We came to the price: how much does modern Russian art cost
Ceramic installation in the form of butchered fish, paintings of tablets and a vacuum cleaner as the basis of the bas-relief. The Catalog contemporary Art fair has started in Moscow for the fifth time. She brought together several dozen galleries, and by the present issue the number of participants has exceeded the beautiful figure of 50. At the same time, unlike the more pretentious autumn Cosmoscow Catalog traditionally focuses on inexpensive works. Paintings are sold here from 40-50 thousand rubles, while graphics are even cheaper. Izvestia evaluated the assortment and found out what was in demand among the first visitors.
Between the Kremlin and the Tretyakov Gallery
Initially, the fair was based in the former printing house of Sytin on Pyatnitskaya Street. One corridor was allocated to the galleries there, and it quickly became insufficient. Therefore, starting with the fourth issue, Catalog relocated to a large residential complex on Sofiyskaya Embankment, providing participants not only with enough space, but also an impressive neighborhood: if you leave the building, the Kremlin towers will be visible on one side, and the new Tretyakov Gallery building in Kadashi on the other.
Fortunately, this did not affect the democratic nature of art. As before, not only the rich are expected here, but also middle-income collectors. On some stands, prices are indicated directly on the labels, which is not very typical for large art fairs, where for some reason it is customary to be shy about the amounts and name them in a low voice. Maybe in order not to scare off potential customers right away? If so, then the indicated figures on Catalog, on the contrary, attract. For example, a small canvas by a promising artist from Novosibirsk, Vitaly Prostov, who creates spectacular bright semi-abstractions, will cost 55 thousand rubles. And minimalistic works by Elena Voronova from St. Petersburg depicting female figures are estimated at 40 thousand.
More expensive, but still quite expensive (by the standards of the art market) are the things of such famous authors as Konstantin Batynkov and Konstantin Zvezdochetov: the ironic painting by Zvezdochetov from the Zagranitsa series sells for 100 thousand, and Batynkov's elegant graphics "Horsewoman" — for 75 thousand. By the way, works on paper can be bought even cheaper. And, of course, such art is in demand. Sistema Gallery told Izvestia that on the first day alone (when they were allowed to attend the fair by invitation and accreditation) they managed to sell eight items of Georgy Khomich ranging from 20 thousand to 250 thousand.
Digital is out of fashion
And here's what's significant: Everyone has been talking about technological art for a long time, and there have been many optimistic predictions about NFT and other digital formats, but buyers still come primarily for works in traditional genres. This can be seen even from the assortment at the fair: the vast majority of galleries relied on canvases. Yes, there are also works in mixed media — when, for example, the artist uses an unusual base or, on the contrary, glues something unconventional onto the canvas.
So, Taras Zheltyshev turned ordinary pharmacy pills into artistic elements by attaching them to the image of a cartoon figure. It turned out to be a metaphor for a modern person who is dependent on pharmaceutical products. Vasily Kononov-Gredin created a kind of futuristic robot using a real vacuum cleaner. And Sergey Mironenko took wood and acrylic to build a kind of floor scales, only instead of a scale with kilograms, the slider balances between the past and the future. The E.K.Art Bureau gallery sold this item for 700 thousand rubles. Moscow conceptualism was and remains valuable.
One of the most notable and expensive works of this kind is an installation by French artist Elsa Guillaume, which is a table with ceramic objects laid out on it, imitating fragments of butchered fish. It is possible to become the owner of this "miracle whale" for 2.2 million, Izvestia learned. And, perhaps, it was this work that helped the Triumph Gallery, which exhibited it, to receive the award for the best booth of the fifth issue of the Catalog. However, there were other interesting objects in the same space: paintings by Gensu Ahn from the "The Night is Short" project, photographic objects by Dima Filippov, graphics by Nikolai Onishchenko, sculpture by Matilda Albui and the secret room with kinetic sound installation by Sergey Filatov.
Filatov's work, in which two glass balls suspended by strings are lowered onto a ceramic dish and extract a soft, delicate sound from it, is the rarest example of sound art on Catalog. No wonder: people don't buy such things to decorate an apartment or office, and it's not easy to store them. But Filatov is one of the most famous representatives of this genre in our country (right now his personal exhibition is being held at the Moscow Conservatory), the winner of the Innovation Prize, and the acquisition of his works is rather an image story, a sign of a serious conceptual approach to the formation of the collection.
The price of beauty
Large collectors, heads of private museum institutions, and ordinary viewers who come not to buy, but just to watch and wait for big names, also have something to occupy themselves on Catalog. Anatoly Zverev, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Mikhail Roginsky, Alexander Labas, Rustam Khamdamov, Sergey Bugaev-Africa… The list of stellar authors — both our contemporaries and those who have already passed away — is very impressive here. Labas and Khamdamov's drawings cost around 400 thousand, prices for Bugaev-Africa start from half a million (and there are already sales, Sistema Gallery told Izvestia), Yankilevsky and other nonconformists represented by large graphics are even more expensive.
Olga Chernysheva, a living author, fell into the same category. Her sheets sell for 600-800 thousand, and this is probably the result of two museum retrospectives at once: last year at HPP—2, this year at AZ/ART. Such projects immediately increase the commercial potential of the artist. Chernysheva, by the way, could be seen at more than one booth. In addition to pop/off/art, which sells unique works, we found a whole wall of her prints in the PiranesiLab space: they are all included in the Book of Seasons portfolio box. A set of 26 sheets with a circulation of 30-60 prints is estimated at 1.35 million.
The fair will be open to the general public all weekend, and although its main purpose is commercial, for ordinary art connoisseurs who are not engaged in collecting, this is a chance to see a cross—section of modern Russian art and understand "where the wind blows" in the art environment. It's safe to say that we still have a lot of talented authors and they have a lot of imagination. And to what extent this art is consonant with the present day and whether it fully expresses our era is an open question.
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