IZO

At his Friday night museum openings Igor Markin now spins vinyl (art4ru, in Russian).

New book: Global Art includes interviews with Oleg Kulik, Igor Markin, Marat Guelman (paris art).

I'm told some of the works in Sotheby's June contemporary Russian sale are from the Markin collection; I haven't checked this info. But it would tie in with the widely-held belief that he wants to sell the whole thing, notably, unsuccessfully, to Roman Abramovich. Sic transit gloria mundi. UPDATE: we are talking about lots 169 (Nesterova), 172 (Weisberg), 180 (Pivovarov), 190 (Lion) and 207 (Infante) (thanks, MK).

Interview with Igor Markin. Before the Crisis hit, he was thinking of selling his museum collection and buying "interactive" Western art, but the fall in prices has put paid to that idea. He is selling some work in Sotheby's contemporary sale in June. He slags off Roman Abramovich the collector ("he made the whole world laugh with his multi-million dollar purchases") and finds Goncharova's position as the most expensive female artist "laughable". And he considers himself a victim of the bubble (Art Times/Open Space, in Russian):

The autumn sales showed that the prices of top-lots have fallen by half and the cost of contemporary works by second-level artists (Shutov, Dubossarsky and Vinogradov) are an order lower, almost ten times lower. Soon realistic prices will be established and that will be good for collectors. The bubble of high prices is deflating and I deeply regret that I was a part of it.

You think you bought work for your collection at inflated prices?

Yes, in retrospect that's clear. Not much, but two or three works were bought for unjustifiably high sums.

Long TV interview with Igor Markin from November 2008. Interesting.

Interview with Tair Salakhov on the occasion of his 80th birthday Jubilee exhibition in the Ekaterina Foundation (Kommersant, in Russian):

It's said you hid your painting For You, Humankind! from Khrushchev's pogrom in the Manege. Is that true?

The picture was first shown on 12 April 1961 at a republican exhibition in Baku. I dreamed it up before Gagarin's flight by some kind of intuition or inspiration. And when it was selected for the All-Union show in the Manege in 1962 rumours began that the authorities were unhappy with it: flying figures with antique faces, naked to boot, where was the Socialist Realism? Where was Gagarin? When they said there was to be a review in the Manezh, I thought I better not let the Union of Artists down. I got some workers to take the painting off the stretcher - it was six by two metres - they rolled it up and took it away. ... Since then it's been in Baku. Aidan came to Baku, saw it in the store and said, "Papa, let's show it." I said, "Aidan, do as you wish."

And here reactions to the show (kotomish, in Russian):

The cloakroom attendants said this was the Foundation's most successful ever show.  For the first time there were no hooks left and people were queueing. They counted 1800 visitors. We counted more than 2000, because although the oligarchs left their coats in the cloakroo, the ladies wearing coats worth $10,000 or more didn't.

On the other hand, Igor Markin didn't like it (art4ru, in Russian).

One of the striking effects of the Crisis is the virtual closure of Igor Markin's museum. He has given an interview to Bolshoi Gorod on the near future (BG, in Russian):

We're going to drink cheap wine again, the sort of stuff a sane person is afraid to put in his mouth. We're going to visit basement spaces and drink all sorts of crap. That's what's going to happen. But that situation will pass, any crisis is temporary. ... I've suffered from the crisis. I'm not going to buy anything for at least a year. I'm already not buying, I'm paying my debts from the summer sales. ... my basic business, plastic windows, no longer pays me dividends, I'm having to sack people, cut production.

You too can vote in Igor Markin's You Are An Artist competition (art4.ru). I can't quite understand what Alexei Sundukov is doing there: he's been an artist for some time.

Igor Markin has his Snob club (IZO, earlier) membership card (art4-ru).

The Russian word on the streets of London is that Igor Markin's window-frame business has suffered in a big way from the economic downturn in Russia and this explains the virtual closure of his museum (IZO, earlier).

From the new year, Igor Markin's museum will be open only on Fridays 11.00-20.00 (art4-ru, in Russian):

More importantly, we won't have any exhibitions
it's not only a matter of money
mass-cultural events are not worth it at the moment

Why the about-face? Maybe he's upset by the collapse of the contemporary maket in London this week, with a corresponding fall, of course, in the market-value of his collection. It's his own money he's spending here: unless the expenses are underpinned by a perceived growth in the value of the collection, caution and retrenchment is understandable.

