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

Top 17 Asian artists 2009: Art Radar’s most-searched artists

TOP ASIAN CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS

We have been up and running for over 18 months now and we receive over 25,000 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 or image written by Art Radar. Our analytics package tracks these search terms for us and we thought you might be interested in this data too.

Wucius Wong

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 caveats below). However we do think the list throws up some fascinating data.

1. Takashi Murakami – Male Japanese anime painter and sculptor – 34,000 searches
2. Anish Kapoor – Male British Indian sculptor – 3,500
3. Shirin Neshat – Female Iranian photographer – 2,200
4. Cao Fei – Female Chinese photographer and new media artist – 550
5. I Nyoman Masriadi – Male Indonesian painter – 520
6. Yoshitaka Amano – Male Japanese anime artist – 460
7. Ori Gersht – Male Israeli photographer – 380
8. Terence Koh – Male Canadian Chinese photographer, installation and multimedia artist – 340
9. AES+F – Russian photography and video collective – 320
10. Ronald Ventura – Male Filipino painter – 280
11. Hiroshi Sugimoto – Male Japanese photographer – 260
12. Farhad Moshiri – Male Iranian painter – 240
13. Subodh Gupta – Male Indian painter, installation artist – 210
14. Farhad Ahrarnia – Female Iranian thread artist – 180
15. Gao Xingjian – Male Chinese ink artist – 180
16. Jitish Kallat – Male Indian painter – 170
17. Wucius Wong – Male Hong Kong Chinese ink artist – 160

The most startling finding is the “‘winner takes all” phenomenon. Takashi Murakami searches are 10 times the second most-searched artist and more than 100 times most of the artists on the list. This correlates with some of the latest findings on internet searches which are tending towards an L shape ie  there are blockbuster categories and a long tail of niches in which a vast number of categories each receive very few searches.

I Nyoman Masriadi

The well-known book “The Long Tail”‘ first brought the long tail phenomenon to light and it was expected that searchers given the choice would no longer need to cluster around a blockbuster because that was what was most readily available but would be able to choose between a myriad of interest categories. The latest research is showing that the long tail is indeed happening but that the long tail is not diminishing interest in blockbusters, instead the long tail is taking away from the middle-interest categories.

This pattern seems to be borne out in our data.  This trend could have some profound implications for the way that artists are marketed in the future. Perhaps art galleries as we now know them will go the way of independent bookstores and publishers, unable to afford the marketing costs needed to create blockbusters and unable to sell enough in the niches to survive. We would like to hear more about your thoughts on this subject in the comments section below.

Farhad Ahrarnia, The Struggle Within

Preferred media of most-searched artists

Most of the arists work in various media but in this list we have tagged them with the media they are best known for. Only 5 of the artists are known primarily for painting and this list is dominated by photographers, new media artists and sculptors.  Chinese ink, thread and anime make intriguing appearances on the list too.

Age

Most of the artists were born in the 1960s and 1970s as you would expect for a contemporary art site. But there are some surprise appearances for 2 older artists Gao Xingjian born 1940 and Wucius Wong born 1936. What is even more interesting is that both of these artists are Chinese and work in the same, very national genre of ink. While new media dominates, the inclusion of traditional Chinese ink art suggests a countertrend in which historical media and disciplines are being appreciated by contemporary art enthusiasts.

Gender

Male 13, Female 3, Mixed collective 1

Farhad Moshiri

Breakdown of nationalities

Chinese 4, Indian 3, Iranian 3, Japanese 3, Israeli, Indonesian, Filipino and Russian 1 each

While it is commonly known that there is now great international interest in the Chinese, Indian and Iranian art scenes we were fascinated to note the high ranking of two painters from Southeast Asia: Indonesian artist I Nyoman Masriadi and Filipino Ronald Ventura.  The  Southeast Asian collector base is composed of a small group of prominent Indonesian Chinese businessmen collectors. Artists from Southeast Asia find themselves in a somewhat enclosed and isolated art scene and are rarely exhibited outside the region. We did not expect to see Southeast Asian artists achieving a high ranking for internet searches.

Yoshitaka Amano

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.

