Introduction to Intuitive-logic: The Next Step (1999)

The human consciousness demands to know itself. To be sincere to this process of self-awareness confronts every individual. Coming to terms with this uncertainty is the underlying motivation to life. Varied are the evolutionary phases, ranging from the nurturing of a sheltered idealism which yearns for freedom, love and courage, to the hesitant stages where one is awakened to the material duties of idealism. In sustaining these phases to their logical limits comes freedom for the individual, freedom from all sense of obligation. This hard fought freedom is the bedrock of spirituality.

Sustaining each evolving phase of this self-awareness determines the individual’s contribution to the wider humanity. From unconnected ideas and concepts the individual will eventually create an idealism, which may clarify into a vision. These phases will be transformed into events, projects, networks and an infrastructure, at different stages, amid a jungle of inter-relationships, across time and space. It is the duty of the material institutional context to utilise, harness and integrate these individual contributions into an effective system. It is this process of transformation and integration of the idealistic into its material institutional forms which determine the quality of life in a nation.

Underlying India’s unrealised potential, is the failure to transform her unique humanistic idealism into a credible institutional system. That a set of Indian values with universal inspiration would emerge, now seems a distant reality. Certain established institutional agents of change and progress now lack credibility. Most of them recognise their failure, and are open to change, but are still unable to engender the required progress in practice. This flux allows a new and deeper role for the individual and their idealism in the process of infrastructure-building, especially in the field of arts, culture and its education.

Upon this role of the individual will depend the nature and probability of the Indian arts, culture and its education to play a significant role in the development of India. In this task the lone creative activist-visionary requires a new attitude and army. The scope and reach of their duty is to be redefined.

This essay briefly introduces some aspects of this redefinition. It focuses on the stage of the individual’s role, when the unity of philosophy and action are deepest, so that idealism awakens to its materiality, and seeks the method and attitude so as to begin and sustain an institutionalising process of change.

‘To Revolutionise’, implies radical thought and its implementation. Given the task at hand the issue is not just to criticise the existing infrastructure but to actually create a viable alternative, and to do so through a process which is unique, yet which takes one closer to understanding the reality of the situation. In recognising the potential of charity, artistic creativity, scholarship and risk-taking, so as to help create an integrated infrastructure for the Indian arts, culture and its education, there is the possibility to revolutionise1…


1 On another level of energy, to just create the space where one can work uninterrupted and relatively free, requires a revolution, let alone harboring any ideas about changing India and the like. To just have her let you be, and maybe smile upon you now and again, is change enough…

Recognising the wider Material Reality

Before venturing into the issues of idealism and its materiality, it is important to just summarise one’s reading of India’s present situation, in terms of the main forces at work in moulding her nature and direction. This position, however objective in intent, influences the role earmarked for the individual. Further, a nation such as India, still forces one to constantly reconsider what is the relevance of the idealism, the creativity, the scholarship, the charity, if all around there is inequality, ignorance, dirt and violence. To keep balance and still respond to one’s duty thus demands an insight relatively detached from the idealism and pain.

At present, India is holding her sense of identity very heavily. The revival dominating her institutional values border upon a raw and jingoistic sense of insecurity. The defensiveness hiding behind a belated sense of bravado, which must be transitory, is leading to many ad hoc institutional mechanisms. In this necessary fever to reassert, values emanating from a mediocre definition of religion are overwhelming previous attempts (mostly feeble) of allowing a secular and more tolerant atmosphere to pervade the interactions between India’s religions and communities. This stampede to identify with any easy and popularised aspect of Hinduism is corrupting an already highly eroded habit of intelligent public debate. Concepts of artistic and intellectual freedom have lost their sense of right. Naturally attitudes of avoidance are replacing attitudes of absorption. This encourages the transformation of difference into division into barrier into conflict, rather than each difference co-existing with mutual joy and respect.

Egging forward this short-sighted (despite clear long term grassroot developments) Hindu reassertion are the equally short-sighted and reactionary attitudes of the politicised and militant international Islamic factions. However, from instigators to bait, all are now caught in a suffocating atmosphere where rational dialogue and the sharing of lifestyles is a distant reality. Violence, national and international, now seems to be a constant umbrella for the medium term; moving under this shroud can only bring paranoia to all actions.