Igor Markin polls: should Marat Gelman have accepted a medal from Academy of Arts president Zurab Tsereteli? At time of writing, 72% say yes, 28% no (art4-ru, in Russian).

Igor Markin writes that despite 24 screws in her spine viketz (IZO, earlier) is in good spirits (art4-ru, in Russian). He also relates his crisis experiences: sacking staff from his museum (art4-ru, in Russian) (leaving, according to the comments, only two???) and this cautionary tale (art4-ru, in Russian):

my friends and I built a factory
a fine advanced factory
for the production of aluminium profiles
we worked at it for two years
invested money, fussed over it
we joined the market leaders
then I sold my share in the boom
for a pretty good price
and gave all the money to my wife a year ago
when we got divorced

she put it into shares
and lost nearly all of it

The celebrated and notorious blogger viketz, once an important figure in the admin of Igor Markin's museum, is in hospital after a car accident. She cornered badly, wasn't wearing a seat-belt, airbags didn't work; she has an injury to her spine.

Sotheby's (Kommersant, in Russian) and Christies (Kommersant, in Russian) both have pre-auction shows in Moscow. Igor Markin comments (art4-ru, in Russian)

Fuck
Free lunches for the business elite
are taking place these days in crisis-hit Moscow
this is how the Christies, Sotheby's and Dorotheum auction houses
are supporting their former clients

you won't believe it, yesterday i saw the billionaire Petr Aven there
just like I see you now
and even embraced him
we went to the metro together

today everyone's going to Sotheby's
I plan to photograph
the duck and red wine, to make you happy

The question to be answered is, are the recipients of the free lunches "former" clients or not?

On Igor Markin's blog today (art4-ru, in Russian):

yesterday I met an extremely serious man
who is also into contemporary art up to his ears
to such an extent that he's already buying a huge space in the centre of Moscow
30,000 m2
as a museum and exhibition space
in comparison with which the Garage seems like the childish amusement of a bored nymphette.
I'm not naming names yet
but it's turning into an epidemic.

Marat Guelman has apparently received death-threats from someone who figures in one of his diary posts (galerist, in Russian). Igor Markin has an idea who the aggrieved party might be (art4ru, in Russian); presumably his suggestion is based on an earlier post by Guelman which deals with the arrest of the former Moscow Region Minister of Finance, Aleksei Kuznetsov (galerist, in Russian).

Igor Markin says that soon everyone in Russia will be paying taxes, I think that's right. Apparently the new generation of collectors demands invoices, receipts etc from galleries where they buy. So the galleries will go legit. Markin also says (art4ru, in Russian):

But it won't save anyone
they'll be able to destroy anyone just like before
by checking previous years

Igor Markin denounces taste of Moscow city authorities, who have decided not to permit the installation of a statue to Yeltsin that he has commissioned (Artinfo).

A long video interview with Marat Guelman about the museum-funding question, the Erofeev affair and Olga Sviblova (galerist, in Russian). Meanwhile, on the Forbidden Art question, Igor Markin thinks that (art4ru):

Without a doubt the time will come when Erofeev will be asked to return to the Tretyakov Gallery on a white horse,
soon Rodionov will despatched on the heels of the former Minister of Culture Sokolov direct to Hell
very soon

The art-until-dawn event (доутрарт) last night produced a mass turn-out. Vinzavod was like a football stadium on big match day (Marat Guelman says, like Red Square on 7 November, Soviet era). I staged a strategic retreat to the guest-list-protected Triumph Gallery where I enjoyed a glass of champagne and looked at dark glistening paintings by Ukrainian Sergei Chaika. Then back into the fray. The crowd at Art4ru was spilling onto the streets; the intimate physical access Igor Markin allows to his art collection is remarkable: and as far as I can tell people don't abuse it. A lot of artists were out and about. A 3 am pot of green tea at Cafemania by the Conservatory set me back about 15 quid, I think.

Emilia Kabakov has sent a reply to the description by Igor Markin, one of the most important collectors of contemporary Russian art, of his visit (here on IZO, here in Russian on Markin's blog) and asked me to post it; I am glad to do so.

Dear Igor,

I am sorry you got sick. Not that I believe it. Or maybe you should drink less?