More recent lists: June 2010

Related posts:

• A common man uncommonly direct – Subodh Gupta in conversation in Hong Kong – Dec 2009
• Which 5 Indian artists would you dare to buy now? May 2009
• What are the latest trends in Chinese art? Who are the top two emerging artists? – Melissa Chiu – Feb 2009
• Female Middle Eastern artists trendy thanks to Shirin Neshat – Time Out – May 2009
• AES+F talks to the Art Newspaper about their meteoric success – Aug 2008
• Women emerge onto the Beijing art scene – Aug 2008

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for the latest trends in Asian art

56 artist show Iran Inside Out – Will election unrest fan the debate about Iranian contemporary art?

IRANIAN CONTEMPORARY ART EXHIBITION US

New York’s Chelsea Art Museum is holding its “groundbreaking” exhibition Iran Inside Out (26 June to 5 September 2009) which features 35 artists living and working in Iran alongside 21 others living in the diaspora.

We are promised a “multifarious portrait of 56 contemporary Iranian artists challenging the conventional perceptions of Iran and Iranian art”. However, do not be at all surprised if unfolding events in Iran and the very art itself will result in heated debate and deep schisms about this interpretation.

Pooneh Maghazehe, Hell's Puerto Rico Performance Still, 2008 copyright artist

The debate was ignited by ‘Unveiled’, a show of Middle Eastern art (half of it Iranian) at The Saatchi Gallery London in the early months of this year. The exhibition garnered plenty of critical attention but strongly divided views were expressed about the success of the organisers’ claim to overturn the cliched idea that the Middle East is synonymous with violence and intolerance.

According to Henry Chu of LA Times , “Unveiled is an exhibition which offers an alternate vision: the Middle East as a source of lively, stimulating contemporary art — informed by conflict, certainly, but not consumed by it.” Nonsense, says Dorment in The Telegraph who claims the show is replete with references to bombs, religious police and the denigration of women.

This debate will be fanned anew by recent political disturbances in Iran. Relations between foreign powers and Iran are now severely strained following the disputed re-election on 12 June of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Click to browse Iran Inside Out catalogue

“Iran has repeatedly accused foreign powers – especially Britain and the US – of meddling after the 12 June election, which officially handed him a decisive victory” says the BBC while The New York Times gives us a specific quote:

President Obama, who made his most critical remarks of the Iranian leadership on Friday, when he called the government’s crackdown “outrageous” … said the prospects for a dialogue with Iran had been dampened.

…“Didn’t he say that he was after change?” Mr. Ahmadinejad asked. “Why did he interfere?”

Unfolding political events will challenge the New York show’s curators, artists and museum staff and test their courage. Even before the protests, in reference to Iranian art in ‘Unveiled’, the Guardian was saying:

It is still amazing how far into politics this art bravely goes and it is no overstatement to speak of bravery in this case. One of the artists represented here, who lives in Tehran, is muffled in the gallery’s publicity shot to conceal his identity. Another, the prodigiously gifted Tala Madani, has escaped Tehran for Amsterdam but still refused to have her face revealed in a photograph. Guardian

The museum’s website raises the interesting point – and this is perhaps the nub of it – that artists in the diaspora and at home in Iran choose different forms of expression:

Ironically, contrary to one’s expectations, the artists living abroad often draw more on their cultural heritage, while those on the inside focus more on issues of everyday life without much regard to what ‘the outside’ views as specifically Iranian references.

But, whereas the museum’s writers see the focus of home-based artists on the  ‘everyday’ as an act of choice, there are some who suggest it is an act of self-preservation. Time will tell whether the description of this show will be excoriated like that of the catalogue description of ‘Unveiled’:

In her catalogue introduction to .. ‘Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East’, Lisa Farjam airily dismisses European perceptions of the Middle East as a place synonymous with political oppression, religious intolerance, and terrorism as unthinking ‘clichés’ that prevent us from understanding the richness and diversity of Muslim societies.

All I can say in response is that the artists in this show profoundly disagree with her sunny take on this part of the world. The evils Westerners see from a distance are the everyday context in which many of these painters and sculptors make their work – and it was precisely to escape repression at home that so many of the best of them now live in New York or Paris.

Their art isn’t (like so much Western art) about consumerism or celebrity or art itself; it’s about suicide bombers, religious police, unending war, and the denigration of women in Islamic societies. While I admit I was surprised that those still working in Tehran feel able to treat the subjects of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics without risking imprisonment or death, among the photos of the artists displayed at the end of the show, I noticed that one, who still lives in Tehran, has taken the precaution of wearing a balaclava. Telegraph

Related links: Exhibition description on Chelsea Art Museum site

Catalogue

In a still unusual and much-appreciated move, the museum has put the show’s catalogue online. It is a glorious glimpse of a very active art scene. Text and works by artists sit alongside interviews with collectors and galleries. Buy the ‘Iran Inside Out’ catalogue here.

