IZO

News round-up

John Varoli/Bloomberg on the Macdougall results. Up on last time with records for Konchalovsky and Komar and Melamid.

A Shishkin made 7.8 million Swedish krone in Stockholm today (that's about $1.2 million, I think).

The Ukrainian curator Peter Doroshenko has been squeezed out of his job running the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (it's in England, for some reason) after a "staff mutiny" in the face of his management style and curatorial programme. Doroshenko also co-curated the Ukrainian pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale.

Ronald Feldman, New York's leading Russian art gallerist, seems to have bought some fake Pollocks.

Exhibitions of contemporary Russian art in Paris (scroll down).

Yuliya Shtutina (Lenta.ru, in Russian) casts an eye over the London sales. She points out the high prices for average paintings of "patriotic" subjects which, she speculates, may be gifted to the Russian government.

Pravda (in Russian) is anticipating a big financial scandal involving former Minister of Culture, now head of FAKK (Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography), Mikhail Shvidkoi.

News round-up

John Varoli/Bloomberg on the buyer of The Egg and Christies results, which at $81 million just topped Sothebys. If you think the top bidders are throwing their money around heedlessly, think again:

"Commercially, it is insane to pay more than 8 million pounds for this egg,'' said Andrei Ruzhnikov, a partner at Aurora Fine Art Investments, a fund owned by oil billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.

My comment about Bonhams yesterday was accurate as far as it goes, but they also sold 70% by value, which is not too far off Sotheby's and Christie's levels.

After considering the bidders, the widow of Dmitri Prigov has sold the rights to four novels to Irina Prokhorova's NLO publishing house.

News round-up

Christies sold the magnificent egg for £8.9 million to, I am told, a Mr Ivanov, of Moscow, who apparently runs a Faberge shop called, modestly enough, the Russian National Museum. He was probably buying for a client. A Goncharova still-life fetched £1.6 million plus premium, an Annenkov portrait £2 million plus premium, as I recall. It was a marathon sale lasting until about 8 pm; there is I think something vulgar and even disrespectful in the amount of art these auction houses are cramming into their sales.

Sotheby's totalled $80 million over two days. Bonhams sale a couple of days ago, I note, browsing through the catalogue, seems to have been more than 50% unsold. Malthusian economics kicking in here perhaps: the offerings on the fringe having expanded beyond what the market can sustain.

Later this evening I bumped into Norman Rosenthal, director of the Royal Academy, and asked him how he was getting on securing the masterworks for his upcoming Russian show. Everything's fine, he said, sounding a mite anxious.

Marat Guelman reports (in  Russian) that a number of Russian social organisations have written to Prime Minister Zubkov asking him to sack the director of the Tretyakov Gallery Valentin Rodionov in connection with the Sotsart affair: a reaction maybe to his lese majeste in suing the Minister of Culture. Guelman further regrets the defection (in Russian) of his young star Aleksei Kallima to the mighty Triumph Gallery, and adds piquant info about who is buying from Triumph. UPDATE: Marat seems to have deleted this post or put it behind lock-and-key.

A good Pavel Peppershtein slide-show, of the show at Ridzhina Gallery, at Art Times.

News round-up

As usual, IZO is first with the showbiz news ;)

John Varoli/Bloomberg on the Sotheby's evening sale results: over top estimate, so a very good result, but a fairly high unsold rate (I counted 14 lots, Varoli says 12, out of 57). Interestingly, the prices are now stretching even the oligarchs:

[Andrei] Ruzhnikov [a partner at Aurora Fine Art Investments, a fund owned by oil billionaire Viktor Vekselberg] said he only bought a "few things'' at the sale because he prefers to buy directly from owners because prices have become "too high'' at auctions.

Kommersant on Sunday's charity sale of contemporary Russian art; more info here in Russian. Price points: Zvezdochetov, 2007, $45,000; Shekhovtsev $4,000; Monastyrsky, collages, $15,000 each.

The day before yesterday Andrei Erofeev was interrogated by the FSB in connection with the show Forbidden Art. A third party tells me that he likened the interrogation by a young investigator, including allegations of anti-Russian activity, to something out of the 1930s.

Russian art round-up from Artnet.

News round-up

Rosbizneskonsalting (in Russian) has more on the Rodionov-Sokolov lawsuit. Sokolov does not intend to apologise for the accusation of corruption published in Moskovskii Komsomolets on 25 October 2007. It seems Sokolov's predecessor as Minister of Culture, Mikhail Shvidkoi, also took Sokolov to court: over allegations broadcast on 25 June 2005 of "bribe-taking on every floor" in the Ministry. An out-of-court agreement was reached.

