Art Dubai 2009 – who sold what to whom? 15 galleries talk to Art Radar

MIDDLE EAST ART FAIR

Which artists were favourites? 15 exhibitor galleries talk to Art Radar in the final day of the fair about sales, attendance and some new collector trends.

Summary:

• Middle Eastern collectors showing first signs of interest in East Asian art
• Pieces in the price range US$20-30000 sell best
• Sales down compared with last year; booths have mixed results
• More art fair visitors from institutions
• Russian collector base changing

Set out below is a round-up of comments from a selection of galleries participating in the fair.

Triumph Gallery – Russia

Ruth Addison: “The fair is going OK rather than fast in terms of sales but it is great in terms of contacts and opportunities. Some of our artists have been invited on residencies. We did not expect too much because of 1) the recession 2) Russian artists are new to the Middle East and 3) this is the first time for Triumph at the fair. Most interest has been shown in AES+F.”

Aidan Gallery – Russia

Aidan Salakhova, Director: “Sales have been slower, much as we expected. We have sold 2-3 pieces. We may come back next year but we don’t plan to attend any art fairs in the next 5-6 months. We were the first private gallery in the USSR when we opened 17 yeas ago. In Russia now there is so much change happening to the local collector base, many people are losing money and other new collectors who are making money – perhaps from the government – are entering the market and replacing them. Our aim is to survive the next couple of years and wait for the market to settle”

Grosvenor Gallery London

Connor Macklin “The fair has been better than expected for us. The mood is different this year but we have made sales in the range of US$2,000 to US$100,000 per piece”.

Haunch of Venison – London, Berlin, Zurich, New York

Adrian Sutton, Senior Sales Director “We have had a successful fair. We have sold one piece and are close with two other pieces and if they come off, sales ( of Indian artist Jitish Kallat and Wim Wenders ) will be over a quarter of a million US dollars in total.”

October Gallery London

Elizabeth Lalouschek Artistic Director: “We have found that there has been more interest in larger works. We have sold 10 works with prices varying from US$2,500 to US$90,000 including two El Anatsui works. This fair we have noticed more of an international attendance and more museum directors than in previous years. Perhaps this is because the art fair is being held at the same time as the Sharjah Biennale.”

El Anatsui at October Gallery

Mario Mauroner Vienna Austria

“This is our third time here and it has been very quiet. Most interest has been shown in Barthelmy Toguo from Cameroon. We did well at Bologna and Arco so Art Dubai has been disappointing . But we set up in 1972 and have survived recessions dating back to the 1973 oil crisis so I don’t doubt we will survive this too.”

Galerie Kashya Hildebrand  Switzerland

Kashya Hildebrand “This is our third trip and we are very happy because members of the Royal Family have bought Asian art for the first time – a Korean artist….a major development.

There is a also a group of serious Dubai-based Iranian collectors who come to the fair. They take their purchases very seriously, pore over the pieces, ask lots of questions and return each day. Last year this group also began to buy Asian art for the first time which is very exciting.”

Korean artist Ran Hwang purchased by Royal Family

Galerie Volker Diehl Moscow, Berlin

Monica F. Eulitz International Director:  “The fair has been very well attended and we have seen buyers from the entire Gulf region this year not just local participants. We have sold a few pieces in the US$20,000-30,000 range.”

 Kalfayan Galleries  Greece

Roupen Kalfayan: ” Sales have been so-so but it has been wonderful for contacts. Business is slower than last year. This is our second year.. We have had a lot of interest in the Syrian photographer Hrair Sarkissianwho will be exhibiting at the Istanbul Biennale. He started to receive attention from collectors last year and we have placed his work with European collectors at the fair this year. Also Tarek Al Ghoussein.”

B21 Dubai

Tessa de Caters: “We have made some sales and the video and digital Iranian artist Leila Pazooki has been receiving attention.

Pyo Gallery  Korean

Jeong Yim Gho, Chief curator “It is slow compared with last year. Last year was pretty good but not this year though we have made a few sales in the US$20-30,000 range” Most interest was shown in Park, Sung-Tae.

Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul

Kim Jyon director “This is our first visit and sales have not been good. U Fan has sold and there has been a lot of interest in Lee Lee Nam but no sales yet of this artist’s work.”

Aicon GalleryNew York, Palo Alto, London

“Sales are reasonable but much slower than last year”

Bodhi Art Mumbai

Puneet Shah Asst Gallery Manager: “It has been slow fair for us. We have made no sales. The artist which has attracted most attention is Subodh Gupta.

Edwynn Houk Gallery New York  US

Edwynn Houk “This is our first year and we have made a good beginning. We have sold 6 pieces, all photographs by Lalla Essaydi. We have found that Western artists seem to have less resonance with local collectors this year but perhaps interest will develop over time. We would like to come back to Art Dubai”

Related categories: art fairs, Middle Eastern art, collector news

Related posts:

• Review round-up Saatchi Middle East show Unveiled: which artists are critic favourites? March 2009
• ARCO Madrid 2009 news round up – galleries drop out, public funding prop provided Feb 2009
• Which artists from Asia are in the Pompidou centre? – Dec 2008 – Iranian and Iraqi artists have been added recently
• The Dubai art market and its future – Nation, Guardian – Nov 2008

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Russian billionaire collector Mikhelson continues support for art despite downturn – Bloomberg

RUSSIAN ART COLLECTOR

Varoli reports on Bloomberg that Leonid Mikhelson is sponsoring a display of 30 works by 20th-century Russian master artist Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, many of which are well known to the public.

Billionaire Leonid Mikhelson’s company OAO Novatek is sponsoring Russia’s first exhibition of a state museum’s works by a private gallery, with a display of 30 masterpieces by the 20th-century master Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

Russia’s second-biggest gas producer is making history 534 miles southeast of Moscow at the Victoria Gallery in the Volga city of Samara. Patronage is aiding Russian culture despite the decline in economic growth, stocks and the ruble.

Some of the paintings, known to many Russians since childhood, show a Bolshevik leader dying on the battlefield and a peasant riding a red horse which sails off into the sky.

“Novatek doesn’t abandon friends in hard times,” Vladimir Smirnov, Novatek’s vice-chairman, said in an interview. “We will continue to finance exhibitions at leading Russian museums.” The pieces are on loan from St. Petersburg’s State Russian Museum.

Novatek’s  is also financing the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in June 2009.

The company is the main sponsor and has pledged 300,000 euros ($385,700). Mastercard Worldwide is another leading sponsor of the pavilion, while the Russian government pays about 10 percent of the costs.

“Without Novatek’s support, it wouldn’t have been possible to pull this off,” said Olga Sviblova, chairwoman of the Russian Pavilion. “Most Russian companies prefer to support classical art, not contemporary art.”

About Mikhelson:

Novatek Chief Executive Officer Mikhelson is a collector of Russian fine art. While he declined to comment about his collection, art dealers say he prefers 19th-century and early 20th-century Russian art.

Born in a town on the Caspian Sea in Russia’s republic of Dagestan, Mikhelson graduated in 1977 from Samara’s Civil Engineering Institute. Before helping to create Novatek in 1994, he spent most of his career building gas pipelines.

In April 2008, Forbes estimated Mikhelson’s fortune at $5.9 billion, and ranked him as Russia’s 27th richest person.

Source: Bloomberg

Related posts:

• Russian collector Zhukova shows 12 leading video artists on giant outdoor screen – Moscow Times, Reuters – Dec 2008
• Daria Zhukova’s Garage Center is temporary, New York Times wrong – Moscow Times – Nov 2008
• Russian new media artists at MOMA Moscow where interest in new media grows Sep 2008

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New fair in London to focus on Russian collectors – FT

ART FAIRS RUSSIAN

Another event is joining the already busy fair calendar, this time focusing on Russian art. The Russian Art Fair is planned to be held on June 6-9, at the same time as the Russian auctions, in the Jumeirah Carlton Tower hotel in London. The city is often dubbed “Londongrad” because of the number of Russian residents, including, of course, billionaire Roman Abramovich. But fair organiser Peter London says his event will target another group, the average Russian millionaire, who has been priced out of the upper end of the art market”. Prices at his fair, says London, will not be much above £50,000 and the 45 exhibitors will bring silver, Fabergé and jewellery as well as paintings.