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Inside Iran (35)

Abbas Kowsari, Ahmad Morshedloo, Amir Mobed, Alireza Dayani, Arash Hanaei, Arash Sedaghatkish, Arman Stepanian, Barbad Golshiri, Behdad Lahooti, Behrang Samadzadegan, Bita Fayyazi, Daryoush Gharahzad, Farhad Moshiri, Farideh Lashai, Golnaz Fathi, Houman Mortazavi, Jinoos Taghizadeh, Khosrow Hassanzadeh, Mahmoud Bakhshi Moakher, Majid Ma’soomi Rad, Mehdi Farhadian, Nazgol Ansarinia, Newsha Tavakolian, Ramin Haerizadeh, Reza Derakshani, Reza Paydari, Rokni Haerizadeh, Sadegh Tirafkan, Saghar Daeeri, Shahab Fotouhi, Shirin Aliabadi, Shirin Fakhim, Siamak Filizadeh, Siavash Nagshbandi, Vahid Sharifian

Outside Iran (21)

Ala Ebtekar, Alireza Ghandchi, caraballo–farman, Darius Yektai, Kamran Diba, Leila Pazooki, Mitra Tabrizian, Nazanin Pouyandeh, Negar Ahkami, Nicky Nodjoumi, Parastou Forouhar, Pooneh Maghazehe, Pouran Jinchi, Roya Akhavan, Samira Abbassy, Sara Rahbar, Shahram Entekhabi, Shahram Karimi, Shirin Neshat, Shiva Ahmadi, Shoja Azari

Related posts:

• Myanmar artists explore new media, produce courageous art – Apr 09
• Historic show documents development of Cambodian art – Forever Until Now – Mar 09
• Review round up – Saatchi Middle East show Unveiled – Feb 09
• 28 Iranian women artists in 3 decade survey Masques of Shahrazad London – Feb 09
• Gender examined in Pergamon museum of Islamic art’s exhibition of Iranian contemporary art – Aug 08

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for Middle Eastern art news

Female Middle Eastern artists trendy thanks to Shirin Neshat – Time Out

Shirin Neshat Women Without Men

MIDDLE EASTERN ART BEIJING

Shirin Neshat Women Without Men Faurschou Gallery Beijing to January 18 2009

As unlikely as it seems given the current political climate, many people in the art world are now asking: is contemporary Middle Eastern art the next big thing, reports Time Out Beijing.

The present boom is founded on the unprecedented exposure that Islamic culture has received since September 11, as well as the influx of cash from Arabian royal families and governments into new art fairs and museums. However, even trendier than contemporary Middle Eastern art are female Middle Eastern artists, and photographer Shirin Neshat is a big contributor to that.

Neshat has been a resident of the United States for over twenty years, but has returned to visit her family since the 1990s when political conditions improved. In these visits she has maintained a relationship with the Eastern world and witnessed her country change from the progressive political and social system imposed on her country to the present theocratic regime.

‘For me one of the principal challenges,’ Neshat says, ‘is to imagine how the artist who is an immigrant to another country and who is immersed in the characteristics of another culture, can create works that contribute to a broader and more tolerant dialogue.’

Shirin Neshat

For her first exhibition in China at the Faurschou gallery, the 51-year-old will explore the themes of human passion and desire through the conditions of women and religious codes in contemporary Muslim society.  She will show her monumental film opus Women without Men consists of five video installations based on Shahrnush Parsipur’s banned book by the same name. The novel is set in 1953, the year when the democratically elected Iranian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, attempted to avert a coup mounted by American and British forces who wanted to reinstate the Shah as an absolute ruler in order to avoid the nationalisation of the country’s oil industry.

The first thing that will strike you hopefully is a sigh of relief and then, perhaps, a cause for celebration as your faith in art is renewed. The standard at 798 will have been raised once again both in terms of the level that art can effect you and in terms of gallery presentation.

Time Out Beijing

In article in Time Magazine, she was quoted as saying that she seeks to “untangle the ideology of Islam through her art,” and this exhibition, the artist’s first in China, will present five films that reinterpret the lives of five Iranian women in 1953, the year the democratically elected prime minister was overthrown by an American-supported coup d’etat. More than a discussion of the events of this important year in Iranian history, the videos document the personal trials of women living within strict societal restrictions about religious, sexual and social behavior.

