Recently, another “classic” story of the appearance of an unknown painting by Rembrandt’s hand happened on the art market. A Belgian from the city of Liege, who bought it for € 500 ten years ago, accidentally found out that she was Rembrandt’s hands and costs € 30 million.
Well, with Rembrandt's pricing, everything is more or less clear - his paintings have been presented in the collections of the best museums for centuries, units are in private hands, each painting has been carefully studied, so the appearance of any painting by an author of such a level as Rembrandt is a world-class event. And it will cost, if they prove its authenticity, will be a lot. But I did not want to talk about this, but about pricing in contemporary art.
I am often asked the question: “We see the works of contemporary authors, even living right now, of our contemporaries and peers (as a rule, from other countries), whose works already cost themselves quite a multiple of“ rembrands ”of money - tens of millions of dollars. But after all, even the highly valued Rembrandt began to cost 30 million only now, centuries after his death ?! And the works of modern authors are not so complicated in execution, how to draw a picture in the 17th century of such quality, having previously independently made paint and brushes. Many works by contemporary authors are indistinguishable from the same works by other contemporary authors. But the cost is different ... Why? ”
The fact is that modern dear artists also already exist in the same museums and are richly represented in many private collections and are sold at the same auctions - the art system for promoting the elect works like a clock, like a stock exchange (though not with us - our liberals who have privatized contemporary art, are not taken to prestigious fairs and are not showered with prizes at the Biennale).
There are names that the whole world reacts to as a slave to the civilization of consumption for Coca-Cola and Mickey Mouse. Such living superstars from world art market prices, champions among living ones, for example, are Damien Hirst and Banksy in England, Ai Weiwei in China or Takashi Murakami in Japan. Some of Damien Hirst’s works, for example, a diamond-studded human skull, reached a price of up to $ 100 million.
But these are common places, world quotes on Art-ok, but it’s more interesting for us to focus on the local art market, which is a deplorable sight against the background of the price distortion of Western colleagues.
The most expensive representatives of Russian contemporary art are divided into two small groups.
Moscow conceptualists grouping around dissident art-leaders like Ilya Kabakov. Which under the USSR illustrated pioneer newspapers and children's books about Lenin, and during perestroika they tore apart their party tickets and emigrated to the United States, industrially reproducing the aesthetics of communal cuisine as a mockery of the USSR (Russia). Experiencing his “injuries” from the “bloody Soviet regime” in his work, which apparently consisted of thousands of fees for illustrations to books about Lenin, a summer residence, an apartment, a huge workshop in the center of Moscow and other preferences.
By the way, the workshop of stingy Kabakov is still listed behind him. There now (of course, with the support of several foreign foundations) there is a certain Institute of the problems of contemporary art, where preachers approved by the sect of Moscow conceptualism are recruiting new adherents under the guise of talking about art.
All these long 70s, 80s, 90s, zero and 2010s were and remain well sought after in the West. Kabakov even became a real millionaire. Social artists Komar and Melamid, close to MK’s art dissident, also almost became, and Eric Bulatov also almost, but almost didn’t ...
If in MK the strategy is to bend to the West by depicting the horrors of Soviet reality, then, for example, the art groups AES + F or Resycle, which are extremely successful today on the planet, the strategy is to operate with planetary, global values and issues. Ecology, infernal capitalism, the impact of the media — successful domestic authors of 2000-2010 do not speculate on Brezhnev’s backwardness, dressing themselves up in its fragile rags, don’t calculate the percentage of Negro blood from Pushkin, like some left liberals from the “municipal contemporary art”, don’t set fire to the doors of the FSB but, having studied modern moves - from marketing to digital technology - they give out art of such quality and with such a universal presence that even critics cry and grit their teeth at their exhibitions, and foreign dealers earn dissolved artists millions.
However, the listed examples, strategies in the large art business, domestic (at least by origin) artists end. We see a large sect of Moscow conceptualism, but its followers of commercial success, close to Kabakov, are not close. Rather, it is a kind of gray pro-liberal mass, all of which is not financially multiple to him alone. But then the necessary dissidents were always willingly given and give grants, help with refugee status and welfare.
We see a lot of interesting domestic artists, but their prices, as a rule, do not exceed $ 100 thousand, but God forbid, they exceed 10. However, not all artists, dealers, curators understand how and what success consists of (and in including commercial success) of artists and art, they cannot think big, so the chosen promotion strategies do not work, and idealistic dreams are broken, a few investments are emasculated.
Domestic strategies with international success are either supra-patriotic or anti-patriotic, although, for example, in China, America, England and Japan this has not been noted. The fact is that our art market has not formed inside the country and therefore is not needed outside.
Due to the dominance of misunderstood liberal ideas in society, including in the solvent part, a biased attitude towards contemporary art has developed. Professionals who are engaged in its development are adherents of ideologically weak concepts and sects; for decades they have not been able to offer a viable agenda for the buyer of art within the country. And if they don’t buy something inside the country, then why will they buy it outside?
We need an internal market, but officials and businessmen do not want to buy homeless pictures for millions or nailed ones you know what the paving stones are ... Surprisingly, this is what is called fashionable in Russia by the BBC and CNN. In general, buyers try to stay away from all this “cutting of icons”, although there is already a wonderful project “After the icon”, which is being done together with the Russian Orthodox Church, there is activity in other art projects, but the overall strategy, common cause, necessary resources spent specifically Alas, not yet.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.