Indian art collector Anupam Poddar and his mother Lekha Poddar next to an installation made by an Indian artist at their house in New Delhi. (Tomas Munita for The New York Times)

새삼 며칠전 모 일간지에 썼던 글이 생각납니다.
인도도 이제 만만한 나라가 아니지요. 물론 빈부의 격차가 크고 종교적인 색채가 강해서 가난하고 힘든 서민대중들이 많긴 하지만 경제적인 성장은 나라의 체모를 높이는데 크게 기여하지 못한다는 사실을 잘 알고 있는 듯 합니다.
현재 인도는 켈커타에 근대미술관(MODERN ART)을 내년에 착공해서 2013년에 완공할 예정으로 테이트 모던을 설게한 헤르조그 & 드 뮤롱의 디자인으로 준비중입니다. 여기에 사립미술관이지만 이미 2천여점의 작품을 소장한 소장가가 당대미술(CONTEMPORARY ART)관을 세운다니 말입니다.
여기서 유리가 유의해야 할 점은 유럽이나 인도의 미술관은 사립미술관이라 하더라도 철저하게 재단을 설립하고 모든 재산과 작품과 권리가 재단에 귀속되어 이사회를 중심으로 운영된다는 것입니다. 그리고 이사들은 사회공헌 차원에서 누구의 재단이 아닌 자신이 이사로 있는재단에 기부하고 기부 한 만큼 자신의 의지를 미술관 운영에 반영시킨다는 점입니다. 무늬만 사립미술관이 아닌 미술관으로서 공적인 성격과 비영리를 지탱해 나간다는 것입니다. 뉴욕의 모마(MOMA)가 록펠러가를 중심으로한 제벌 아주머니 몇 분이 시작해서 세계적인 미술관으로 키운 것 아닙니까.
이렇게 나라가 규모를 갖추어 가면 우선해서 미술관을 세우는 것이 순리인데 우리는 근대미술관 없이 "새로운 것, 빨리빨리" 라는 국민성으로 인해 현대미술과부터 만들어 놓았지요. 소장품도 제대로 없이, 근대미술품이 갖추어진 이왕가미술관 소장품을 박물관에 넘겨주면서 말입니다.
이제라도 국격을 생각해야 할 듯 합니다. 문화재를 지키고 고치고 다듬는 일도 중요하지만 문화재를 관리하는 사람들이 문화재를 볼모로 자신들이 문화재 대접을 받으려 해서는 않될 일입니다. 그런 점에서 기무사 부지에 미술관은 꼭 필요한 것입니다. 기무사 부지에 미술관을 원하는 사람들의 모임이 오는 9월 1일 월요일 오후 3시 30분에 사간동 입구 출판문화회관 강당에서 열립니다. 홈페이지도 곧 오픈 에정입니다. 이날 미술관을원하는 사람들이 생각하고 있는 미술관의 얼개가 공개 될 예정입니다.
관심을 가져주시기 바랍니다. 이제 격이 있는 나라, 품위가 있고 미래가 있는 나라에서 살고 싶습니다. 그리고 살아야 하지 않겠습니까. 관심을가져주십시요. 여러분의 관심이 나라의 격을 높이는 동력입니다.


A first for India: A museum of contemporary art
By Somini Sengupta | August 27, 2008

NEW DELHI: Anupam Poddar had a living room once. These days the sofa is shoved into a corner, and the rest of the big square space is taken up by a life-size model of an antique cream-colored Jaguar with a giant mechanical dinosaur mounting it from behind. On the dining table sits a row of exquisitely delicate sculptures made of human bone and red velvet. A video installation has found a home above a bathroom tub.
For Poddar, 34, buying art long ago stopped being a question of what to hang on which wall. Installations, many of them large and provocative, squeezed themselves into each room, across the garden, in the driveway and in every lavatory.

"It just took over my life. I had to throw out most of my furniture," Poddar confessed. "It became an obsession. The term hobby is too tame. It almost controls you."