Redbox Review

• Faurshou Gallery , 798, until Jan 18
• For in depth description of film see Women without Men on Artintern
• Interesting interview with Shirin Neshat about how she was inspired to make Women without Men and discussion of her other video works on kopenhagen.dk

Which artists from Asia are in the Pompidou Centre’s collection?

Cai Guoqiang

 

 

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Helpful sources of objective and rigorous judgement, museums  provide an independent voice in an art world populated by more unscrupulous personalities and poor research than is ideal.  But how can we find out what the top museums are acquiring and what they are holding in their storage rooms?

Public institutions are often happy to share this information if you give them a call though of course this is not necessarily the case with private museums. Some institutions are now giving the public digital access to their entire collections and the Pompidou Centre is one of these. Its collection comprises over 61,000 works by more than 5,500 artist around the world making it the largest collection in Europe of modern and contemporary art.

The collection is dominated by French works (24,000) and there is a substantial group of US works (9,000) with the bulk of the remainder coming from Europe. It seems that the Pompidou has been active in acquiring Chinese, Indian and Iranian works recently. We have made a list of links to some Asian artists’s works in its holdings:

Chinese modern: Zou Wou-ki, Walasse Ting, Xu Beihong and a number of other 1930s born artists

Chinese contemporary: Cai Guo-qiang, Kai Cui, Georgette Chen, Chen Zhen, Cui Xiuwen, Fang Lijun, Huang Yong Ping, Li Yongbin, Liu Wei, Wang Du, Wang Jian Wei, Wang Jin, Weng Fen, Yan Lei, Yan Peiming, Yang Fudong, Yang Jun, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhang Huan, Zhang Peili, Ming Zhu.

Hong Kong: Man Ip

Yuki Onodera

Shadi Ghadirian

Indian: Subodh Gupta, Ansih Kapoor, Sonia Khurana, Satyendra Pakhale, N Pushpmala, Raghu Rai, Amar Sehgal, Tejal Shah, Bethea Shore, Velu Viswanadhan

Indonesia, Cambodia catogories contain works by Europeans rather than by native artists

Iraq: Jananne Al-Ani, Abraham Habbah, Jamil Hamoudi

Iran: Jalai Abbas, Nasser Assar, Shadi Ghadirian, Ghazel, Abbas Kiarostami, Nathalie Melikian, Shirin Neshat, Serge Rezvani

Shirin Neshat

Israel: Most works Ron Arad furniture design

Japan: 16 pages of works including 1960s photography and architectural works and furniture from 1960s to 1980s, Yayoi Kusama, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Rika Noguchi, Yoko Ono, Yuki Onodero, Hiroshi Sugimoto

 

Thailand: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

For more on museum collections, private collectors, corporate collectors

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for news about collectors of Asian art

Iranian art market booms for younger artists – Artprice

Farhad Moshiri Eshgh

 

 

IRANIAN ART MARKET

“The vitality of the Middle-Eastern market is giving a number of young Iranian artists a healthy price index on the secondary art market” says Artprice’s online magazine Art Market Insight.

In October 2007, at only his second auction appearance, Christie’s Dubai generated a bid of $50,000 for a painting by Afshin PIRHASHEMI (born 1974) entitled Those Four Days.  Just a month earlier in Paris, Artcurial sold his painting Memory for 6,000 euros and by  April 2008 his triptych ‘Lonely’ created in 2005 commanded an astounding price of $110,000 at Christie’s in Dubai.

The work of two young Iranian women are beginning to command attention: Shirin ALIABADI and Shadi GHADIRIAN (born in 1973 and 1974 respectively) create works inspired by the challenges facing women. Shadi Ghadirian’s photos show veiled women with contemporary objects and her most famous piece, Stereo, sold for £9,000 (over $18,000) in 2007 at Sotheby’s in London.

Stimulated by developments in the art market infrastucture including the introduction of art fair, Art Dubai in 2007 and the appearance of auction houses (Christies 2006, Bonhams 2008), contemporary artists from Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon and Iran have seen increasing attention and price inflation.