I just want to say that it's definitely not worth to show art to someone like you. You are not able to see it, not able to understand it, not able to appreciate it.  You only see dollars sign in everything.

Yes, we do big projects. Yes we participate in the competitions, but we never did anything for money. Public projects never have millions of dollars in their budgets.

And unlike you we do respect art, culture, other people. But then we work with people, with art, and with cultural institutions.

I hope you feel better.

Igor Markin visits Ilya Kabakov (art4-ru, in Russian):

A visit to Ilya Kabakov
Let's begin with this
that all evening I was sick from the fish
carefully prepared by Emilia Kabakova

(...)

before asking for $350,000 in sponsorship money
the Master's niece showed me what they are doing
tens of carefully-made maquettes for monuments and installations.
Their business today
is to take part in competitions
and carry out large scale projects
worth several millions of $, in the event of winning.
The projects aren't bad on the whole
but they are not made for the sake of creating a masterpiece
but for the sake of the winning itself.

Amongst what I saw:

1. Wings, like those in my collection,
they are made in a series (поточно) by two hired helps
it's hard to imagine what the total edition is.

2. In the store, several Stools, like the ones I have,
issued as an extra edition of 5, making ten in all, and maybe more.

(...)

They also promised to give a lecture at the Museum in August
- just don't get upset about the 350 thou.

UPDATE: I understand that the Kabakovs' recollection of this meeting is at complete variance with Markin's. UPDATE 2: Emilia Kabakov's reply to Markin.

The Moscow City Duma has turned down an application to install Dmitri Kavargi's monument to Boris Yeltsin on Lubyanka Square, describing the idea as "premature" (Lenta.ru, in Russian). Kavargi won a competition staged by Igor Markin's ART4RU museum.

Igor Markin has announced he is going to close his very entertaining LiveJournal.

The artist Lena Hades (Елена Хейдиз) is facing an internet onslaught, much of it anti-semitic, after the publication late last year on a LiveJournal site of a work that, she says, expresses "the essence of the Russian mentality". On the right of the picture is a prayer. On the left is an obscene statement. At the bottom is the phrase "Welcome to Russia". The work dates from 1999; it was recently bought by Igor Markin but he has removed it from his site and is downplaying the acquisition (Moskovskii Korrespondent, in Russian). In the art-historical perspective, Welcome To Russia is a work precisely evocative of its time: 1999: the end of the Yeltsin dispensation, the year of Avdei Ter-Oganyan's ill-fated performance involving the defacing of icons. No-one paid much attention to it then (I don't know if it was exhibited). Then it gathered dust in the artist's studio for eight years. It's a little surreal to find it surfacing now: it already feels like the artifact of another era.

Igor Markin has a post (in Russian) on how he bought his first Faibisovich (the poet Rubinshtein on the metro) about five years ago for $18,000 and one last year at auction (a wild eyed lady on a train) for $156,000. The first one is significantly better, so really that equates, I would say, to a 20x price increase. Great credit to Markin for making that second purchase (it was still cheap, in my opinion): he could have sat pat on what he had. I have some Faibisoviches, I'm happy to say, but they aren't quite as good as those Markin has. He also has the wonderful Unknown Woman (below), which has got to be as good, surely, as anything by (say) Gerhard Richter, whose prettier works fetch millions?

Igor Markin has chosen the eight works he wants at the 12 March Sotheby's Russian contemporary art auction.

Igor Markin, founder of the wonderful Art4ru museum, has put the history of his love-life on line. Seven girlfriends and four children (art4-ru, in Russian). Considering Russia's demographic crisis, shouldn't he get a medal or something?

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

You can get delicacies in Moscow that you would scour Britain for and still not find. For example, fizzy horse's milk. Except they don't write in big letters that it's been carbonated, so, if you're like me, you might swing it around a bit and then open it on a crowded trolleybus...

Two interesting shows: Dmitri Zhilinski retrospective at the Tretyakov Gallery; and young (24?) St Petersburg artist Anya Zhelud at Artstrelka projects (Art Times, in Russian); the latter has already been bought by Igor Markin, Tsereteli collection, Pierre Brochet and other switched-on in-the-know ear-to-the-ground collectors; the former you can't find anything substantial by at any price.

