GOAN ARTISTS TAKE TO THE INTERNET TO SELL THEIR ARTWORKS
By Frederick Noronha

PANJIM : It's a showcase-in-cyberspace for artists from
the state.  Painters and artists from Goa will be able showcase
and sell their works through the Internet, with an ambitious new
arts site being put up by a German expatriate living in Calangute.

Rudolf Kammermeier (40), a classical pianist who runs an art-
gallery with his Goan wife Yolanda D'Souza says: "I have a
feeling the whole art business is gong to be played on the web in
the future."

He launched goa-art.com recently and already has 14 painters who
have hosted their works on the site. It is meant for both Goan
artists and those who hold exhibitions here.

Some of the artists on his site include Kambli, Ted Misquita,
Rajan Fulari, Querozito, Lizzy, Mohan Naik, Sonia Rodrigues and
others. "It is promoted by our gallery, but this is not a web-
site of this gallery," he said. "It is not meant to promote this
gallery."

His own gallery was started in 1997 on the road leading away from
the Calangute church, and has been picking up. In recent months
it hosted exhibitions by artists from Russia, France, the
Netherlands and Canada, even as parts of coastal Goa sees a
tourism-fuelled boom in the arts taking place.

Designed by Conrad Pinto of Panjim, the Internet site is to be an
'online gallery' to sell paintings and promote artists. Visitors
and browsers would be able to choose the art objects they wish,
priced at between US$100 to a steep $9000.

Artists would be charged a percentage of the sales, and the site
also hopes to encourage more writing on the arts, to give a boost
to this field.

"We want to cover whatever happens in the art world in Goa, and
publish opinions and reviews too," says Kammermeier. He regrets
that while there are people who can write on art, if they
criticise an artist it is not published as being seen as "too
harsh".

"Criticism is very essential for art. In Germany we have a lot of
art critics. Criticism is like the nourishment for art. Otherwise
it stagnates. Art without criticism will not grow, ust like a
tree which doesn't grow if it doesn't have the winds blowing
against it," says he.

"Building up art critics is one of the major idea of this site,"
says he.

He says Indian art sites on the Internet -- like artindia.com or
artindia.net -- are doing a good job.

Kammermeier says he "carried the idea in my head for two years".
He wanted to set up a catch-all, general purpose site possibly
called goa.de ('de' is the suffix for sites based in Germany).

"Unluckily or luckily that site was already occupied by someone
promoting Trance," says he. So he instead went up and set up a
niche site aimed at promoting Goan art.

He admits that most of his buyers in Goa too are foreigners, and
this would help since with art objects available for viewing on
the Internet, these would be accessible from anywhere in the globe.

But, he feels, artists in Goa should take advantage of modern
technology to promote and improve their work. "Only one artist I
know has access to e-mail," says he.

Kammermeier, who was a classical pianist and put up many concerts
in Germany besides composing songs for the theatre, was in Goa
for seven years. He comes from the southern German region of
Bavaria, from a town 100 kms away from Munich.

In Europe earlier, he ran an art centre for the performing arts,
with a restaurant. "We also did exhibitions, and so came in
contact with artists for 12 years," says he. One of his early
exhibitions was on computer-art, and sponsored by the German
giant Siemens.

Some time back, his gallery held a competition for students, in
which some 350 school students took part. He is currently trying
to arrange funding to pay for a scholarship, for a local student
to undergo art training.

Asked about his view of local artists, he said: "There seem to be
some exponents who have already crossed the line where art
begins. It's like in music. You practise like mad. And then,
there's a moment where you jump. And the music plays itself."