Further, the value-systems of the British-inherited legacy are already weakened after the post-modern criticism of colonial prejudice. The systems inherited from other minority religions and communities are also dissolving into irrelevancy, vis-a-viz the national scale, though for different reasons. This essentially leaves the Hindu temple as the only prospering institution.

Hand in hand with these shifting attitudes comes the relatively liberalised and still highly inequitable flow of economic values. The entrepreneurship required to generate wealth on the scale India demands is slowly evolving. However, the serious recognition by the corporate world of their wider duty of building the essential infrastructure and welfare systems, is not growing at the pace required. Irrespective of international trends towards dismantling welfare systems and the consequences of fiscal-deficit funding, India must resist these temptations. Yet such resistance demands alternative means of generating and redistributing wealth. It is here that the arts, culture and its education will urgently have to devote visionary effort.

A more serious dilemma is the actual role economic values are usurping for itself. Most societies entrust their expectations to the economic mechanism; of transforming mental fluidity into material flexibility. The problem is that the mechanism also possesses its separate logic. After all, the ability of the economic system to absorb change is unsurpassed. Given this monopoly power it is now trying to determine all the value-systems by which we direct co-existence, from the emotional to the aesthetic to the spiritual, areas in which it has no expertise. It is this hidden economic agenda we have been unable to control. It has conditioned everything. The positive trade-off is that it structures everything.

In the west, it was an initial sense of feeling suspended, after the disintegration of the religious world-view, that directed the psyche into specialised identities, through the engine of industrialisation. At that time, neither the arts nor the sciences were in a position to foresee the power of the economic-logic. They actively participated in giving momentum to the machine. That the faculty of self-criticism would remain in the machine was the faith of human reason. Centuries of tussle with materialism made such a god inevitable. Today it seeks a place upon the Indian pantheon.

Amid all these forces are the implications of half-baked globalisation. The present open-ended postmodern pluralistic relativism is beginning to tire people, especially in the urban west. As a result there is a latching onto narrower identities, a retreat upon crutches which are local and easy to verify. In India, the frustration worsens as few opportunities open up with a minimal sense of belonging. Globalisation attempts are hence witnessing a simultaneous increase in communal mentalities. This has led to international exchange not having a very positive philosophical impact upon liberalising attitudes, beyond issues of economic professionalism.

Twisting through the religious and economic forces of change are the caste and regional lobby groups, cutting away corners wherever the centralised vision has failed to provide a viable alternative or effective monitoring. Whatever the role of previous injustice, insufficient financial resources and political corruption in building these divisive regional blocs, it is also the failure of an artistic-cultural-educational ethos to provide a daily alternative, which must be addressed.

Amid this seething cauldron lies the discredited intelligensia and academia, now more aware of their neglected duties. Yet the urgent need is for this sector to regalvanise itself; to create the space and structures by which the religious, economic and divisive forces are disciplined into working towards a humanistic idealism. It is here that the creative mind faces its deepest dilemma. To strengthen the intelligensia and academia is essential, yet how to ally with an educational system rotting at the roots? To amend and mould the system is definitely not the answer; to reinvent the ground-rules is the only option.

Idealism Awakens to its Materiality

Any successful infrastructure-building vision needs to grasp the obstacles which the above concerns may place before one’s efforts. This demands a simultaneity of vision and action as the basic pre-requisite for any effort in India. The simultaneity implies the need to harness ‘detachment’ within the creative action, along a battleground which cannot help but absorb contradictions with an equanimity. It is this ‘passionate-detachment’ which allows one to respect and integrate each specialised corner to serve the wider multi-factedness intelligence. It is through this fearless attitude that the essential compassion and humour to sustain such a journey arises, from which may emerge the conviction and vision for non-violence.

Vision is nothing but idealism clarified, ready to take on a practical mantle, to find one’s battleground, to take up arms without hesitation. Vision emerges from the struggles of one’s private-public persona dissolving away, which in turn forces idealism to become accountable to a voice other than one’s inner integrity. This surrender of the self, occurs when a faith in humanity decides to raise its voice and stand up. It is probably the most difficult and thankless decision of introspection, and yet essential if any privately nurtured idealism is to become a public source of inspiration. Thus to know the idealism which awakens to and then confronts its materiality is the first task of infrastructure-building.