Oleg Kulik has spent the last three months in Tibet. The business side of his career is apparently in the hands of his assistants. Not sure how efficient they are, since they haven't answered my email. An artist friend of mine remembers the then-unknown Kulik in Moscow in the late 80s: he announced that he wanted to become No. 1 and then get out while on top. Maybe he is now fulfilling that ambition. However, his show Veryu wiped the floor with all official projects of the Moscow Biennale in any terms you choose: press attention, visitor numbers, "buzz" or (imo) quality, and the rumour is that Kulik will be back with another, maybe even more grandiose project of this kind.

Talking of grandiose projects, John Varoli has more on the Kabakov extravaganza. This article is a little more cautious than Marat Guelman vis-a-vis the planned world tour.

Next spring expect to see several works by Semion Faibisovich at Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury: tempted out of hiding by the spectacular results this month. Meanwhile, Faibisovich is working towards his first exhibition of paintings in more than a decade, planned for Ridzhina Gallery next year.

Lenta.ru reports on more opposition (in Russian) by leading cultural figures to The Letter. Yesterday I visited one of Russia's most esteemed establishment painters, a member of the Academy of Arts for several decades longer than, for example, Zurab Tsereteli, and he also ventured the opinion that The Letter was an unwarranted presumption. He also stated that this kind of freelance kow-towing (ugodnichestvo) would never have taken place in Soviet times. In fact, opposition to The Letter has united artists who otherwise have absolutely nothing in common.

News round-up

An extended article (in Russian) in Pravda about the Paris exhibition scandal. The correspondent who sent me the link says that it revives her memories of Soviet-era criticism, and it certainly is pretty categorical. However, I guess the author might reject that charge, in that he argues against state money for artists such as Blue Noses, Dmitri Vrubel and Monroe, rather than their right to exhibit in the commercial arena. He prays in aid Iosif Brodsky and Susan Sontag against Andrei Erofeev (the exhibition curator) and art-world luminaries Leonid Bazhanov, Ekaterina Degot, Marat Guelman and Maiya Kobakhidze. PS, trivia for what it's worth, I'm told that new Minister of Culture Sokolov wrote his thesis on the history of the piano.

Someone who was there writes of the Phillips de Pury auction: there was "a lack of bids" for the two top lots (Bulatov); Igor Markin was the buyer of works by Svetlana Kopystyanskaya (£57,600) and Ivan Chuikov (£84,000); Olga Sviblova was also buying, presumably works by Boris Mikhailov for the Moscow Museum of Photography (thanks, JV). So, a saner market emerges, perhaps.

UPDATE: I've received a further description of the situation when Bulatov's Perestroika came under the hammer:

Everyone was anxious to see if his work would be as successful as in June. Simon de Pury quickly called out a bid, and then another... and got to about 440,000 pounds, still below the low estimate of 500,000 pounds. He got both these bids by pointing at the floor, but I could not see anyone bidding.

Then began a period of silence that seemed like an eternity. The silence was truly embarassing as Simon de Pury struggled to look for another bidder... But there were none! He kept going around the room, but there were no bidders. There was a slight murmur in the hall. It was clear things were going bad for Phillips, and it seemed certain the lot would not reach its minimum estimate. But, Phillips had guaranteed the whole sale, and obviously the auction house was going to have to pay for the painting, even if it didn't sell... then suddenly a mystery bidder appeared on phone, and pushed lot 10 up to 480,000 pounds...

A much saner market, maybe.

Two big Moscow publishers, Bilingua and NLO (New Literary Observer) are fighting for the rights to unpublished works by Dmitri A. Prigov. Apparently, before his death he gave manuscripts to both firms. (NLO's editor-in-chief is Irina Prokhorova, sister of the super-rich Mikhail Prokhorov, who was notoriously arrested in the Courchevel ski-resort last January; these days he is into contemporary art, both as a collector and a sponsor of shows). Zinovy Zinik is reminded of the widow of Daniel Kharms, who as a refugee in Venezuela, and possibly inspired by the spirit of her late husband, gave the identical rights to several different Moscow publishers.

Dealer Mark Kelner and collector Norton Dodge both love the work of painter Efim Ladyzhenski (inc. video; in Russian).

