‘I’m interested in artists’ work outside their own home belt’
WHY SUNDARAM TAGORE IS OPENING A GALLERY IN LONDON
SUNDARAM TAGORE is to open a new art gallery in London in the new year to add to the ones he owns in New York, where he lives, and in Singapore.
“London is the ideal space because it’s a truly a global city,” said Tagore, who was in London last week to exhibit at Masterpiece, an art fair which attracts wealthy collectors from all over the world.
Masterpiece is held in the same space as the Chelsea Flower Show.
The organisers say, “Masterpiece London is the unmissable art fair where visitors can view and buy the finest works of art, design, furniture and jewellery – from antiquity to the present day.”
Artists Tagore brought to Masterpiece this year included Hiroshi Senju, Sohan Qadri, Miya Ando, Udo Nöger and Karen Knorr (who tends to transpose birds and animals inside palaces in Rajasthan).
Each year the organisers of Masterpiece choose one work to adorn the entrance to the fair. This year they selected a dramatic light installation by the PakistaniAmerican artist Anila Quayyum Agha, who is represented by Tagore.
His gallery said Agha “is known for her immersive large-scale light installations, which she fabricates from laser-cut steel. The elaborate patterns they cast when lit from within allude to the ornamented public spaces Agha was excluded from as a female growing up in Lahore. Agha’s light installations have been exhibited in museums throughout the United States.”
He explained to Eastern Eye why “opening in London is very important. People come here from across the globe. In addition, it’s a home for south Asians and especially Indians. There are so many Indians, the cultural and financial elite, who live here. And I have a home here.
“So, it’s a natural, but it took a long time because you don’t want willy nilly to open a gallery space. It’s a commitment for, at least, 10 years.”
The art historian, gallerist and filmmaker, who travels the world in search of new artists, was born in India and studied in Oxford before settling in New York.
“Although my name is very ethnic, we are truly a global gallery, more than any other in the world,” said Tagore, who also had an outlet in Hong Kong, which he was forced to close recently because of political instability in the former British colony.
He recalled: “In 2000, when I first opened my gallery in Soho, New York, people asked, ‘What do you show? What are you focusing on?’ I said, ‘World art.’ They asked, ‘World art? What does that mean?’ I replied, ‘Cross-cultural dialogue, intercultural dialogue.’ They said, ‘We don’t understand that.”
He went on: “Today, they understand it completely. Because what we are interested in is ‘Third Culture’; essentially, the work of artists living outside of their own home belt. How do they tackle the world? What that means, in essence, is globalisation for good or for ill. That captures the spirit of the time, the zeitgeist. That is what I am interested in – to put my finger on the pulse of the time.”
At Masterpiece, his gallery distributed a brochure which said it represented Ricardo Mazal, Jane Lee, Tayeba Begum Lipi (“one of Bangladesh’s foremost artists” who uses razor blades in her work to show women have been marginalised) and the late “artist, poet and Tantric guru” Qadri.
“The gallery also has a robust photography programme that includes some of the world’s most noted photographers,” the brochure added.
Tagore emphasised to Eastern Eye: “We have some of the most significant artists – both young, mid-ranking and very established artists like Hiroshi Senju, Sohan Qadri and Sebastião Salgado.
“It is essentially creating a global community of artists – and that has been the mission from day one.”
He had tried to open a gallery in London just after the financial crisis in 2008 and had even spotted a space in Mayfair. Then he discovered “the realtor wouldn’t reply to me. He completely ignored me. Then I found out that a Russian gentleman had taken it for his daughter’s fashion design house. So, I got sidetracked.”
But now “we’re getting this new opportunity to open in Cromwell Place in South Kensington, the most ideal location next to V&A. We’re absolutely thrilled. It’s a hub of galleries and within that we will have a permanent gallery space. I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Asked whether Indians buy art, Tagore replied: “Indians buy a lot of art.”
Did they buy it because they liked the works or saw them as a financial investment whose value would grow?
“It’s a combination of factors – with Indians, it is not monolithic at all,” he responded. “Some Indians buy art because they want to flip it and make money or because they just want to learn more and be educated. Others absolutely want to buy art because they want to live with it.”
As for his clients, they were in the main “Indians living abroad, that’s the kind of clientele I deal with. But I also deal with those living in India. All of these people have a network of connections abroad. Those are people we draw – like-minded kindred spirits for us.”