Top 20 Asian artists June 2010: Art Radar Asia’s most-searched artists

TOP ASIAN CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS

In January this year, we published the article, “Top 17 Asian artists 2009: Art Radar’s most-searched artists“, listing Art Radar Asia‘s most searched for artists to the end of 2009. This was so popular with our readers that we have decided to publish these results again. This list below highlights artists searched for between 30 June 2009 to 30 June 2010.

Takashi Murakami

Art Radar Asia receives an average of 27,000 page views a month. Our readers come to us in various ways: via links from other websites, from Twitter, facebook and other social media, from our email newsletter, from word of mouth referrals and, of course, via search engines.

Many readers find us by typing a specific artist name into Google or another search engine and finding a story written or image published by Art Radar Asia. Our analytics package tracks these search terms for us and we thought you might be interested in this data, too. The search terms used by readers when finding each artist are varied. For example, common search terms recorded for Japanese artist Takashi Murakami included: “takashi murakami”, “murakami”, “murakami takashi”, “takashi murakami art” and “takeshi murakami”.

Art Radar Asia‘s 20 most searched artists – the list

We can’t claim that this list is a reliable proxy for the most-searched Asian artists on the Internet overall (take a look at our notes at the bottom of this article). However, we do think the list throws up some fascinating data, particularly when compared with the 2009 results.

1. Takashi Murakami – male Japanese anime painter and sculptor – 36,086  searches (34,000, December 2009)
2. Shirin Neshat – female Iranian photographer – 4,532 searches (2,200, December 2009)
3. Anish Kapoor – male British-Indian sculptor – 4,246 searches (3,500, December 2009)
4. Marina Abramović – female New York-based Serbian performance artist – 3,092 searches (not listed, December 2009)
5. Yoshitaka Amano – male Japanese anime artist – 829 searches (460, December 2009)
6. Cao Fei – female Chinese photographer and new media artist – 672 searches
7. Terence Koh – male Canadian-Chinese photographer, installation and multimedia artist – 634 searches
8. I Nyoman Masriadi – male Indonesian painter – 625 searches
9. AES+F – Russian photography and video collective – 521 searches
10. Hiroshi Sugimoto – male Japanese photographer – 503 seaches
11. Subodh Gupta – male Indian painter, installation artist – 417 searches
12. Ori Gersht – male Israeli photographer – 408 searches
13. Ronald Ventura – male Filipino painter – 393 searches
14. Farhad Ahrarnia – male Iranian thread artist – 377 searches
15. Farhard Moshiri – male Iranian painter – 363 searches
16. Jitish Kallat – male Indian painter – 329 searches
17. Gao Xingjian – male Chinese-French ink artist – 301 searches
18. Bharti Kher – female Indian-British painter, sculptor and installation artist – 270 searches
19. Shahzia Sikander – female Pakistani miniaturist – 264 searches
20. Zhang Huan – male Chinese performance artist – 237 searches

How has the top 5 changed?

As with the last list, published at the end of 2009, Takashi Murakami is still holding the title spot with more than 36,000 searches. This is compared with 34,000 in 2009’s list. Shirin Neshat and Anish Kapoor have switched places since the previous list, although the difference between their numbers is somewhat insignificant. Yoshitaka Amano is new to the top 5, moving up to 5th place from 6th place in 2009, perhaps due to the 2010 announcement that he has established a film production company called Studio Deva Loka, in addition to directing a 3D anime named Zan. These announcements followed a small solo tour of his artwork. Marina Abramović has surged into the top 5 this time around, particularly notable as she did not appear on the 2009 list. This is most likely due to her 2010 MoMA exhibition, “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present”.

Marina Abramovic, 'Happy Christmas', 2008, silver gelatin print, 53.9 x 53.9

How has the list changed since it was first published?

The following artists have returned since the 2009 list was published, but many have moved up or down by one or two places: Cao Fei (4, 2009); I Nyoman Masriadi (5, 2009); Ori Gersht (7, 2009); Terence Koh (8, 2009); AES+F (9, 2009); Ronald Ventura (10, 2009); Hiroshi Sugimoto (11, 2009); Farhad Moshiri (12, 2009); Subodh Gupta (13, 2009); Farhard Moshiri (12, 2009) ; Farhad Ahrarnia (14, 2009); Gao Xingjian (15, 2009); Jitish Kallat (16, 2009).