However, before idealism is able to respond to the demands of its materiality, it must be nurtured, away from material friction. This sheltered idealism ('sheltered' from having to transform ideas into practice), emerging from the early years of introspection, will usually harbour a set of values in their most energetic and pristine form. Stray concepts such as the need for freedom and love, the play with uncertainty, the power of fearlessness, eroticism and obsession, the relationship with wealth, the rights for justice, the nature of the whole, a curiosity about the power of violence, all probably flirt through the mind, like isolated islands. The inter-relationships between each value and the outside world, the subtle layers separating each other and underlying each, the vast hidden value-systems embedded in each, the power of each value so as to dominate the mind, all such remain relatively untested.

Yet it is this immunity of innocence which will allow sustaining power in later years. When material constraints begin to eat into the idealistic principles it is essential that the deepest innocence of an idea once held base in the mind and heart. It is this fearless state of innocence, hand in hand with the totality of vision, which allows an ideal to later metamorphosise into a form which can sustain action, and yet maintain its idealistic integrity.

Naturally, it is this sheltered quality of the introspection which eventually forces idealism to question itself. This questioning is instigated by the growing wedge between the private and public persona which idealism must possess. Feeling a sense of hypocrisy is inevitable as one recognises the inability of a sheltered idealism to live up to its own standards in public. It is this self-questioning, triggered by some form of realisation regarding the material imperatives of an idealism, which invites ‘pain’ to play its pivotal role in the evolution of idealism.

Pain can be seen as the first child of idealism trying to impregnate its materiality. With time it becomes the most potent trigger in helping to awaken an idea into action; it most fully helps the mind to see things as they are in fact. However, it also carries the heaviest burden of negative energy, creating dilemmas and hesitations at each threshold. It is a most precarious process which allows pain to be transformed into playing a positive role. It is also this process which allows the values of idealism to requestion themselves in light of its materiality.


The Role of Creativity

The requestioning process is essentially the handling of uncertainty. Coming to terms with uncertainty implies there will always remain a continual sense of incompleteness. The issue lies in accepting the incompleteness, while maintaining one’s motivation. The other key aspect of handling uncertainty is the need to absorb contradictions. It is here that the role of artistic creativity can be best appreciated. Through the family of values it cultivates, such as ‘detachment’ and ‘fearlessness’, the creative process fosters the absorption of contradictions, which in turn allows the awakening of idealism to its materiality to be sustained.

The main factor which allows creativity to fulfil this role, is the ability of the artistic mind to play with uncertainty a bit longer, without imposing a preconception. The process of transforming questions into answers, intangibilities into tangibilities, formlessness into form, must include sufficient openness so as to allow each created answer to reveal its fuller question, each created form to reveal its fuller formlessness.

This ability to let uncertainty be, of waiting with it, giving it the freedom to be itself, is the root of creativity. In the act of giving, one gives oneself the space and time to mature, while simultaneously absorbing the intensity of the moment. In this tussle evolves the wisdom which realises that all activity is attracted towards non-activity. Change and permanence, detachment and motivation, energy and quiet, are all visualised afresh, their existence re-examined.

Each value now begins its transformation in this awakening. A tussle between action and non-action, reaction and steadiness, all create a new rhythm, so as to balance the to and fro motions. The ability to sustain this pendulum flow is the basis of the transformation. Just as pendulum is to time, this oscillation needs to be sustained if the rhythm of transforming idealism is to be absorbed. The private and the public, the tangible and intangible, the self and the selfless, these all have elusive thin differences as idealism awakens to its materiality. Walking this abyss of wafer-thin proportions is the nature of the awakening. In sustaining the pace of the oscillation lies the nature of continual flux, the play with uncertainty... herein lies a fundamental characteristic of an infrastructure-builder. The integrity with which this oscillation is sustained will determine the success and nature of later action. It will provide the clarity so as to help idealism institutionalise itself.

An example of this oscillation process is the tussle which exists between detachment and passion, involvement and quiet. To be the creator, the spectator and the unconcerned, all in one, simultaneously, slipping into each, is the real issue. This helps one realise that each role is genuine, and yet inadequate, for the real nature is that which allows this slipping into each, that which allows the fusion of the creator, spectator, and the unconcerned. This substance which allows the creator-spectator-unconcerned continuum to exist in us, is the reality the individual is trying to grasp. It is required for one mind to harness all perspectives, to inculcate the respective attitudes and therein try to fuse each into this oscillating balance whereby all contribute towards nurturing the continuum. In sustaining this holistic attitude lies the eventual success of the infrastructure-builder.