'Iranian Contemporary Art' by Rose Issa - click to buy book

Shirin Neshat

and Farhad Moshiri are two artists who are now well known on the international art scene. Farhad Moshiri became the highest selling Iranian artist when his 2 metre high bronze work ‘The Wall (Oh Persepolis)’ fetched no less than $2.5 million at Christies Dubai in April 2008 trouncing its estimate of $400,000-600,000. Farhah Moshiri is best known for his jewel art pieces in which he covers objects or makes images with fine layers of gold or Swarowski crystals.

See (in new window)

• more art market news
• full story on Artprice site
• more Iranian art stories
• women and gender posts

Internationally known Asian artists’ collaborative art project in Laos ends after 4 years

Between 2004 and 2008, fourteen internationally renowned artists undertook residencies in Luang Prabang, Laos and developed art projects with local communities, including the Sangha (the Buddhist community of monks), artisans and students.

The artists were Marina Abramovic, Janine Antoni, Hans Georg Berger, Cai Guo-Qiang, Ann Hamilton, Manivong Khattiyarat, Dinh Q. Lê, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Shirin Neshat, Vong Phaophanit, Allan Sekula, Shahzia Sikander, Nithakhong Somsanith, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.

They created works ranging from photographic series to films to large-scale embroideries and collectively the project is titledThe Quiet in the Land: Art, Spirituality, and Everyday Life . These works addressed the tensions between cultural traditions and the financial temptations of tourism.

The Quiet in the Land: Art, Spirituality, and Everyday Life is the third project of The Quiet in the Land, a non-profit organization founded by the contemporary art curator France Morin.

Morin founded The Quiet in the Land in 1995. Previously senior curator of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York she had organized a series of provocative exhibitions in search of a way of working differently. Liberated from the constraints that come with working in an institution, she hoped to open up new spaces for bringing art and life together.

Particularly interested in investigating the spiritual nature of art and its potential for transformation, it was no surprise that the first project of The Quiet in the Land was a collaboration with the only active Shaker community in the world, located in Sabbathday Lake, Maine; and the second a collaboration with Projeto Axé, a non-governmental organization that works with former street children, located in Salvador, Brazil; and the third in Luang Prabang, where the traditions of Theravada Buddhism permeate everyday life.

Dinh Q. Lê and Nithakhong Somsanith, who is a descendant of the Lao royal family and one of the only surviving practitioners of the traditional Lao courtly art of gold- and silver-thread embroidery, developed a series of large-scale gold- and silver-thread embroideries on Lao natural-dyed silk, a medium that has been in decline since the abolition of the monarchy in 1975.

The challenge was how to invest this medium with new relevance to contemporary social realities. One of the works they created, Inner Self and Outer World (2005), addressed this challenge by juxtaposing images of twenty satellite dishes mounted on tall poles, arrayed in a staccato rhythm, like notes on a sheet of music, across a greenish-gold field, with images of three meditation huts, clustered to the left.

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba created a film, The Root, the Ground, and the Air: The Passing of the Bodhi Tree (2007), in collaboration with fifty students from the Luang Prabang Fine Arts School, which explored the challenges faced by the young people of Luang Prabang as the pace of economic change accelerates, forcing them to choose between the past and the future.

In the film’s most dramatic sequence, a flotilla of fifty boats motors down the Mekong River each with an art student who balances at the helm of the boat before an easel, trying to paint or draw the landscape as it slips by. As they approach the Bodhi Tree (the species of tree under which the Buddha attained Enlightenment) of Vat Sing, a monastery outside of Luang Prabang, some of the youths jump out of their boats and swim toward the tree. By contrast, others float by without stopping.

Source Asia Art Archive
For full piece plus images http://www.aaa.org.hk/newsletter_detail.aspx?newsletter_id=514

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Iranian artist Ardeshir Mohasses in New York show to August 3 2008

 

 

 

 

Art and Satire, Asia Society

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IRANIAN ARTIST SHOW NEW YORK  ASIA SOCIETY — To Aug. 3 2008: “Ardeshir Mohassess: Art and Satire in Iran.”

The exhibition, guest curated by Shirin Neshat whose photographs are well known in the West, focuses on monochromatic ink drawings by Mohassess who was born in Iran  and now lives in New York.

The drawings were created between 1976 and 2000, and are divided in two sections: before and after the 1979 revolution that instated the theocracy. Mohassess started to draw and illustrate while in Iran, but the political and social commentary in his work attracted the eye of the Shah’s secret police and he had to leave Iran, choosing to remain in the United States after 1979.

See:

• More about show on Asia Society website
• Catalogue of show in Art Radar Amazon store
• More posts on Iranian art

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