There are some new additions: Marina Abramović, perhaps due to her 2010 MoMA exhibition, “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present”; Shahzia Sikander, whose medium has recently become popular with collectors and critics and who has herself surged into prominence with a win at ART HK 10 ; Bharti Kher, whose works are currently auctioning for large sums; and Zhang Huan, who has had a number of permanent sculptures installed in US cities this year, and whose company designed the permanent public sculpture for the US pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

Only Chinese ink artist Wucius Wong doesn’t reappear. His surge in popularity in 2009 may have been due to the retrospective exhibition, “Myriad Visions of Wucius Wong“, at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Preferred media of most-searched artists: miniatures and performance art rising in popularity

Most of the arists work in various media but in this list we have tagged them with the media they are best known for. Six of the artists are known primarily for painting, compared with only five in the 2009 list, and once again, this list is dominated by photographers, new media artists and sculptors. Miniature painting and performance art seem to be new topics of interest for readers.

Artist Age

Most of the artists were born in the 1960s and 1970s, as you would expect for a contemporary art website.

Interestingly, Shirin Neshat (Iranian photographer), Anish Kapoor (British Indian sculptor), Marina Abramović (Serbian performance artist), Yoshitaka Amano (Japanese anime), all born before 1960, were listed as number 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively. Of course, due to their age and time spent working in the arts, they each have large bodies of work which are consistently being exhibited, collected and discussed.

Artist Gender

male 14 (13, 2009); female 5 (3, 2009); mixed collective 1 (1, 2009)

In the year to June 2010, there were more female artists on the list though men still dominated (approx. 75 percent). Those female artists who were on both lists appeared higher up this year than last.

Breakdown of artist nationalities

Chinese 4 (4, 2009); Indian 4 (4, 2009); Iranian 3 (3, 2009); Japanese 3 (3, 2009); Serbian 1 (not listed, 2009); Israeli 1 (1, 2009); Indonesian (1, 2009); Filipino (1, 2009); Russian (1, 2009)

As you can see, this result is almost identical to the previous result, with the edition of one Serbian artist (Marina Abramović, Serbian performance artist). Once again, artists from China and India are among the most searched nationality, despite fears the Indian art market would be slow to recover after the 2008-2009 global art market turndown.

Shahzia Sikander working on a mural in the USA.

Notes

This list is not a reliable proxy for the most-searched artists on the internet overall. Here is why: If we have not written a story on or tagged this artist, the search engines will not bring us traffic for this search term and it won’t appear on our traffic analysis stats page. As we have only been up for 18 months it is quite possible that we have not yet covered some higly-searched artists. And even if we have referenced an artist on our site and the artist is highly-searched, the searcher will not come to us unless we have a good page ranking for the story on the search engine.  For example if the story is, say, after page 4 of the search engine results, the searcher probably won’t find our story and will not appear in our stats. Despite these limitations the data is likely to be a reliable indicator for certain trends. Finally even if we have a story and the story is well-ranked, it may be that other stories on the same page are more alluring than ours and readers do not find their way to us.

KN/KCE

Related Topics: lists, from Art Radar

Related Posts:

• Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander impresses judges of SCMP|ART FUTURES at ART HK 10 – June 2010 – some great images of her work
• Peabody Essex Museum loaned 3 giants of contemporary and modern Indian art: Anish Kapoor, Francis Newton Souza, Paritosh Sen – June 2010 – discusses works loaned from the Ambani Collection
• Murakami’s Geisai Miami cancelled, Geisai Taiwan debuts this summer – October 2009 – Miami ditched for biannual Geisai art fair in favour of Taiwan
• Marina Ambrovic to perform at MoMA 2010 – video interview at Armory – August 2009 – an insightful interview with the artist herself
• Manga, ink and new generation Chinese – Top 10 shows in Hong Kong September 2008 part 1 – Saatchi Online – September 2008 – contains some information on Yoshitaka Amano

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more original data on contemporary Asian artists

Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander impresses judges of SCMP|ART FUTURES at ART HK 10

PAKISTANI AMERICAN ARTISTS ART PRIZES AND AWARDS ART HK 10

Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander, represented by London gallery Pilar Corrias, has been brought into spotlight on the stage of contemporary art after impressing the judges of SCMP|ART FUTURES at ART HK 10 and becoming the winner of the year.