Markin on form

In an interview in Vzglyad (in Russian), collector Igor Markin reveals that he has acquired, in Israel, artist Mikhail Grobman's unique archive of documents connected with Russian art. The acquisition of a mass of material with no obvious commercial value and yet requiring a huge number of person-hours to fully exploit and make public bespeaks the seriousness of Markin's ambitions for his new museum. At the same time, the museum continues to function in idiosyncratic style: below, images of Markin and assistant in the graffitti-covered bathroom, and a collection box for the removal of Tsereteli's monuments. His recent thoughts on wives and mistresses, as expressed on his blog, are equally, er, controversial (in Russian).

Markin museum is now more fun

My hat goes off to Igor Markin, who also has his hat off in the attempt to defray the running costs of his museum. Fridays now feature "cocktail evenings" with vodka gratis and top dee-jays. Of considerable interest to my children on a recent visit were the opportunity to vote for favourite and least favourite works (Boris Mikhailov is winning the least favourite competition by some distance) and the lavatories, where graffiti is encouraged. I have photos but they are stuck on my mobile phone. Also on a disk somewhere I have a movie I made in the now-defunct Arbat Prestizh perfume shop in Tverskaya Street, where magnate Vladimir Nekrasov showed his collection of Socialist Realism: Markin's populism is of a different order of inventiveness. Here is a recent Russian Forbes article on Markin.

Venice is go!

Russian partying gets underway at Olga Sviblova's birthday party at the Europa Hotel. Attendees of the high-society do included "It" girl Ksenia Sobchak, top collector Igor Markin, art-eminence Leonid Bazhanov, several fashionable journos, artists Georgi Puzenkov (who two years ago plastered the streets of Venice with computer-generated images of the Mona Lisa), Sergei Bratkov (showing at Ukrainian pavilion) and Dima Gutov (showing in Robert Storr's show at the Arsenale), and various beau-monde. Sviblova waltzed from guest to guest to guest in high spirits.

Markin museum

The Igor Markin museum has been open to the public since 1 June. It's well-located, in Khlynovski Pereulok, adjacent to a number of bohemian and fashionable cafes, on the ground floor of a fairly grand building. The opening show gives the sense of a collection which ranges both wide and deep: a lot of different artists, also multiple works by individual artists. It's hung pretty tightly, and the works are unlabelled, apparently to encourage visitors to vote for the favourite and least-favourite works without prejudice. Markin's enthusiasm for his collector's task is apparent, and there are plenty of fine pieces. Yes, there are (in my opinion) omissions, but, crucially, Markin seems to have understood and been guided by a sense of the capacity of his collection to assume historic importance. Under the cut, a selection of snapshots: I haven't got the artist's name in every instance, and may have got one or two wrong.

Markin museum

Viketz has images of Igor Markin's museum in the run-up to his grand opening in 4 days' time. Judging by the catalogue, Markin's promises to be the major private initiative in the contemporary art world: the depth and breadth of his collection outstrips everyone else's, as far as I know. Having said which, the big red sculpture on the floor here, apparently Rostislav Lebedev's Made In The USSR (SDELANO V SSSR) is a re-make - possibly, it seems to me, whatever the nominal date, recent; which I know as I have the original. It's a shame when artists do that...

Dima Gutov

Paintings by, and scenes from the studio of, Dima Gutov, as presented by collector Igor Markin on art4.ru.

Yeltsin monuments

Zurab Tsereteli intends to create a monument to Boris Yeltsin, reports Dmitri Vrubel (in Russian).

And collector Igor Markin has announced a competition  (in Russian) for a monument to Yeltsin to be sited outside his museum.

Facade of museum

The building in which Igor Markin's museum of contemporary art will open.

Markin Penthouse

Collector Igor Markin, one of the first to attempt a comprehensive collection of Russian contemporary art, shows snapshots of his home. Below: the dining room with a work by Konstantin Zvezdochetov. More on his LiveJournal page.

Hirst in Moscow

The Independent reports on Damian Hirst's sell-out show at the modestly-named Triumph Gallery. Marat Gelman approves the show in his blog (in Russian), and here, via Igor Markin, are a view of the show and Hirst himself with collector Markin.

Markin museum

A couple of snapshots by collector Igor Markin of his very own private museum of contemporary art, currently in construction.

Top collector

Igor Markin is one of the pioneering collectors of contemporary Russian art. He has put some of the best works from his collection on the web.