Asian artists overwhelm Artprice list of top ten artists under thirty

EMERGING YOUNG ASIAN ARTISTS

The “Alternate-Friday Top Series” is a series of lists, produced fortnightly by Artprice, which provide artist ranking on various themes. The September 10^th edition lists the top ten artists aged under thirty that have achieved the highest auction results in the first half of this year. Asian artists overwhelm artists from other areas and we name them here.

Artprice has listed ten artworks by eight artists, Peng Si and Kao Yu appear twice in the list, and of those ten, nine have been created by artists from Asia. The number one spot, however, goes to an artwork by American Dash Snow.

As Artprice summarises, “What do these artists from such different backgrounds and cultures have in common? They have all managed to carve a place in the art market before reaching their thirtieth year, have all exhibited their work in numerous exhibitions … and all have plenty of potential to continue their artistic careers.”

Peng Si (ranked 2 and 3 out of 10)

Peng Si, a Chinese artist based in Beijing, holds second and third ranking, with Portrait of a Man in Red (2006) and Portrait of a Man in Yellow (2006) which sold for USD51,359 and USD48,791 respectively at Christie’s May 2010 sales in Hong Kong (Asian contemporary art). Peng Si produces oil paintings that have a dreamlike quality, mixing classical Chinese imagery, while equally expressing a unique modern value.

Peng Si, 'Portrait of a Man in Red', 2006, oil on canvas, 188 x 118 cm. Image taken from artnet.com.

Erinç Seymen (ranked 4 out of 10)

Erinç Seymen, a Turkish artist who lives and works in Istanbul came fourth. His Untitled (2010) fetched USD32,306 at Sotheby’s in London in April’s sale (2010). The work combines car paint, aluminium, steel and fibreglass and represents a pink butterfly with a body in the form of a grenade. Untitled (2008) and Civilian (2006) bear the same pink tonality.

Yang Na (ranked 5 out of 10)

Chinese artist Yang Na’s Gold Coined Hibernation (2008) (acrylic on canvas), sold under the hammer for USD31, 381, at 33 Auction in Singapore in May, 2010.  Yang Na is part of the new wave of artists that grew up during rapid economic expansion in China, becoming exposed to a technological world of new media. The art communicates the artist’s experience of this technology and media.  She often creates simplified characters, with exaggerated features that lie between the metaphysical and irreality.

Yang Na, 'Gold Coined Hibernation', 2008, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm. Image taken from artnet.com.

Kao Yu (ranked 6 and 9 out of 10)

Chinese artist Kao Yu, takes third and ninth place in the rank, Love Tear Gas (2004) fetched USD30,217 in June, 2010 at the Shanghai Hosane Auction Co. and Ultimate Taste of Capitalism (2009) fetched USD23,038 in April, 2010 at Phillips de Pury in London.

Zakaria Ramhani (ranked 7 out of 10)

Zakaria Ramhani, a Moroccan artist holds seventh place with Faces of the Other (2008) that fetched USD30, 000 at Christie’s April, 2010 sale in Dubai. Living and working in Tangier and Montreal, he uses his mother tongue and the language of the Other, French. Moving between speaking the two languages  inspired him to create visual and audio portraits. The portraits explore human identity, investigating issues of self and other by establishing a dialogue between painting, writing and sound.

Zakaria Ramhani, 'Faces of the Other' (2008), acrylic on canvas, 240 x 200 cm. Image taken from http://www.menasart-fair.com.

Noriko Yamaguchi (ranked 8 out of 10)

Noriko Yamaguchi, a Japanese artist, holds ninth position in the rank. The three telephone girls Keitai girl suit 3 (old model) Keitai girl suit 4 (silver) Keitai girl suit 5 (white and red) fetched USD25 679 in Christie’s Hong Kong in May, 2010. The “Keitai Girls” are futuristic archetypes that explore the future development with the human body and its interaction with technology.

Ariadhitya Pramuhendra (ranked 10 out of 10)

The final artist on the list is emerging Indonesian artist Ariadhitya Pramuhendra. Memorable 2 (2008) fetched USD21,827 in May, 2010 at Christie’s in Hong Kong. The charcoal portrait on canvas reflects his continual questioning of his religious, social and art world identities.

