present I am thinking back to the obsessive innocence which drove me to return home, and how that passionate naiveté came to formulate its idealism, and how the conflict of idealism with practicality came to formulate its implementing strategies, and how these strategies needing to obey clear principles, have now come to clarify a much fuller context within which one’s evolving vision stays true to innocence, passion, idealism, strategy and principle, while serving a purpose far beyond the individual obsession. Sitting in a distant British garden, India was always seen by myself as a great land, full of the curiosity to know the nature of the human mind and spirit, to pursue that inner voice without fear, to relentlessly search out the freedom of one’s spirit with great love for the process and all experiences, every kind, no qualification. It had that great jigar which could absorb all, respecting the individual stamina to be true to oneself while exciting the spirit to keep on pursuing different paths, enjoying the delights of all value systems, from an awe for nature and a respect for the smallest creatures, to a refined aesthetic which found beauty and subtlety in all things, all forms, all processes, despite a vast vulgarity rooted in pandering to the lowest common denominator. Soon these myriad delights would instinctively merge into a clarity allowing one to quietly smile, detached from all, yet deeply involved, able to inspire any one, yet having no wish to act or achieve. This in a nutshell was my romanticized perception of India, her responsibility to her people. I genuinely felt that she needed help in sustaining this journey, for with new passion and idealism, she best possessed the temerity to inspire the rest of humankind to move with a deeper universalistic vision, beyond themselves, to bring a love and joy into all processes which would instinctively solve many of the human dilemmas and tackle most of our material concerns with greater compassion and insight. Virtually upon these thoughts I returned home, after thirty years, in fits and spurts during 1994-5. Since then, I have dedicated myself to grasping how such a vision was to be made into a living reality, for everything current seemed in great contradiction to the romance of those motivating thoughts. Also, as with all, there have been moments of disappointment, and if I am to be blindly honest then at times I feel India has drifted too far into a mediocrity of spirit and action, making my early understanding of her a mockery, so feeling that all is genuinely lost, and at best we can just tend to our little garden, and let the vastness of India fend for herself, for she is out of hand, out of control, beyond the realm of any individual vision and action. But then the moment passes and I return to the reality that everything is indeed possible, that the deepest idealism is very practical, that the most stringent constraints can all be changed. If ever there was a nation of assimilation, though rooted in centuries of civilization and wisdom, it is India, having that limitless spirit to grasp all which was beyond and outside herself, and yet continually capable of returning to that which traditionally she has always tried to become. And so I chose my little corner to begin battle, knowing full well that the later war zones are far off, and like all good strategies, we must create energy and make fertile the grounds in distant places before entering the heart of the pain. And as with all natural warriors of non-violence, an alternative value system rooted in a genuine creative life, capable of absorbing all with equanimity, with uncertainty always given the freedom to reveal herself on her own terms, seemingly in place, and waiting to be shared with many. Surprisingly, the Indian modern & contemporary arts were chosen as the starting ground. It was a subject I knew nothing about even as late as 1995. Yet, after many random insights and experiences came to coalesce within oneself, it was clearly evident that through this subject all the arts of India could find renewed energy and support, creating new linkages, revealing the unifying threads across culture, seeping into all aspects of society, over the coming decades. Today, despite much progress in one’s work, the next objective still feels afar. The day India places the arts at the heart of her development policies still seems remote. The belief that within the value system of artistic creativity lies the answer to tackling many of India’s present and future dilemmas is recognized by very few. The deep links between creative introspection, aesthetics, ethics, economics, spirituality and wider developmental concerns, are barely appreciated, at any level, from the educational curricula of schools & colleges to the national polity. Economic and religious forces still have no credible creative counter, which prevents them from riding roughshod over all issues. Thus the arts need to move even faster and deeper in building its infrastructure, its infrascape , as I termed it, because the contextual atmosphere and the love required is as pivotal to infrastructure building as any material underpinning of the arts. It is only when the arts will build their own infrastructure, on their own terms, without compromising their creative integrity, yet internally generating vast wealth to carry forward all the archiving, research, experimenting and disseminating processes, while not being dependent on the traditional pillars of patronage, that a genuine Indian renaissance of the arts and her aesthetics will be instituted. Without this renaissance no long-term credibility is going to emerge regarding the potential role of the arts in developmental policies. Obviously, infrastructure building on this scale demands at least a ten to fifteen year horizon for the first phase, before it can be said that change is now irreversible, that a sustainable momentum has been created whereby all obstacles will be overcome. Now, eight years on, I finally do feel we are amid the flow of a genuine momentum. When one’s work began in earnest during 1996, I had given myself ten years to build a great university for the Indian arts & humanities, from scratch, without the traditional support systems, evolving a new framework for academic research and artistic experimentation in five subjects - the Fine Arts, Cinema, Architecture, Philosophy & Literature – while simultaneously building the required financial self-generating systems, and step by step involving the intelligentsia and the wider public in different aspects of art & education infrastructure building. An Auction House was thus the first vehicle chosen for generating the required wealth; Osian’s was established in 2000, as India’s first Auction House for the Arts. Yet, the traditional structure of the auction house as made famous by Sotheby’s & Christie’s was never seen to be ideal for the Indian context, especially given the early stage of the learning curve at which the collecting public of Indian art – domestic and international - found themselves. Also, becoming simply an agent was insufficient a role if a significant redistribution of wealth was to be put into place from day one. Hence, Osian’s also decided to tackle the key responsibility of market-making. Through the unique concept of the curated auction, one has been able to significantly restructure and re-prioritize the whole financial spectrum upon which the Indian art world today functions. This essentially became possible given the uncompromising focus one had upon being true to the history of the subject rather than promoting individual artists. Pricing was clearly linked to historical significance. History was laid open for the public to study, analyze and criticize like never before. During the last ten years the public awareness and respect regarding the history of the subject has Creativity in Infrastructure An Auction House-Archive-University Neville Tuli