In this process inter-disciplinarity is but an effective stepping stone towards holism and its interconnectedness. You cannot simply take five different departments put them into one enclosed space and institution, and say inter-disciplinarity exists. The process is more akin to the rocky water source which encapsulates and then flows into different streams, and later when more steady, the streams come to merge into an all encompassing powerful flowing river. Inter-disciplinarity is more like the dam which collects and allows the later merger to occur more efficiently.

In understanding the transformations which a creative mind cultivates within a set of values, such as ‘detachment’ and ‘fearlessness’, we can understand more clearly the process by which idealism needs to evolve so as to be able to transform itself into material attitudes, which in turn harness the institutionalising process of such values.


i........ Passionate-detachment

Essentially such a balance requires detachment within the energy of involvement.

The idea of inner detachment is misunderstood, by both east and west. One has highlighted the passive and fatalistic aspects, while the other has focused on the cynical and anti-pleasure aspects. This has led to detachment not being able to sustain a practicality for itself. The intangible value of detachment cannot be calculated and the fear of its anti-motivational aspect is too risky. This lack of living use is reinforced by institutions unwilling to nurture the idea through an educational and work process.

Yet in artistic creativity, detachment is carefully cultivated. Like other human values, detachment represents different facets at different stages of maturity. At lower levels it can lead to indifference or a cool cynicism; inspired as readily as self-absorption. At somewhat higher levels detachment can inculcate a sense of humour and playfulness which absorbs like a participating-spectator. At higher levels it inspires a calm sense of duty, rooted in absorbing all, grasping the essence of non-judgmental judgments, the idea of inaction, or some continuous effort which seeks no reward but that of being true to activity and its pleasure. At still higher levels it can inspire action in others though remaining neutral oneself.

Thus one pivotal dilemma which confronts all individual activity is that non-activity seems wise. Thus an individual who truly wishes to know oneself, and the nature of one’s creativity, must sooner or later come to terms with this spectre of non-activity. This spectre can emerge at any age, not just in the twilight, or when energy is tired. The issue is how to allow this seed a significant freedom in the mind, and still continue with a self-renewing motivation. This is the duty of detachment.

However, in general, the positive force inherent in detachment has not been emphasised in the western inner journey. For the east, the non-violent and passive aspect of detachment today lacks a credibility, for it is unable to discipline the daily violence. One requires a re-education.

Our understanding regarding love and compassion, within which the greatest force for detachment ironically exists, must be one area of focus. The knowledge that once one received unqualified love, is enough for most to selflessly devote their lives with lesser demands of reciprocity. To give not because one necessarily wants to give, but that one cannot help but give. It is a compulsion which also influences our own desires and wants. An overwhelming momentum is created which sooner or later calms want. Wants and desires are clearly recognised and yet somehow a smile can control their venting.

Yet ‘letting it be’ requires a passionate discipline. For only the most passionate can sustain such detachment and duty. Duty becomes the act which absorbs all pleasures. Detachment is the wisdom which disciplines duty. Creativity is the most complete duty which strives to fulfil this pleasure. Action cannot sustain innovation without coming to terms with these ideas.


ii....... Fearlessness & Absorption of Contradictions

Fearlessness comes from being part of each corner, having let each idea lived within, having been given the opportunities to give such anarchy a freedom. It comes from the ego realising its role, rooted in the humility of its insignificance and the confidence that awareness is indestructible, ever-changing. To demand freedom is an early desire of the ego; to give freedom is its inner compulsion.

Fearlessness comes from living a life rooted in absorbing all which comes one’s way, and yet moulding this absorption with some unique aura. Aura is the appendix of clarity; it is what inspires clarity to become clearer. In clarity lies fearlessness, a clarity which never closes the eye to the surrounding flux. The intent to be fearless is thus rooted in the belief that fearlessness may never come. Yet that is irrelevant after a certain duration, for then enough discipline has been nurtured to let a vulnerability be itself, without having to hide. A frailty is allowed to be revealed without fear. Such is the nature of fearlessness that fear is a permanent tenant, detached in its corner, with no need to evict.

