Art by emerging illustrators and visual artists such as Sajid Wajid Shaikh and Aniruddh Mehta (who helped create the logo and title sequence for the Netflix show Sacred Games) like vintage Old Monk bottles, luggage labels, powder tins and kiln-fired terra
Tyeb Mehtas and Husains. Affordable art means a different set of people is gaining the confidence to enter the market,” says art critic, curator and cultural theorist Ranjit Hoskote. “It’s an open door, and in a world often seen as strange and exclusive place, that’s a good thing.” Most of the work on the affordable art platforms is by young up-and-comers, but not all of it. Art Intaglio, for instance, is selling SH Raza prints, limited-edition Jamini Roy prints and reproductions from Tyeb Mehta’s seminal Diagonal series.
As with most prints, these aren’t exorbitant — they cost ₹2,000 to ₹5,000 — but the fact that they are on these platforms makes them accessible to a market that is typically intimidated by and that tends to avoid online auctions by major art houses.
Raja Ravi Varma did the same with his prints of the Hindu pantheon, says gallerist Geetha Mehra. “Suddenly every home had beautiful images of their favourite deities. Affordable prints will help the country familiarise itself with its artists and make art less elitist,” she adds.
A combination of online and offline perusing is what artist and curator Bose Krishnamachari would like to see. “Any art collector should spend time in a gallery, see the pieces, have a conversation with the gallerist, learn about the artist and their history and then pick a piece,” adds the co-founder of the Kochi-muziris Biennale. “Otherwise, you would be buying a beautiful, visually appealing artwork but you won’t be collecting history.” An interesting result of this approach to collection and curation is that it is offering a platform to emerging artists from different streams. While Floating Canvas Company features work by illustrator and visual artist Sajid Wajid Shaikh and visual artist Aniruddh Mehta (he was part of the team that created the logo and title sequence design for the Netflix show Sacred Games), among others, Artburt