Ask any newbie art collector and he will tell you that he would like to buy contemporary art by ‘emerging’ artists. But even longstanding art enterprises such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s continue to struggle when labelling works under such categories. Navigating the contemporary art world often comes down to word play.

The terms ‘new’, ‘young’ and ‘emerging’ are often used interchangeably to describe contemporary artists all over the world. But it is often unclear how they ought to be interpreted.

Technically, every entrant into the art world maybe described as ‘new’, but how should it be defined? The first work? The first viewer? Or the first show and the first buyer? Similar ambiguity surrounds terms such as ‘young’ and ‘emerging’.

While it seems reasonable to classify promising artists as ‘emerging’ at the beginning of their career, it is somewhat tricky to determine when they have outgrown the description or even crossed over the threshold of ‘young’ness.

“It is difficult really to classify artists thus and possibly not even fair to do so,” admits Prateek Raja, co-director of Kolkata-based Experimenter gallery, which includes many exciting ‘young’ artists in its collection. “In my personal opinion, a young artist is someone who is debuting his/her solo show or has had a couple of solos and one feels his/her oeuvre has still to be developed. They might well be on a journey toward a breakthrough in their practice. New is a rather naive term assigned to a person whose work has not been seen much. The new artist may not be young,” he adds.

‘Young’ means volatile Once you wade through the semantics, however, acquiring works by artists ‘yet to be established’ can be particularly advantageous. This holds true especially if you, like the artist, have been newly initiated into the art world and are only just beginning to build your collection.

In comparison to the price tag of a couple of lakhs that works by even a moderately celebrated mid-career artist are likely to cost, works by ‘young’ artists (even those lauded by the reviewers and swooped up by the big galleries) can be acquired for as little as ₹20,000-30,000.

Affordability is an obvious plus for beginners looking to build a sizeable collection and allows them the liberty to go with their gut, take risks and end up with works they truly like, without blindly conforming to the market. Because buying works by virtual unknowns requires much deliberation, purchasing works by upcoming artists also helps build confidence among first timers. It hammers out their personal buying process. It also allows the collector to genuinely connect with the works he/she acquires.

It is indeed thrilling to follow an artist’s career trajectory right from the start.

“For a collector it is often challenging and eventually rewarding to see an artist from the start of the career and to collect works from different phases of their development as an artist,” says Bhavna Kakar, editor and publisher of art magazine Take and Director of Delhi-based gallery Latitude 28.

Works by ‘young’ artists also present the possibility of considerable profits if and when the emerging artist truly ‘emerges’. It is, however, best to avoid letting your eagerness to make a profit be the sole dictator of your decision to buy an emerging artist’s work. Art prices tend to be volatile and the more ‘recent’ a work, that is, the fresher its entry into the market, the more likely it is that its value will fluctuate.

New art is the most illiquid of assets and speculating with it is hardly different from, and therefore as risky as, venture capital investment.

The risk relates primarily to the fact that we know little about who or what is likely to prove successful or financially beneficial in the long run.

Shaping up

A variety of factors contribute to how an artist’s career shapes up. “An artist’s career grows based on the exhibitions he is included in, the museum shows he has had, the collections to which his works belong to, the public institutions who have his work in permanent collections, special mentions and awards,” says Raja.

But he is quick to point out that while these help the artist gain recognition and visibility, prices of their works may or may not be affected by this.

A number of artists, he points out, prefer to keep their prices steady and concentrate instead on disseminating their works in various corners of the world so that their careers remain rock solid and grow over time.

There is little room left for speculation in such scenarios. Rather than looking at works by emerging artists as short-term or even medium-term investments and waiting for fantastic returns, it is best to make a safe retreat to the old adage and simply buy that which your eyes and heart fancy.

Most seasoned collectors, says Kakar, learn to trust their intuition, not to mention their ‘taste’, over the years.

Sixth sense helps But such sixth sense does not come easy and needs substantial honing. Educating oneself through regular exhibition visits, the customary gander through art publications, cannot be stressed enough. The art world thrives on relationships and direct contact, conversations with gallerists, artists, curators and critics are all essential means of keeping oneself abreast of the nuances of understanding and collecting art.

When concentrating on upcoming artists, it also makes sense to stay tuned into the many artist awards, such as the Foundation of Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) Emerging Artists Award and the INLAKS fine art award, which are directed specifically at ‘young’ artists.

Finally, when looking to collect works by emerging artists, it is essential to open up to new forms of art, especially New Media, which most Indian collectors tend to shy away from. A large majority of the “new kids on the block”, including trail blazers like Rohini Devasher, Kartik Sood, Tejal Shah and Shezad Dawood, work with various forms of media. Others like Prajakta Potnis, Rathin Barman, Ayesha Sultana and Rana Begum may work with traditional media but use them in non-traditional ways.

None of their works maybe described as easy to live with simply because most of them aren’t created with the intent of decorating the average residence.

But like all things ‘new’, ‘youthful’ and ‘still emerging’, they present new possibilities, the thrill of experimenting and, most importantly, new ways of encountering and understanding the world.

The writer is a Delhi-based art critic

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