Shahzia Sikander working on a mural in the USA.

Standing out among artists from sixteen galleries that have been set up for less than five years, Sikander won a cash prize and an opportunity to design the front cover of Post Magazine, published by the South China Morning Post (SCMP). According to SCMP, she has been praised by one of the judges, Serpentine Gallery co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist, for being a “very special artist” and a worthy winner.

Sikander’s I am also not my own enemy (2009) was exhibited at ART HK 10. It is a decorative work on paper made with gouache, hand painting, gold leaf and silkscreen pigment on paper.

Shahzia Sikander's 'I am also not my own enemy'.

Since graduating from the National College of Arts in Lahore for undergraduate study and the Rhode Island School of Design for master study, Shahzia Sikander has been “instrumental in [the] rediscovery, re-infusion, and re-contextualization of Indo-Persian miniature painting.” She has worked within a wide range of art genres including painting, drawing, animation, installation, video and film. She was named as an honorary artist by Pakistan’s Ministry of Culture and the Pakistan National Council of the Arts.

CBKM/KN

Related Topics: events – fairs, artist nationality – Pakistani, prizes

Related Posts:

• World’s top collectors and art professionals attend ART HK: a testament to fair’s growing importance – June 2010
• What did the galleries say about ART HK 10? Art Radar Asia speaks to 19 dealers – June 2010
• 15 artists in Hanging Fire, first show of contemporary art from Pakistan in US – video – January 2010
• Shahzia Sikander questions authority with new video art medium at Para/Site in Hong Kong – September 2009
• Asia Society brings historic show of Pakistani art to US Sep 2009 – August 2009

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more coverage on art fairs in Asia

Pakistani artist Shahzia Sikander at Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum New York to August 2009

PAKISTANI ARTIST MUSEUM SHOW

Shahzia Sikander Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection
On view March 20-August 31, 2009
Internationally acclaimed artist Shahzia Sikander will serve as the ninth guest curator of the “Selects” exhibition series devoted to showing the museum’s permanent collection.

Sikander will mine and interpret the museum’s collection and produce an installation of selected work. This exhibition will include a new work created by Sikander, inspired by Cooper-Hewitt’s collection. Trained as a miniaturist at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan, Sikander merges the traditional South Asian art of miniature painting with contemporary forms and styles. Her work explores the relationship between the present and the past and the richness of multicultural identities.

Works on view will include:

• More than 20 Jacquard-woven portraits of notable figures throughout history and George Augustus Sala’s “Panorama from the World’s Fair,” which explore the line between portraiture and caricature and the effects of time on the nature of satire and humor.
• Richly illustrated early 20th-century German medical illustrations by Friedrich Eduard Bilz, which unfold in multiple layers to allow further investigation of the human anatomy.
• Drawings and prints showing the grotesque and the hybrid nature of the human body, including an etching by Francisco Goya, “A Way of Flying.”

Highlight new work by Sikander

A highlight of the exhibition will be a new work by Sikander. Using the collections of Cooper-Hewitt and the Freer and Sackler galleries as inspiration, the artist will create two works on paper, which will be bound in the middle to imply an open book. The piece will combine drawing and printmaking and will include direct references from exhibition objects, further establishing connections between seemingly disparate works and providing new ways of looking at the collection.

Biography of Shahzia Sikander

Following her undergraduate training, Sikander received a master’s degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and served as a fellow of the Glassell School of Art’s Core Program in Houston and an artist-in-residence at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. She is a 2006 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship “Young Global Leader” award. Her work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions at such national and international venues as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the National Gallery of Canada; the Venice Biennale 2005; and, the Museum of Modern Art, Paris.