Finissage today of a good retrospective exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery by husband-and-wife artists Olga Bulgakova and Alexander Sitnikov. Both have major works in the London Russian sales this week. It will be interesting to see how they and others of the 70s-80s generation "perform".

Price guide: A good 1-metre 1934 work by Vyacheslav Pakulin, offered to me at $140,000, was sold before I could get a look at it.

A petition in support of Andrei Erofeev. I've never met him, nor did I see the show he is in trouble for, but I added my name because I think people of art should stick together when basic principles are challenged; but it doesn't seem to be appearing; maybe the form can't cope with non-cyrillic characters?

News round-up

John Varoli/Bloomberg on the Christies and Macdougall Russian art sales. Alexis de Tiesenhausen's defence of his top-lot egg:

"Some say the Rothschild egg is not an Imperial egg, and so not worth the estimate we're asking,'' said Alexis de Tiesenhausen, head of Christie's Russian art department. "But I say, show me an egg with such impeccable provenance, one that has been in the same family for 100 years.''

NTV reports (with video; in Russian) that Valentin Rodionov is claiming a symbolic one rouble damages from Alexander Sokolov for the corruption slur.

Also from NTV: Norman Foster presents his project for reconstruction of the Pushkin Museum.

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The Moscow Times looks at the Shchusev Museum show by Alexander Brodsky, an architect much of whose work appears in art galleries.

Did you travel to the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya sale only to find it was cancelled on the eve? If so, it looks like Sotheby's might give you your travel money back.

Brian Droitcour looks at the role of Vasili Tsereteli, head of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

News round-up

The Kandinsky Prize finalists have been announced (in Russian). For the main prize: AES + F, Yuri Albert, Anatoli Osmolovski.

John Varoli/Bloomberg has a look at Sotheby's upcoming Russian evening sale.

The news of Tretyakov Gallery Director Valentin Rodionov's lawsuit with Minister of Culture Alexander Sokolov, reported here a couple of days ago, is now all over the net, with multiple reports in English, such as this from AFP.

NY curator Elena Sorokina hopes to bring a show called Sex and Work, looking at the sex trade in Eastern Europe, to London.

The President of Christies Europe says that Russian collectors have "excellent taste" (RIA Novosty, in Russian). This is maybe in contrast to the taste of collectors from other countries? Or because Sotheby's has said that Russian collectors have rubbish taste? Or because next week is the week of the Russian sales?

!

;) (in Russian)

Spy vs Spy, tipa

According to Polit.ru (in Russian) the director of the Tretyakov Gallery, Valentin Rodionov, has opened a lawsuit against Minister of Culture Alexander Sokolov. It relates to Sokolov's description of the recent Sotsart show in Paris as "Russia's disgrace" and the barring of multiple works from exhibition. UPDATE: according to some reports (e.g. Vremya.ru, in Russian), the essence of Rodionov's complaint is Sokolov's insinuation that the Tretyakov Gallery was in cahoots with commercial galleries, helping to increase the market-value of works by including them in the show.

Lazy day

At 04.45, lying in bed unable to sleep, I browse the New York Times from my mobile phone and read an article about the latest film by Julian Schnabel, which won first prize at Cannes. I am pleased Mr Schnabel's genius is being recognised, partly for his sake, partly for the sake of mankind, and partly because I own a couple of his paintings; I also read that the Museum of Modern Art in New York doesn't have a single work: shome mishtake, surely?

After breakfast I receive a text message from Moscow from perhaps the most brilliant woman in the Russian art world; it says simply "YOU'RE AN ANGEL". What did I do to achieve that? Well, all I can say is, it takes years of practice.

In the afternoon the superb young English artist Simon Cunningham calls to say that the Courbet exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris is the best show he has ever seen, period. I think about popping over tomorrow on the brand-new Eurostar line from St Pancras: 2 hours city-to-city; but then I remember that Paris museums are shut on Tuesdays.

This evening a friend of mine brings round two books by Nicholson Baker (The Mezzanine and The Size Of Thoughts) which I haven't read; they were being re-cycled by the Oscar-nominated writer Alan Bennett.

"Only connect", wrote E. M. Forster. Well, it's not too difficult these days: we're connecting all the time, whether we like it or not.

News round-up

A painting by Repin didn't make it to auction in Estonia last weekend because of customs' problems (Lenta.ru, in Russian). Not clear whether the problems were with Russian or Estonian customs.