See full article in Financial Times, latest news on art fairs, collectors, reports from London

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Asians, women show momentum and banks tumble in Art Review’s Power 100 2008

INFLUENCERS ART

Art Review monthly magazine has published its Power 100 list for 2008.  Produced annually since 2001 it is a ranking of the most influential participants in the art world and includes artists, gallerists, auctioneers and collectors.

Trends this year include

• Higher rankings and numbers for women in a market tradtionally dominated by men – Kathy Halbreich is first woman to appear on her own in the top 10. Ranked third, behind Hirst and gallerist Larry Gagosian, she is the newly appointed Associate Director of MoMA, New York.
• Tumbling influence of banks  – as the global credit contagion spreads, financial institutions take a tumble  with both UBS and Deutsche Bank, longtime key art sponsors, ranked 62 and 63 respectively in 2007, falling off the Power 100 in 2008. 
• Asian participants showing momentum or appearing for the first time.

Takashi Murakami (28), a superbrand not dissimilar to Damien Hirst’s model comes in at 61 places above his 2007 ranking for a year that saw a major exhibition of his work, including a Louis Vuitton store selling Murakami’s own branded products, travel across the US and draw record numbers of museum goers.

Ongoing artistic and financial strength in emerging markets has seen new listings for collectors Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova (54) and a strong rise by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang (69, from 99 in 2006), with first-time appearances by the Beijing-based Long March Project (93) and Delhi-based gallerist Peter Nagy (95).

 

Asian artists

• Takashi Murakami no 28 (Japanese) wiki site
• Ai Weiwei no 47 (Chinese)
• Cai Guo Qiang 69 (Chinese) wiki
• Subodh Gupta 92 (Indian)  pics
• The Long March Project 93 (Chinese) pics  site

 

Collectors from Asia

• Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan no 30
• Roman Abromovich and Daria Zhukova no 54

Asia-based gallerists

• Peter Nagy Artkrush interview

Entrants are judged on the following four criteria, each of which carries a 25 percent weighting.

1. Influence on art development: entrants must exert influence over the type, style and shape of contemporary art being produced in the previous 12 months.

2. International influence: as the list is international, entrants must exert influence on a global scale rather than as big fish in small-to-medium ponds.

3. Financial clout: entrants are judged on the extent to which they have shaped, moulded or dominated the art market, whether as artists, dealers or collectors.

4. Activity within the last 12 months: entrants are judged on having actually done something during the period September 2007 to August 2008. It’s not enough to sit on your powerful behind.

Russian art collectors are changing their tastes – New York Times

 

Dasha Zhukova, the new art

RUSSIAN COLLECTORS

Until recently, market experts say, the Russians were primarily interested in the decorative arts. In 2004, for instance, the Russian billionaire Victor Vekselberg spent $100 million for the entire Forbes family Fabergé collection. Then about five years ago, some of those Russian collectors widened their sights to mostly Russian-born artists, like Chagall. Since then, the tide has turned, said Joachim Pissarro, a great-grandson of Camille Pissarro and an adjunct curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Now they’re going outside of Russia, buying artists like Jeff Koons,” he said. “The pendulum has swung 180 degrees, with Russians becoming one of the most powerful forces in the market.”

Many of the newly rich Russians, including Abramovich the oil tycoon and his girlfriend Zhukova, now make their homes in London. The Russians generally do not support British cultural institutions and seldom attend gallery openings or auction house parties, but Zhukova is different. She has agreed to be a co-host at the Serpentine Gallery’s fund-raiser next month, and she is keenly interested in meeting artists.

