How to run an art gallery successfully: The Galleri Kaya way

Among all of the occupations in the world, running an art gallery to make a living in Bangladesh is not a wise idea. Unless you are already very rich with a love for art, you would run into financial trouble within a few months. Because despite its economic progress, Bangladesh still does not have an art market and the cost of operation of such a gallery in Dhaka can be punitive. 

But artist Goutam Chakraborty is one of the few people who has been professionally running an art gallery, "Galleri Kaya", for almost two decades now. Dhaka has a handful of private galleries—the oldest being Shilpangan, followed by Chitrak, Bengal and recently Edge galleries. In between, some galleries were launched and then after a few years, shut down.

So how did Goutam manage to run his gallery for 19 years successfully?

It started when he moved into his own house in Uttara sector 4 back in 2003. He used to make a living as a freelance painter and also ran a small advertising firm named Karukrit. Occupying the second floor of this two-storey building, Goutam was looking for a tenant for the ground floor for several months—but could not get a suitable tenant.

"The house building loan instalments piled up over the next four months because I could not rent the floor out. I had to do something. Then one evening, while walking through the vacant ground floor—I suddenly looked at the empty walls. It seemed like they were waiting for paintings to be hanged," says Goutam.

"I was suddenly excited by the idea. Then my family encouraged me with the idea. I was born into an artist's family (his father is eminent artist late Devdas Chakraborty) and I knew all the artists. So within a few days, I took the decision," he said.

Then he calculated the possibilities and the hurdles of running a gallery far off from the heart of the city.

He began working on the interiors of the gallery in December 2003 and launched it on May 20 of 2004. At that time, installing air conditioners in each of the rooms of the gallery was a big deal in terms of cost. So his friends suggested he could either rent ACs or buy second-hand ones to save money. Plus, if the gallery does not work, his losses would be minimal.

But Goutam decided to be determined. "If I get into that kind of mindset, I would surely fail," he said. So he opted for new ACs.

"I had made a commitment to myself that even if I cannot sell a single piece of art, I would not shut down the gallery in the next 365 days," he said.

The main challenge was the drive from the city's hub—which had worsened over the years. But it was not a place anyone would ordinarily drive to any day even back then. To overcome this hurdle, Goutam consciously thought of putting interesting ideas in the exhibitions so that the audience would take the pain to come over.

The other challenge was to cover the cost of his house building loan repayments, the cost of electricity and staff salaries.

"I had a target of reaching the break-even point by three years," says Goutam, "I eventually made it within two years."

How was it possible?

"Absolutely with the support of the artists and a fleet of good friends and journalists who disseminated the information to my target audience," Goutam Chakraborty says, "I did not have any orientation to run a gallery. So I tried to learn new things and used my intuition in planning a show."

The first big impact Galleri Kaya had among art lovers was through an exhibition and an art camp with traditional artist Shombhu Acharya, who uses indigenous and self-made pigments and techniques to create his art, in 2006. It generated huge interest. "All the living masters back then participated in the art camp," he noted.

Galleri Kaya kept its focus on working with the forerunners and promising young artists all through its life. Along with art camps that generated a lot of artworks that Goutam would later exhibit, he also introduced art trips with artists in 2011. "The idea is to go to interesting places with a small number of artists so that they can mingle well with each other while creating art," Goutam said.

He organised 27 art trips in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and India, and also within Bangladesh. "These trips generated more than a thousand artworks by leading and upcoming artists," he added.
Over the 19 years, the gallery not only showcased very rare works of the late Murtaza Baseer but also of MF Hussain; plus it has projected at least half a dozen young artists who are now established ones.

But despite holding hundreds of exhibitions, Goutam still feels that the country lacks an active art market. "We feel that it is very urgent to get the younger generation active in the art market. We also need to have a secondary market where we can sell off our collections, with reasonable authorisation of originality," he opined.

"The government and non-government entities should encourage buying art and promote putting good works in public places," he said.

In the end, why should anyone buy art? Goutam says, "Because this symbolises your inheritance; this is the signature of your time and culture. Besides, this is an investment—as it is around the world for centuries."