Creativity has always nourished this fusion of contradictions, to emerge with fuller forms, and the openness of mind which encourages fearlessness. It manifests itself via experimentation, or a belief in randomness, or the ability to merge uncertainties without the need to resolve, or the ability to accept inspiration from any corner, from trivial notions or profound ideas, from vulgar circumstances or serene moments. There is no sense of proportion but the limitlessness within. There is no value which burdens the creative impulse, for each act of creativity becomes a discipline to sustain the day.

To let each unknowing situation reveal itself, to just spectate and in that distance become the most active participant. It is like the lover who sometimes needs to give distance to loved ones which they may not be ready to accept. In that show of trust, one gives the other a chance to act positively. In that retreating step, one moves towards a fuller togetherness, which otherwise would have resulted in a pushing away, a demand of faithfulness which could not have been fulfiled.

Few have the courage to tell their partner you be faithful to yourself, first and foremost, and I trust in that act our love will be sustained, our togetherness maintained. Most demand a faithfulness, which sooner or later pushes away the love, for the other is rarely given the time to know themselves, with the freedom they crave another should bestow. Trust in oneself does not evolve, and so trust in another feels missing. It is only after such shows of faith that one can take another for granted. For by then it is no longer seen in the tone of ‘taken for granted’. It has become transformed due to love, which has been nurtured amid this mutual freedom. This is the essence which will mould the future co-existence of people.

This ‘giving of freedom’, and ‘letting uncertainties be’ are subtle ideas which require the reaffirmation of daily life. The present system does not allow one the space and time to practice such ideals, and so naturally their usefulness is negated, and the philosophy dismissed. Thus it becomes the duty of the artist and philosopher to also become the teacher, economist, politician, and sage. Each aspect disciplining the other, thereby giving a fuller authenticity to each specific role.

In this pursuit of totality every new linkage and inter-relationship acts as a discipline to the other, closing off irrelevancies with a greater pace and justification than opening out new possibilities. Yet each new possibility also creates a distraction, which in turn influences the nature of concentration. However, the only path by which new distractions become points of foci, and hence areas of concentrated effort, is by absorption rather than avoidance being the basis of a learning process. Only in sustaining this (seemingly) unending spiral of connections between seeming distractions and foci can one begin to nurture a multi-facetedness intelligence, which eventually itself becomes the core focus through which all distractions flow and remould.
It must be stressed that the merger of different disciplines is not simply a result of synthesis. The initial separation is the illusion, which is then paradoxically denied by an attempt at synthesis. This gives the human mind the false accolade of creating a form, when all which actually happens is that the underlying unity is revealed.

The artist-philosopher-teacher-economist-politician-sage is already existing in the human psyche. To reveal the unity is the requirement, rather than teaching that one is creating a union. Thus an educational system which allows an inner anarchic search, rather than imposing a preconceived inter-disciplinary hierarchy is more likely to succeed. However, the critical faculty which structures a framework so that holism can become a living force, requires the transition of inter-disciplinarity. Further, the creation of synthesis is easier for the mind to assimilate, especially one focused on the reality of opposition.

Within creativity exists the genius to grasp the nature of uncertainty. It alone has the openness of intent to give the unlimited more freedom. In this process it has the ability to be fair. It is in providing this spirit of fairness that lies the ethical dimension of creativity, rooted in the instinct of giving freedom, itself dependent on the will to be self-critical with joy. It is this joyous self-criticism which is the foundation of infrastructure-building.


Materialising Idealism into its Institutional Framework

One unique linkage which has the clear potential to restructure any infrastructure-building process for the arts, is the relationship which (a redefined) charity can sustain with artistic creativity and scholarship, so as to create new innovative structures.

The key issue at stake is how to create the attitude which encourages the voluntary giving up of wealth by a section of the population, towards a dedicated, systematic and transparent private institutional network of redistributing wealth. For this to be achieved the pivotal factor is establishing the credibility of the process by which wealth can be created by charitable institutions and the extent of the multiplier effects this can leverage for the redistribution cycle. This in turn is dependent on changing the existing bargaining platform upon which the corporate, government and cultural entity discuss and decide issues of patronage and collaboration. This demands the creation of a new space (and hence set of values) which exists outside the current cultural-corporate-government nexus.