Zhukova who opens a 92,000 square foot contemporary art space this September acknowledges being a relative art neophyte. “I didn’t study art history and don’t remember names of artists,” she said. “But if I like an image, I remember it.” Overnight, Zhukova’s new center and her connections, including a billionaire art-collecting boyfriend, have made her an art-world It Girl. Her fame at the age of 27 attests to the seismic effect that Russian money – in some cases Ukrainian or Georgian money – is having.

Zhukova is the daughter of Alexander Zhukov, a deputy prime minister who made his fortune in oil. Roman Abramovich has riveted the art world recently by paying top dollar for works by Francis Bacon, Giacometti and others. (Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at $23.5 billion this year, putting him among the world’s 50 wealthiest figures.) An oil tycoon turned investor who owns the Chelsea soccer team in Britain, the 41-year-old Abramovich is also a friend of the Kremlin. He recently stepped down as governor of Chukotka, an impoverished region in the Russian Far East that he successfully helped to revive through his vast wealth.

See (in new window)

• full story New York Times
• more posts about collectors
• more posts about Russian art

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Zhukova, girlfriend of Abramovich opens new 92,000 sf art space in Moscow 2008 – International Herald Tribune

Daha Zhukova, Abramovich

 

 

 

 

RUSSIA NEW CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE opens September 2008

Dasha Zhukova is to open a contemporary art space in the Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage, a giant red-brick Constructivist-era landmark near the Olympic Stadium in Moscow. Popular with architects the garage was designed in 1926 by Konstantin Melnikov.

“I thought Moscow should have a space like this for contemporary art,” Zhukova said. “There is a huge thirst for knowledge among the younger generation for contemporary art, but most of them learn about it by going on the Internet.”

Under its new name the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture this 92,000 square foot space will open next month and its first show will be a retrospective of the artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.

Zhukova herself acknowledges being a relative art neophyte. “I didn’t study art history and don’t remember names of artists,” she said. “But if I like an image, I remember it.”

Born in Moscow in 1981, Zhukova is an only child. Her parents divorced when she was young, and when her mother, a molecular biologist, took a job at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the early 1990s, they moved there. Zhukova spoke not a word of English. But she quickly adjusted, she said, attending schools in Los Angeles and then the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A year ago few people in the art world had heard of her.

Zhukova said she isn’t modeling the Garage Center after any specific museum. “I’m taking different aspects of different institutions that are inspiring influences,” she said.

Besides aid from Abramovich, financing is also coming from other private sources and corporations. Admission will be free.

After the Kabakov exhibition that opens next month, the Garage Center plans to exhibit works from the collection of Christie’s owner, the luxury goods magnate François Pinault, whose foundation is based in the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. Dent-Brocklehurst said she was considering commissioning artists to create site-specific works for the space, analogous to installations in the vast Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern.

Asked if the Garage would have its own collection, Zhukova said that would be many years down the road, if ever.”For now I’m trying to learn as much as I can to make up for my lack of art history,” she said. “The more I read, the more I realize what I don’t know.”

See (in new window)

• International Herald Tribune story
• Russians changing the art market
• Russian artists AES+F getting noticed
• more posts on collectors

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Fresh evidence contemporary art price rise is structural says FT

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Financial Times

MARKET NEW BUYERS MORE BUYERS The huge wealth from oil and mining in the Middle East and Russia is flowing into fine art, with a rush of new buyers entering a market that was already booming. 

The arrival of Russian, Middle Eastern and emerging market collectors has given fresh evidence to those who believe that the powerful rise in the price of artworks is structural rather than cyclical – reflecting a long-term shift to a truly global market supported by growing numbers of millionaires and billionaires.

 

Last high 1990 surpassed in 2007

Last year, the art market – as measured by proceeds for the top 100 artists sold at auction – in nominal terms surpassed the previous high set in 1990, according to data from Art Market Report. After a decade in the doldrums the market recovered sharply in 2003-04 and has been on the upswing ever since. The rise in the contemporary market has been especially strong, with prices up by 300 per cent in the past three years, according to Art Market Report’s Contemporary Art 100 index.

