ET Bureau BENGALURU: With real estate prices stagnating, art is emerging as the most attractive investment option for the city's swish set Especially among IT bigwigs, who are also proving to be discerning buyers going beyond the signature on the canvas and appreciating art for art's sake.
Rishad Premji, chief strategy officer and board member at Wipro is an avid art collector. “I have been interested in art for as long as I can remember but more so as an appreciator than anything else,“ said Premji, an MBA from Harvard Business School. “For me, it is difficult to broad brush favourites and likes as it remains such a personal experience where beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder.“ While art, especially those by top artists, can make for great investment, technology executives in the city are also putting in effort to earn to appreciate great works.“Unlike a businessman who looks or the signature on the canvas, the IT sector interestingly spends time understanding and appreciating artwork,“ said Raj Bagaria, founder of Artchutney.com and a well known galleryist in Bengaluru, adding that on average, such collectors allocate Rs 5-20 lakh a year for art.
Bengaluru-based artists, too, are witnessing the IT sector's rising fancy for art.
Gurudas Shenoy has created murals for corporate yards such as the International Tech Park in Whitefield and Intel offices in the city. Renowned artist Yusuf Arakkal has a fan in Kiran Mazum dar-Shaw, chairman of leading biotechnology company, Biocon, who he said owns about 35 pieces of his work. “IT forms the highest population in Bengaluru and get substantially paid. They travel a lot, meet people who buy art in the West, where most collectors invest in art even before real estate,“ said Arakkal.
The city's business community, meanwhile, remains fascinated with art. Businesswoman Geetanjali Kirloskar, who owns at least 50 pieces of oil on canvas, now wants to invest in mixed media.“Like golf, art was for the discerning rich. Times have changed. Art is percolating to other sections of society ,“ she said. “Bengaluru has a huge expatriate population, which certainly has a rippling effect on the taste of the middle class.“
Atul Ujagar, country director, Nike Sourcing (India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan), said that while “art may be below real estate... it has fared better than gold in recent times.“
The walls of his Dollars Colony home don the works of Paresh Hazra, Jagannath Paul, Satish Gujral and MF Hussain.
“Younger artists are faring well in Bengaluru currently. Classic works always have a market; they never go out of style. But I too am interested in the work of younger artists now,“ said Renu George, owner, Time & Space art gallery .
Catering to the techie crowd, Bengaluru's IT hub Whitefield will soon be home to a premium mall, VR Bengaluru, which will have a dedicated space for art alongside retail and hospitality .
“We will soon bring `The Whitefield Art Collective', a curated art festival with local and national artists at the mall,“ said Sumi Gupta, director, Virtuous Retail. VR Bengaluru has already installed a 300-kilogram hanging sculpture by artist Dimpy Menon, also a resident of Whitefield.
Rishad Premji, chief strategy officer and board member at Wipro is an avid art collector. “I have been interested in art for as long as I can remember but more so as an appreciator than anything else,“ said Premji, an MBA from Harvard Business School. “For me, it is difficult to broad brush favourites and likes as it remains such a personal experience where beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder.“ While art, especially those by top artists, can make for great investment, technology executives in the city are also putting in effort to earn to appreciate great works.“Unlike a businessman who looks or the signature on the canvas, the IT sector interestingly spends time understanding and appreciating artwork,“ said Raj Bagaria, founder of Artchutney.com and a well known galleryist in Bengaluru, adding that on average, such collectors allocate Rs 5-20 lakh a year for art.
Bengaluru-based artists, too, are witnessing the IT sector's rising fancy for art.
Gurudas Shenoy has created murals for corporate yards such as the International Tech Park in Whitefield and Intel offices in the city. Renowned artist Yusuf Arakkal has a fan in Kiran Mazum dar-Shaw, chairman of leading biotechnology company, Biocon, who he said owns about 35 pieces of his work. “IT forms the highest population in Bengaluru and get substantially paid. They travel a lot, meet people who buy art in the West, where most collectors invest in art even before real estate,“ said Arakkal.
The city's business community, meanwhile, remains fascinated with art. Businesswoman Geetanjali Kirloskar, who owns at least 50 pieces of oil on canvas, now wants to invest in mixed media.“Like golf, art was for the discerning rich. Times have changed. Art is percolating to other sections of society ,“ she said. “Bengaluru has a huge expatriate population, which certainly has a rippling effect on the taste of the middle class.“
Atul Ujagar, country director, Nike Sourcing (India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan), said that while “art may be below real estate... it has fared better than gold in recent times.“
The walls of his Dollars Colony home don the works of Paresh Hazra, Jagannath Paul, Satish Gujral and MF Hussain.
“Younger artists are faring well in Bengaluru currently. Classic works always have a market; they never go out of style. But I too am interested in the work of younger artists now,“ said Renu George, owner, Time & Space art gallery .
Catering to the techie crowd, Bengaluru's IT hub Whitefield will soon be home to a premium mall, VR Bengaluru, which will have a dedicated space for art alongside retail and hospitality .
“We will soon bring `The Whitefield Art Collective', a curated art festival with local and national artists at the mall,“ said Sumi Gupta, director, Virtuous Retail. VR Bengaluru has already installed a 300-kilogram hanging sculpture by artist Dimpy Menon, also a resident of Whitefield.
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