jitish kallat sudarshan shetty nalini malani atul dodiya anju dodiya n s harsha and shilpa guptaafter a dismal series of auctions in early 2009 the major auction houses dealing in modern and contemporary indian artchristies and sothebys and indias saffronart have taken a strategic approach which has paid off in modern and contemporary markets quality is the buzzword they have also finetuned catalogue content to market demand and realigned pricing galleries have slashed costs and retrenched staff but in most cases this hasnt affected the quality of the exhibitions instead of trying to be jackofalltrades artists have also refocused on core strengths after a year or so of hemorrhaging it looks like the art market has finally bottomed out its not businessasusual yet but success requires a nimble approach and an aggressive readjustment of expectations does this mean we can we put on our rosetinted shades again the last big brouhaha for the selfloving art market was when beautiful inside my head forever sothebys auction of damien hirsts works in september 2008 reportedly grossed 111m but triumph turned into tragedy when hirsts show of paintingsthe usp being that he painted them himselfat the wallace collection in 2009 no love lost blue paintings by damien hirst was panned when the worlds most commercially successful artistcumsalesman cant provoke its proof that audiences wont be swayed easily now asia will remain an area of keen global interest china has already overtaken france as the worlds third largest art market in 2008 after us and britain although indian art has become the most coveted after chinese art in the emerging market scenario spending on art in indias domestic market is still a blip on the radar in 2007 and 2008 the contemporary art market in india was almost entirely dependent on foreign endorsement this is symptomatic of what ails the domestic art market its still largely conventional galleries like mumbais sakshi and mirchandanisteinrucke invite international artists to exhibit in india to keep things interesting but is it commercially viable unless the indian mindset opens up to world art the contemporary art scenario will remain bleak for some time consider for example that no major exhibitions took place in india in 2009 by any of indias own leading contemporary artists they all opted to show abroad despite this or maybe in spite of it a curious development is taking place in indian contemporary art while the primary and secondary market continues to deliver lacklustre results compared to 2007s peaks indias leading artists are doing some of their best work and almost conclusively have decided to make europe their home ground subodh gupta experimented with his signature style of bartans and introduced new elements with his first solo exhibition with hauser wirth common man in london bharti kher will have a solo at the same gallery in 2010 n s harsha cemented his relationship with victoria miro with picking through the rubble last october in london mumbaibased shilpa gupta scaled new heights with