The whole process of creating this alternative space must clearly symbolise the creative values it represents. This implies that an ability to generate wealth must exist which balances the edge of corporate and/or governmental patrons, simultaneously with the vision to redistribute this wealth so as to serve the wider infrastructure needs.
This demands, among other factors, the creation of a new set of work ethics. This revolves around inspiring the motivation of volunteer labour, or restructuring volunteer labour to work in a new and systematic manner, where task preconceptions are continually open to change. Tackling the economic incentive mindset, without resorting to a blind religious faith is the critical dilemma. At the heart of this change is the new role a creative individual must chalk out regarding their needs and material ambitions. Added to this are concepts of public accountability, the nature of monitoring methods, and the inspirational energy emanating from the work as perceived by the public.

It is here that a redefined role for charity becomes pivotal. Potentially it has the freedom to create and redistibute wealth with the most idealistic motivation. Given the relatively raw stage of development at which professional charitable institutes find themselves, the impact of even a minor structural change can induce a relatively significant impact. However, the sustained feasibility of this endeavour will depend upon many of the issues previously discussed.

In a way, the task is to try and improve upon the governmental experience with Public Goods & Externalities in regard to production, pricing, distribution, and the manner in which the private individual is motivated to volunteer services for a wider cause. This framework, easily absorbed within the Charitable framework, then needs to bring the motivational and innovative aspects of creativity to find and fulfil the necessary risks which can be taken so as to create the resources and energy which will inspire a new set of institutional values. The process by which a relatively radical concept eventually becomes transformed into the orthodoxy also needs to be addressed. The need to keep alive the questioning ethic once an orthodoxy has emerged is the problem the private-charitable institution will have to tackle more successfully than the public-government entities have managed.

All these concepts can only take relevance if a practical dimension is shown to be possible. During the last five years I have tried to fulfil my individual responsibilities to these ideas. HEART has been created from scratch, in all ways, and today a platform with which to take forward the institutionalising possibility stands before us. The two new, but clearly interlinked, areas of effort by which the work is to proceed is the building of India’s first domestic auction house and the work towards the preservation of our cultural heritage monuments. Both will require a new charitable-corporate mix.

A year ago I was totally ignorant regarding the issues at stake in the preservation of our cultural heritage monuments. After an initial manic burst of curiosity (Refer to List, p261) hand in hand with a deeper understanding of the relevant government machinery, one came to appreciate the intellectual and material vastness of this subject, and the deep (potential) links it held with all aspects of Indian life, related to the artistic, historical, institutional, environmental and developmental factors. The subject also perfectly symbolised the Indian failure of preserving the material and tangible forms of its idealism. It would also provide the perfect complement to the more elite and focused role of modern and contemporary art in building an educational infrastructure. Further, here was the perfect opportunity to bring together all sectors of the nation and create a new platform for collaboration with a clear practical objective in which the role of artistic culture could clearly mould the process of development. HEART's MOU with the Government of India's National Culture Fund (NCF) is the first step in this direction.

It is to implementing the above task, and in helping to create a new structure for a domestic auction house, hand in hand with our previous commitments, that HEART is moving forward in the medium term. The nature of the journey is such that irrespective of our success in creating new concrete institutional forms, we will definitely succeed in inspiring a whole range of individuals and institutions to take more innovative risks, and to plan them with utmost care, thereby changing the perception of risk itself. For a conservative India, to embrace deeper the need and ability to risk is the first step towards a new institutional mindset. It is the duty of the creative mind and community to push forward this fundamental change within the next decade.





Curator’s Note

Since returning to India in 1994, I have tried to study all perspectives of Indian art, especially its modern and contemporary traditions. The initial medium term (five to seven years) objective was to re-understand the artistic and cultural system from the ‘grassroots’. This meant clarifying the intellectual framework hand in hand with creating new mechanisms and structures which will help implement one’s vision regarding the role of art, culture and its education in the development of India. Within five years a credible platform has been created.