Visit the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Recent posts on events now, events coming, Pakistani artists, art in New York

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Best of Pakistani art in show Bradford, UK to July 2008

Ali Akbar, Accepted Religion

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Yorkshire Post

PAKISTANI ART to July 25th 2008. Pakistani art has a champion at Bradford University. Curator Alison Darnbrough has brought some of the country’s most important artists to England.
Alison Darnbrough readily admits that she was surprised by what she found in Pakistan’s art world.

Until a couple of years ago, the curator of Bradford University’s Gallery II had little knowledge of the Muslim country’s vast cultural wealth. However, her eyes were opened after she seized an opportunity to travel with Imran Khan, the legendary cricketer-turned-politician and now university vice chancellor, back to his homeland.

“I went there for the opening of Imran Khan’s new college,” says Darnbrough. “Because there is little tourism and people seem somehow scared or nervous about going there, I didn’t know what to expect, but I fell in love with the country.

“Arts life in Pakistan buzzing”

“If you travel around, and particularly if you go to Karachi, you find the arts and the cultural life of the country is buzzing.

“There are whole communities of artists working together – and the press is incredibly supportive of the arts, with dedicated publications covering all of the art which is exploding around the country.”

Art renaissance in Pakistan: First National Art Gallery opens 2007

Darnbrough was in the country just in time to catch the crest of the wave of an undeniable art renaissance happening in Pakistan. In August 2007 Islamabad, the capital, saw a long wait come to an end with the opening of the country’s first National Art Gallery.

Decades of political turbulence was finally overcome with the opening of the four-storey gallery in the heart of the capital city. It was a symbol of the country’s progress and a recognition of the existence of its many artistic communities.

When the gallery first opened, it featured the work of more than 100 Pakistani artists and inspired the latest collection being displayed by Gallery II at Bradford University.

Seven artists show calligraphy and miniatures

Sacred Marks, Sacred Space runs until July 25 2008 and features the work of seven Pakistani artists. Like most of the work chosen to launch the country’s first national museum, the exhibition is made up of calligraphy and miniatures. Darnbrough says: “In the Islamic world, calligraphy had always been both an art and an occupation and the pen of a calligrapher has been referred to as the ambassador of intelligence, the messenger of the thought, interpreter of mind and sometimes referred to as ‘music for the eyes’.

“The skill, control, focus and devotion of the artist gives calligraphy an unusually sacred and meditative feel where both the surface (space) and the image (marks) attain sublimity due to its often spiritual content.”

While calligraphy was praised in the Islamic world, paintings were less so. This is because the religion forbids depictions not only of Allah and Mohammed, but of human figures.

Revival of miniatures in 1980s

Darnbrough says: “While calligraphy was always practiced by artists, miniature on the other hand, which borrowed from many central Asian and Chinese sources, was gradually pushed to the periphery during the British Raj, so much so that it was practiced by only three or four important artists until its revival in the 1980s led primarily by miniature maestro Professor Bashir Ahmed. I met him through Marjorie Hussain, a British journalist who lives in Pakistan. When I saw the paintings he was producing, I knew I wanted to bring it to Bradford.” Ahmed’s work featured in an exhibition at the gallery in December and he has supplied a number of the artists from his college for the latest exhibition Sacred Marks, Sacred Space.

“The links we have built with Pakistan through Imran Khan have been fantastic, and to be able to bring the art work being produced in the country to Bradford, really is quite special,” says Darnbrough. “Before I went to the country, I thought that Islamic art was very traditional and that work being produced in Pakistan probably would not be all that exciting.

Contemporary themes: Japanese anime to child abuse

“The artists we are bringing here have produced some incredibly exciting work. Amna Hashmi is an artist who tells stories of mythical Pakistani heroes, but uses a style which is very inspired by Japanese anime.

“Another artist, Aisha Rahim, has produced paintings using hair, handprints and footprints and her work looks at the incredibly controversial and challenging subject of sexual abuse of children. This work is brave, important and fascinating art.”

Sacred Marks, Sacred Space runs at Gallery II, Bradford University, to July 25 2008.  For information on both call 01274 233137.

Related posts (in new window):

• Original article in Yorkshire Post
• More posts on contemporary Pakistani art
• Books, catalogues about contemporary Pakistani art to buy

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