 

Doomsayers wrong so far

Doom sayers have been predicting a fall in art prices for the past two years. The high level of nervousness about the market was revealed last November, when shares in Sotheby’s plummeted 28 per cent in a day. The reason? The auction house had failed to sell a work by Van Gogh at its sale the night before. The share price has not recovered.

Many respected dealers and collectors believe the market has reached its peak. Eli Broad, the Los Angeles-based billionaire collector, has said several times that he does not believe prices will continue to rise.

One bearish New York-based dealer says: “Mark my words, the Russians will turn out to be the Japanese of the early 21st century.” During the last art market peak, Japanese property developers were famously among the biggest buyers, snapping up Impressionist works – they were especially fond of Van Gogh – only to offload them at much lower prices just a few years later when the Tokyo asset bubble burst.

 

Customer base from more countries now

The underlying support for today’s art market does appear to be much more broadly based. 

Sotheby’s points out that five years ago, its buyers who spent more than $500,000 on an artwork came from 26 countries. Today, buyers spending that level or more come from 58 countries. Last year, 21 per cent of buyers at its sales were new, the auction house says. Since few buy at auction only once, that means an influx of customers. Helena Newman, vice-chair of Impressionist and Modern art at Sotheby’s, says: “The whole make-up of buyers has changed beyond recognition from 10 years ago. Now we have a far bigger global reach. We are also seeing far greater demand for the very best works. Our big challenge remains the sourcing of works.”

Simon de Pury, who heads the Phillips de Pury auction house, echoes that trend, saying: “Five years ago, the market was concentrated in western European and American collectors, a small group of art cognoscenti. The Contemporary market was dominated by three countries – the US, the UK and Germany. Now we can see the change just in our website: the hits are coming from Brazil, Turkey, China, India, Indonesia, Korea.”

 

Change accelerated 2 years ago

Mr de Pury says the change accelerated two years ago. He predicts that Contemporary art will continue to grow in buyer popularity, in part because the sheer number of buyers means that demand for works from previous eras cannot be met. “It is a question of availability. If you have unlimited money, you can no longer buy the best Old Masters collection in the world. But you can buy the best collection of living artists. For that reason Contemporary art will be the most significant market for the next 20 years.”

 

New museums adding to demand

He adds: “In China, every new [top-end] real estate complex being built has an art museum. All these spaces need to be filled and that will keep demand high.”

Most Middle Eastern nations are likewise building art museums, with both a Guggenheim and a Louvre destined for Abu Dhabi, for example. These museums will start accumulating works to fill their vast spaces later this year. In the US, the home of most of the world’s billionaires, there is a growing trend for rich art-lovers to build their own museums rather than donate works to existing museums as used to be the practice.

 

More millionaires 

There are far more rich people in the world and they are simply far more likely to buy artworks. The number of millionaires in Brazil, Russia, India and China grew by 19 per cent last year, according to the World Wealth Report, released this week by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. The top 10 collectors in the world now include Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian steel billionaire, Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecommunications tycoon, and Qatar’s Sheik al-Thani, according to ARTnews magazine, which this week released its annual list of big spenders.

Art is also seen as a socially desirable channel for the wealth resulting from the 20-year growth in financial services. US hedge fund managers such as Steve Cohen have emerged as big Contemporary collectors. Ben Crawford, the chief marketing officer of MutualArt.com, says: “It starts with the wealthy and then there is a trickle-down effect. Look at the beginning of the century – who bought designer clothes? Tiny numbers of high-society people – but once they became available to more and more people, the buyers didn’t go back. The art buyers won’t go back to putting Star Wars posters on their walls.”

Image details: Eli Broad, art collector

See:

• Billionaires from Russia Middle East new in top 10 art collectors 
• How Russians, Asians are changing the art market

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