With the depression in the economy that drastically led to high oil prices resulting into high food prices and severe global inflation along with a substantial credit crisis leading to the drastic bankruptcy of large and well established investment banks as well as commercial banks in various, diverse nations around the world, increased unemployment , and signs of contemporaneous economic downturns in major economies of the world has finally resulted into a global recession . In such a situation what is the real scenario in the art market that had risen with a vertical graph in the past 3 years. Though the art world remained a bit silent in raising up its surrendered hands, yet the results of different art auctions and regular sales from the galleries speak out in itself the real status behind the curtain. It is indeed a shocking plight for the art world where the graph has melted down instantaneously with the downturn of the global economy. The ECA second auction held on November 8, 2008 that was thought of to propel with exuberance and dynamism both in appeal and approach and of course in generating revenue passed by without much notice that of course was not the case when the same auction house had launched its auction for the first time in February this year.

As Vikram Bachhawat, the director of the ECA had uttered during the first auction of giving opportunity to the art lovers and collectors who could come in close connection with great works of art that otherwise would have been kept in the museum when M.F. Husain's ‘Safdar Hashmi' fetched a record US$1 million along with Tyeb Mehta's ‘Kali III' that too was fetched in Rs 4.4 crore; this time Bachhawat had looked forward to further boost this opportunity not only limited to the works of the old masters, but also bringing in the creative excellence of the young contemporaries that carry fresh flavour of the present epoch. And thus the auction held in November 2008 was precisely referred as auction of “Contemporary and Modern Indian Art”.

The second auction sale of ECA attempted to pulsate with divergent artistic expressions and bring together a wide range of works not only in quantity but also including various mediums and faculties of visual arts. In the first auction 89 lots were put together among which 81 were sold and this time the total number of lots were 105 that encompassed art works of 89 artists and not just limited to paintings, drawings and printmaking. Along with these conventional faculties of creative endeavour, ECA Auction 2 also highlighted sculpture, photography and a two channel video projection for promoting video art. Thus the domain of art was widened where one got the opportunity to see a large number of young artist's works and secondly, various patterns of works in diverse mediums in different areas of visual arts also added to the spectacular dimension of the whole purpose. This time the auction had been revitalised with plurality of thoughts, multiplicity of ideas and a fresh drive in expression and handling of unique techniques. There was immense support and active participation of different galleries and private collectors in the country. And the punch line of this auction was not just the contemporaneity in essence or the variety in form and style but for the fact that this was for the first time that ‘No Reserve' price was marked against the works. Hence it generated absolute freedom for anyone who intended to bid for a particular work. Yet with so well-furnished and chalked out effort the organisers could officially declare that only 55 out of 105 could be sold with a sale percentage of 52.38. Well ‘not bad' could be the only possible remark that became the mouthpiece after this auction in the art market.

There were around 200 art lovers that included gallery owners from all over India , art connoisseurs and enthusiasts as well as investors present in this auction though all of them were not bidders. The entire event was devised in two parts – online bidding and floor auction. The online preview started on the November 1, 2008 and the online bidding started on the November 3, 2008, which finally landed up to a floor and telephonic auction on the November 8, 2008 at the Emami Towers in Kolkata. There was a mixed reaction with this auction that the Auction House stated as “ Despite the skeptics' opinion of the market situation today, the ECA second Auction was an achievement.” In facts and figures declared by ECA, what came up is Bikash Bhattacharjee's work of 1979 went down under the hammer for Rs 5,175,000. Two M.F. Husain's canvas works were successfully sold to bidders for Rs 4,6000,000 each. Another interesting work of the artist from his early era 1954, from the ‘Doll Series' was also sold for Rs 977,500. Satish Gujral's work was sold at Rs 3,680,000. A 1986 work of artist N.S. Bendre went down under the hammer to a successful bidder for Rs 2,300,000. K.G. Subramanyan's 2005 work generated a lot of interest; the opening bid for this work was at INR 1,500,000 and finally went to a net bidder at Rs 2,185,000. A cross-hatch work by artist Jogen Chowdhury titled ‘Wounded Man' (2002) saw a bid of Rs 2,242,500. Two works of artist Dharmanarayan Dasgupta came down successfully under the hammer at Rs 747,500 and Rs 862500 respectively.

Badri Narayan's ‘The Nayika of the Flowers' created much appeal and area of interest among the bidders, the opening bid for the work was at Rs 1,50,000 and it finally achieved a successful bid of Rs 575,000. The work titled ‘Contemporary' by artist Veer Munshi went higher than its estimated value and finally went for Rs 1,150,000. An ink on printed paper work by Partha Pratim Deb was finally sold for double the opening bid amount at Rs 300,000. The young lot including Sunil De, Mithu Sen, Chhatrapati Dutta, Amitava Dhar also did fine in such strenuous situation of the art mart.

The versatility of the collection in this auction was expected to prove a solid breakthrough in the history of modern Indian art. The extent of selection in the lot of one hundred and five art works was vibrant in nature to hold together Indian art of the modern era of an entire century and more under a single roof. The present generation artists were also given utmost privilege to rub their shoulders in an auction ground with the stalwarts in this field. Not even a year back a 1981 born could think of getting an entry of his/her work in such a big auction and with the opening bid of US$ 9,302 that Piyali Ghosh did whose one work in acrylic and tempera on canvas in the collection of Chatterjee and Lal, Mumbai was present in this auction.

The attempt and effort behind this auction is not to be questioned but the results have definitely raised a bigger issue whether such auctions really indicate towards the actual worth of an artwork or is it the capitalist culture that governs this worth according to its need and priorities? The answer is a bitter truth!