AN/KN/HH

Related Posts:

• Sotheby’s Hong Kong presents results of autumn sale of Southeast Asian paintings – October 2010 – relays art auction results Sotheby’s Hong Kong
• Australian modern and contemporary arts gain momentum: top five auctioned works listed – September 2010 – discusses Australian top five auctioned works
• A testimonial for Chinese Contemporary art – Art Radar Speaks with Weng Ling – August  2010 – new Chinese artist’s cross-disciplinary bio art
• Top seventeen Asian artists 2009: Art Radar’s most-searched artists – January 2010 –  on top Asian contemporary artists
• What are latest trends in Chinese art, who are the top two emerging artists? Melissa Chiu video – February 2009 – on Chinese art trends

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Central Asian art joins mainstream market – Eurasianet

Metal Truck Caravan Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek

CENTRAL ASIAN ART

The strong presence of Central Asian artists at recent art fairs and exhibits in New York is helping to underscore the fact that the region has joined the mainstream of the international art market reports Eurasianet.

A special exhibition titled Given Difference at the Asian contemporary art fair in New York in November featured six artists from Kazakhstan, Georgia and Turkey.

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan was represented by two rising stars of the Central Asian art world — Erbossyn Meldibekov and Almagul Menlibayeva.

Menlibayeva videos punkshamanism

Almagul Menlibayeva’s works attempt to distill traditional practices, ideas and imagery into a contemporary art form. Often described as punk-shamanism, Menlibayeva’s videos are theatrical and laden with complex references — from tribal symbolism to images of the communist industrial past.

A New Silk Road installation view

One of Menlibayeva’s videos shown at the New York art fair — Headcharge — is a story that casually begins in a restaurant in the city of Almaty and gradually slips into a disturbing ritual performed by the female protagonists. The video shows several urban young women eating a sheep’s head and feeding each other, thereby underscoring the juxtaposition of traditional nomadic beliefs with today’s urban lifestyle. Step by step, the film gives way to a parallel reality, referring to shamanistic travels between worlds.

Born and raised in Kazakhstan, Menlibayeva currently lives and works in Berlin and Amsterdam. Art curators say she often depicts the cultural and spiritual traditions of her native country as erotic and strongly feminine dream sequences.

Menlibayeva’s second film, Kissing Totems, is a surrealistic journey inspired by her childhood memory of walking past Soviet factories, seeking the help of a shaman to cure her mother’s severe illness. With what seems to be the clear influence of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s enigmatic style (particularly the bleak interiors of Stalker), the split-screen video follows a girl, accompanied by her mother, entering an abandoned industrial complex filled with birds. The video then takes a surreal turn when she encounters female-like creatures, called peris.

Meldibekov: photographs of leaders and Peak Communism

The other Kazakh artist presented at the Asian art fair, Meldibekov, explores the question of belonging, but through a different prism. His series Family Album (made together with his brother Nurbossyn Oris) are historic photographs of groups of ordinary people — families or friends — posing in front of a public sculpture of their country’s leaders. Each old picture shot during the Soviet period is matched by a newer one of the same people at the same spot but with a different sculpture behind them — a change in the figure with whom they are associated, determined by the state and history.

Meldibekov looks at the figure of the leader as fetishized by ordinary citizens. He also shows people as if both empowered by virtue of proximity to the great leader and the due diligence of paying homage to him.

Meldibekov has recently begun a series entitled Peak Communism which was also featured at the New York Asian Art Fair. The artist inverts cheap metal pots and bowls and moulds their tops to show their shapes as different shapes — such as Communism Peak, Lenin Peak and Peak of the Pioneer.

Kyrgyz art: video and photography at Winkleman New York

Elsewhere, an exhibition of Kyrgyz artists Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev, entitled A New Silk Road, is on display these days at the Winkleman Gallery in New York City. The show runs through January 10. A series of photo images and a 5-channel video, shot along the highways and small villages connecting China through Kyrgyzstan to Europe, capture the determination and resourcefulness that define this mountainous and economically impoverished region and provide snapshots of how local and global economics are intertwined.

• Eurasianet for more
• Winkleman Gallery for A New Silk Road images and artist bios
• To represent Central Asia and the Caucasus in 2008 Shanghai art fair Best of Discovery, curator Sara Raza has alighted on the work of the outlandish Kazak performance artist Erbossyn Meldibekov and also on the emerging Georgian artist Sophia Tabatadze (see post click here)

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