Some Brillo boxes in the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, attributed to Andy Warhol, are fake. Apparently they were made three years after the artist's death for an exhibition in St Petersburg. No info is given about the exhibition in question, who commissioned the fakes, who perhaps sold them etc.

Alexei Breus writes on the art market in the Ukraine (in Ukrainian). And activists from the Eurasian Union of Youth have smashed up (in Russian) an exhibition at the Ukrainian House of Culture in Moscow of archival documents devoted to the famine in the Ukraine 1932-3; the activists blame the Ukrainian government for blaming the famine on Russia.

Eldar Ryazanov, director of Office Romance (on a straw poll, the most popular Soviet-era film of all) and several other hits, is 80. Here are a few musical clips.

On art and music

Gene Simmons, founder of KISS, considers the problems in the music business:

SO WHAT IF MUSIC JUST BECOMES FREE AND ARTISTS MAKE THEIR  LIVING OFF OF TOURING AND MERCHANDISE?

Well therein lies the most stupid mistake anybody can make. The most important part is the music. Without that, why would you care? Even the idea that you're considering giving the music away for free makes it easier to give it away for free. The only reason why gold is expensive is because we all agree that it is. There's no real use for it, except we all agree and abide by the idea that gold costs a certain amount per ounce. As soon as you give people the choice to deviate from it, you have chaos and anarchy. And that's what going on.

But of course gold is a physical commodity (although many who buy and sell it will never see or handle the stuff they're trading). And art is, too. In decades past the very thinginess of art made it seem a little clunky and anachronistic: from the beginning of the C20, if not earlier, many avant-gardists aspired to achieve in their work something like the condition of music. But in the digital age this thinginess, the irreducibility of art from physical object, has not merely saved it from market meltdown but given it a higher status.

Indeed

Igor Markin presents a huge pile of Russian art auction catalogues and wonders: Who will buy it all? Indeed. But maybe someone will. At Phillips de Pury contemporary art sale on 15 November, a painting by the sole Russian representatives, Vinogradov and Dubosarsky (below), painted in 1996, reached $181,000.

News round-up

An exhibition at the Manezh for 107-year-old satirist Boris Efimov (Moscow Times review; Lenta.ru slide show).

Marat Guelman today confirms (in Russian) my report a couple of days ago on the search of Andrei Erofeev's office.

The works detained for weeks at Russian customs en route to Shkola Gallery have been released.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a season of film and video by Central Asian artists, curated by Viktor Misiano.

A survey of post-Soviet-Empire art in Eastern Europe.

A digital library of Staliniana.

And: the art-boom's demise may have been exaggerated.

News round-up

Marat Guelman is unhappy (in Russian) with his landlords at Vinzavod; seems like rent increases, service charges etc are being introduced now that the place is a success.

One source tells me that the Tretyakov Gallery office of Andrei Erofeev, organiser of the Paris Sotsart show, was searched recently by the FSB in connection with an earlier show he curated, Forbidden Art. However, there doesn't, on a cursory search, appear to be any confirmation of this in the media.

Today I visited the Kandinsky Prize show at Vinzavod. To an extent it seems like a pr exercise, designed to ingratiate the prize with as many different parties as possible: a large number of artists have been invited (far more than, for example, the 5 or 6 on the Turner Prize shortlist) and the net cast wider than the usual suspects represented by the other usual suspects (gallerists Guelman, Aidan, Ridzhina, XL). My choices would have been different, but it's a very handy survey of recent Russian contemporary art.

Sitting up until past 1 am to attempt to buy the painting below by Julian Schnabel at Christies, I realise that the Moscow-NY time difference is probably one important reason why the Russian sales in NY don't do as well as those in London. I was tempted to forget the whole business and go to sleep.

Russian textiles for the Asian market

A new book from Abrams. Apparently this is the collection of one of the authors, Susan Meller.

Trouble at customs

$20 million of art being imported by Shkola Gallery has been delayed at Russian customs for weeks:

"We know very well who is behind this, and it has nothing to do with trying to prevent art from entering Russia,'' [Andrei] Eremin said. "It has to do with competition on the market of transporting artworks,'' Eremin said, declining to elaborate.

Meanwhile, a cloud still hangs over the Royal Academy's planned show of early C20 Russian and French masterpieces (the London Evening Standard today also reported at length on the lack of guarantees acceptable to the Russians, but I can't find the article on the net).

News round-up

Sophia Kishkovsky on VDNKh today.