A unique process of integrating and redefining charity, artistic creativity, scholarship and risk-taking is at the heart of this platform. In sustaining this work, a new space and set of values are emerging whereby the process of infrastructure-building for the Indian arts has the potential of transforming previous mindsets and practices regarding the subject. Within this focus the role of art auctions and a domestic auction house are pivotal. However, in both cases a redefinition of their scope and duty is demanded. The nature and success of this redefinition will depend upon how the following issues are tackled:
— The extent and manner by which generation and redistribution of wealth is affected by art auctions and a domestic auction house.
— What are the structures required so as to re-emphasise the motivation of an auction house from commercial imperatives to a wider public service, while maintaining its professionalism at international standards.
— The manner in which a research and documentation process is to be in-built and disseminated through auctions and an Indian auction house.
— Curated auctions already demand a clear unity between the aesthetic, intellectual and financial frameworks. Can auctions such as Intuitive-logic be sustained on the scale and at the pace required, as the pre-requisites are even more demanding, given they are conceived as part of a systematic infrastructure-building vision for the arts.
— How to harness the advantages of curated art auctions in establishing standards of aesthetic discrimination and deeper links between critical-historical narratives and contemporary pricing.
— The manner in which auctions can mould the involvement of the government and corporate sectors so as to play a more progressive and positive role in transforming infrastructure bottlenecks.
— The extent it can inspire the international community to get involved with appreciating and preserving the Indian cultural heritage and nurturing new and more radical exchanges of thought and culture.
— The degree to which auctions can change attitudes regarding financial transparency, thereby leading to deeper changes regarding public accountability.
— The way in which the elite nature of auctions can be compensated, through the above changes, so as to create new structures which allow the arts to redefine their reach and socio-economic status.
Intuitive-Logic: The Next Step takes forward one’s redefining experiments with most of these issues. However these wider concerns can only be tackled successfully if the curated auction is credible in a basic way. This ‘basic’ quality implies the art auction must tackle the following concerns:

— It must be able to bring together a collection of rare and high quality works of art. The majority of these works must not be accessible through the normal gallery and dealer networks.
— This rarity and quality must be clearly perceived by the public, and the underlying financial system must exist for fairly valuing these intangibles over time. For example if ‘quality’ is determined by an attached significance of a critical-historical narrative, among other factors, then one reason a premium price is justified, is the belief that the price will increase in the future because incorporating the significance of this narrative will still be recognised in the long run (ie: scholarship as a whole does not represent a passing prejudice, bias or fashion). Thus a clear link between aesthetic understanding and the academia-cum-artistic media needs to exist, which in turn the economic system must find credible.
— The manner by which the works of art are chosen, inter-related and contextualised must clarify and nurture the required appreciation process. For example, a historical context needs to be created, in which various levels of categorisation and different kinds of ideologies can credibly dissolve, leaving only the overall quality to dominate the curatorial exercise.
— The ‘auction house’ or organisers must be prepared to create and sustain the highest levels of financial transparency and public accountability.
— The success of achieving actual prices within the Price Estimates must be relatively high (60% +) to establish clear links between curatorial knowledge and its financial grasp. Further, the proportion of lots sold must be even higher (70% +).
— The documentation which communicates certain related features of an art work must strive for an intellectual and aesthetic excellence in both style and substance.
— The auction network must try to tackle the financial anomalies, inconsistencies and deterents inherent in the system, such as the imposition of Sales Tax on art (and its variation between states), the lack of credible valuation methods for insurance purposes, or even the ironic case of the Government of India charging a 50% Import Duty on Indian art wishing to come back to India!
— It must discipline the tamasha aspect associated with auctions, and yet engender an increasing popular interest which maintains the integrity of the works to be auctioned.

In tackling the above concerns the creation of a viable domestic secondary market for the arts and antiquities becomes a closer reality, in which the domestic auction house plays a pivotal role. This in turn is also the only credible long term solution to prevent the illegal export and outflow of India’s artistic and cultural heritage.

The success of Intuitive-Logic: The Next Step will suggest the speed at which a domestic auction house will come to exist. The auction will also reveal how ready the Indian public are to appreciate their artistic heritage in financial terms. Anything close to a sale of Rs.3.50 crores will be a success. This in turn will answer questions regarding the existing and potential proportion of ‘white’ cheque transactions as against the cash ‘black’ economy, especially for a centre such as New Delhi, not yet renown for its transparency of transactions.

If things progress smoothly over the next few years, the Indian visual arts may soon become the model market amid all Indian cultural disciplines, capable of transforming the suppressed black economy and its violence into a buoyant, transparent and integrated infrastructure, something which even the vast cinema economy has failed to achieve. With such self-sufficiency in place, the task of helping other artistic-cultural disciplines improve their infrastructure takes on a new credibility and momentum. To then change the educational system for the arts may not be the forlorn task it is today…