The private obsession Poddar shares with his mother, Lekha, who lives downstairs, is about to become a public boon. What they have collected separately and together over the last 30 years will be exhibited in a new space in the suburb of Gurgaon, what will be, in effect, India's first contemporary art museum.
Spread over two floors and about 700 square meters, or 7,500 square feet, in an office tower, the Devi Art Foundation, as it is called, is due to open on Saturday, with an inaugural show of photography and video called "Still Moving Image." It features the work of 25 artists, a fraction of the roughly 2,000 contemporary pieces that make up Poddar's collection, along with an estimated 5,000 folk and tribal pieces, which are his mother's passion.
India is bursting with commercial art galleries, but Devi is poised to be what the Poddars' home has been for many years: a noncommercial, nonprofit exhibition space for contemporary art from India and the subcontinent. Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at Christie's auction house in London, described it as "a truly groundbreaking first for India."
In a way, Devi is the natural next step for a country awash in new wealth, soaring art prices and a prolific crop of artists and collectors.
A modern art museum is also under way in the eastern city of Calcutta. Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss architecture firm that built the Tate Modern in London, is designing it. Construction is to start next year, and the museum is to open in late 2013, said Rakhi Sarkar, a collector there and one of the driving forces behind the museum.
To be sure, there have always been art collectors in India, from erstwhile royalty to the old Indian business families like the Poddars. But the last decade of economic growth has thrust many new buyers into the art market, spurred on by art funds that invest in paintings, and in turn sent prices shooting up almost overnight.
All the while, a handful of wealthy Indians have been collecting with serious, singular purpose. Harsh Goenka, who heads a family-owned conglomerate based in Mumbai, has a special fondness for portraits. Priti and Priya Paul, sisters who run the Apeejay Group of businesses, have built on their family's collections: Priti's passion is video art, while Priya's is popular art like old calendars, advertisements and film memorabilia.
The birth of the Devi Art Foundation signals a sort of turning point in the Indian art scene, in that it opens up a private family trove to the public and is devoted entirely to contemporary art.
The Poddars are known in the art world here for their daring eye, for seeking out artists before they start fetching high prices or become recognizable names at fashionable Delhi dinner parties. Poddar scouts art college graduations for new talent, though it must be said that many of the artists he sought out years ago, like Subodh Gupta and Sudarshan Shetty, are now among the most recognizable names at those fashionable parties.

"While most collectors in India still 'buy with their ears,"' said Peter Nagy, a transplanted New Yorker who runs the Nature Morte gallery here, "the Poddars have always listened to their hearts and brains and have never been afraid to be independent in their choices."

Poddar, whose day job is running an upscale hotel company, admits to being inspired by his mother, who began collecting modern and folk art several decades ago. Except that the work his mother sought out, including pieces by the post-Indian-independence generation of artists known as the Progressives, did not resonate with the son. He gravitated toward artists of his own generation.

"Their vision of India was similar to mine," he said. "It was being part of this - I hate this word - global world. It wasn't just India. It wasn't so isolated. They were working with sculpture, installation, with new media."

His first acquisition, in 1999, was a life-size pink fiberglass cow by Gupta. "It was quintessentially Indian but modern in its essence," he said. "That's what spoke to me."
The obsession flowered quickly. Each room became a gallery devoted to one artist. Bharti Kher's work now takes up his mother's bedroom, including an elephant covered in squiggly, sperm-shaped bindis, which Indian women use as adornments on the forehead.
The Jaguar-dinosaur in the living room is a 2006 piece by Shetty that Poddar describes as "an overgrown toy." With the flick of a switch, the dinosaur's heart throbs and it mates with the Jaguar.
Art, Poddar is fond of saying, is something you have to live with no matter how provocative. "You can't avoid it. Also, it's not safe."

The government-run National Gallery of Modern Art, which has sites here and in Mumbai, only rarely shows contemporary work. At Devi, the schedule next year includes a show of Pakistani art and one of folk and tribal art from across India.

"There is no commercial angle," Mrs. Poddar said. "We don't have to be afraid."