There is a suspicion that documents at a forthcoming (29 November) Christies' sale were stolen from the Russian state military archive (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

A retrospective of Turner Prize winners will be brought to Moscow in February by the Tate Gallery (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

The debate between French novelists Michel Houellebecq and Frederic Beigbeder at Vinzavod was, according to RIA Novosti (in Russian), a "fiasco". The two "opponents" apparently drained a bottle of vodka together and their answers to questions eventually became "incomprehensible".

A Russian film, Konstantin Lopushansky's version of the Strugatsky brothers' Ugly Swans, has won first prize at the Ravenna Film Festival.

Art boom goes bust?

Sotheby's NY sale flops. The auction house has ended up owning a $30+ million Van Gogh it guaranteed. An auction house "guarantee" seems essentially equivalent to a purchase, although it comes into effect only as a fall-back when a work is unsold - but with a difference that is very much not in the auction's favour. When a dealer makes a purchase, he of course takes the risk that he won't be able to sell on, but if he does sell on then all the upside/profit is his. But in the case of an auction guarantee, the vendor still benefits from all the possible upside above the guaranteed purchase price. What is more, the auction may be left not merely with an unsold painting but with a very publicly unsold painting.

UPDATE: Sotheby's shares drop 28%. And part of the problem seems to be the guarantees:

Some dealers pointed to the flat sale as evidence that the boom in art prices was coming to an end. There are also concerns over the level of price guarantees that Sotheby's has offered to sellers.

News round-up

Irina Kulik (in Russian) on the Kandinsky Prize exhibition; there's a little 5-image slideshow.

RBN offline. Will my spam decrease?

And LJ user viketz reminisces about her job at the Markin Museum (in Russian).

Blavatnik thinks big

The Russian-born art collector plans to buy the most expensive condo in New York.

The Russians are not coming?

Portfolio.com on Tuesday's Christies' sale in New York:

At the final counting, despite the dollar’s record low against the euro yesterday, Americans bought half of the works on sale, Europeans 24 percent, and Russians a nearly nonexistent 1.5 percent (although that still might represent the biggest single purchase). Six months ago at Christie’s, it was almost exactly the opposite: Europeans and Russians—the groups were not broken up—bought half of the works on sale, Americans 29 percent.

News round-up

Well-known French novelist Michel Houellebecq is in Moscow seeking funding for a film, writes Kommersant (in Russian).

The exhibition of nominees for the Kandinsky Prize opens to the public tomorrow at Vinzavod.

The Historical Museum will be given additional accommodation, increasing its size from 20,000 to 40,000 sq m (RIA Novosti, in Russian).

Yuri Gagarin's daughters have won a court battle to prevent the name of their father being used in a film they object to. The daughters claim that the film, hitherto entitled Gagarin's Grandson (this name presumably now in doubt, because the court has also prohibited the use of Gagarin's name in the title of the film), paints a false picture of their father (in Russian).

Writers on ZhZh

Below the cut, a list (in Russian) of writers who have blogs on LiveJournal, compiled by LJ user avmalgin.

Top-lots in Moscow

36 top lots in Sotheby's  upcoming London November sales will be on display in the Historical Museum, Moscow, from 9 November (RIA Novosti, in Russian).

Appreciation

The appreciation in the price of this book doesn't lag far behind that of the art it describes! Once upon a time it was available for about $55 on Amazon.

Come to my Yaguar.

I'm told this is where everyone keeps up with ze trendz. So. Listen to latest Moscow It-Boy Peter Nalitch. He's not a Balkan minstrel, nor a Latino lounge-lizard. Just a humble Russian internet phenomenon. First concert in Apshu club on 9 November (you can't buy tickets, you have to queue up on the night).

Inappropriate?

Artist Dmitri Vrubel has had a very good year: successful shows in Moscow and at FIAC, and shortlisting for the Kandinsky Prize (UPDATE: and his blog is to come out as a book). But he seems agitated that his well-known work, an image of Brezhnev and Honecker in a kiss, first painted on the Berlin Wall and later embodied I believe in oil-on-canvas, is the subject of repeated acts of appropriation, as they say. Here for example he compains Once again they've pinched my picture and sold it (in Russian). But... didn't he himself appropriate the image from some press photographer or other?

Catalogue elbow

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and Russian art auctions. Three fat catalogues from Sotheby's, two from Macdougall, looking forward to Christies and Bonhams: lots of bed-time reading. I see one work so far that has passed through Matthew Bown Gallery.