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From June 8 to July 31, the VI International Biennale of Young Art is taking place in Moscow. More than 50 artists from all over the world under the age of 35 presented their works. But contemporary artists don’t just exhibit in galleries or museums—you can often buy their work. This is not necessarily expensive: the popularization of contemporary art has launched a process of democratization of prices, which has led to some city residents starting to include the cost of paintings in their renovation budgets. Even auction houses and art fairs, which began to exhibit works by young artists, could not ignore the interest in middle-class art. The Village asked journalist and co-owner of the Oily Oil gallery Ekaterina Polozhentseva to select works by contemporary Russian artists that are affordable both in approach and price. Ekaterina Polozhentseva Timofey RadyaEkaterinburg artist Tim Radya combines philosophy and street art in his works. A philosopher by training and a true artist by nature, Tim has been nurturing the idea for a long time future work, and then implements it in the urban space with the help of his small army of friends and colleagues. Phrases that became memes, “I would hug you, but I’m just a text,” “The more light, the less you can see,” or “Who are we, where are we from, where are we going?” temporarily become part of the urban environment, but remain in Radi’s photographs forever. He sells them in galleries. Timofey Radya. Down with death. 2013. Photo printing on matte paper. 60 x 80. Circulation 15/24. Price - 44,000 rubles. Buy - Artwin gallery Alexey DubinskyDubinsky was born in Grozny in 1985, and received a classical education at the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Ilya Glazunov. Alexey works in the manner of abstract expressionism, behind which there is always an image of some hero - Alexey himself, his friends or a “quite happy family.” In the spring of 2018, Dubinsky had a large personal exhibition curated by Sofia Simakova at the Triumph gallery, after which Alexey’s appearance on this list was a great success: Dubinsky’s large (meter by meter) works have long since gone beyond the category of prices that are decent to mention out loud. But graphics from previous years are still available for purchase without ruining your personal or family budget. Kirill WhoIf you see eyes cut out on banners on the streets of Moscow, know that they are made by one person who really loves to walk - Kirill Lebedev. The second trademark of Who is phrases written in block letters. It often happens that each letter is drawn in a different color. Who is difficult to confuse with someone else. A couple of years ago, gallery owners Elvira Tarnogradskaya and Nadezhda Stepanova asked Kirill to transfer several works to canvas: the success of the idea was obvious. Prices for Who are rising faster than his new eyes appear in the city. But there is also an option for those who count their money - a silk-screen print signed by the author and produced in a limited edition. Yulia IosilzonYosilzon was born in Moscow in 1992. Now Julia lives in London, where she is receiving a bachelor's degree at the Slade School of Art in the Faculty of Fine Art. Staying around the clock in the student art workshop did not prevent her from holding a personal exhibition in the Moscow gallery "Triumph". She usually makes expressive works on silk stretched over a stretcher. Among the heroes of the works, the wolf and the hare from the Soviet “Well, wait a minute!” are recognizable. Iosilzon will already have to save several salaries for painting, but graphics can still be bought for little money. Anton TotibadzeAnton Totibadze is the son of the artist Konstantin Totibadze and the nephew of the artist Georgy Totibadze. Anton continues the unspoken family tradition of painting still lifes and everyday landscapes, often inspired by barbecuing in his own yard. The St. Petersburg Russian Museum has already included one of these works by Anton Totibadze in its collection. Not bad for a 25 year old artist.
Anton Totibadze. Temporary inconvenience. 2017. Canvas, tempera. 15 x 19. Price - 25,000 rubles. Buy - OilyOil.com Ales NomadAnna Asyamova was born in Kazakhstan, graduated from Kemerovo University of Arts. Her early works are ascetic portraits, when painting which she did not mix paints. Later, Ales became interested in painting and began to paint portraits in the style of old masters and transform them into backpacks or soft toys, using zippers to make the works multifunctional. Around this stage, Vladimir Dubossarsky noticed her and suggested making a joint exhibition. One of the most expensive living Russian artists, of course, influenced the cost of new works by Ales. But early works can still be bought today for up to 22 thousand rubles.
Ales Nomad. Wedding. 2013. Cardboard, acrylic, felt-tip pens. 70 x 100. Price - 22,000 RUBLES. Buy - OilyOil.com Valery ChtakValery Chtak is an artist with a long exhibition history and a recognizable style. His work is always a monochrome black, white and gray palette with text. In his paintings there is little painting and many simple images as if from the wall of a nearby underground passage. A librarian by training, Chtak works a lot with the word: “All the dead are equally dead”, “Love to have fun, hate and take revenge” or “When it’s midnight in Moscow, it’s also midnight in Murmansk” - the artist’s lyrics, which are also worth buying today. Dmitry AskeDmitry Aske is another artist who moved from the street to the art studio. Much of Aske's work today is stacked wood panels, cut and painted by hand, which the artist assembles into panels. Among Dima's budget works, today it is worth paying attention to his hand-painted silk-screen printing acrylic paints. Asuka's prints are signed and numbered.
Dmitry Aske. Buddha. Silk-screen printing, acrylic, cotton paper. 50 x 50. Price - 16,000 RUBLES. Buy - format1.net Photos: cover, 15–21 - Oily Oil, 1 - Artwin, 2 - Timofey Radya, 3–7, 12–14 - Sample, 8, 25, 26 - online gallery “Problems of white walls”, 9–11, 22–24 - Gallery Triangle, 27 - “Format One” The Art Newspaper Russia presents the rating: the most expensive living Russian artists. If you are still sure that there were no Russian artists in the Western scene, we are ready to argue with that. The language of numbers. The conditions were simple: each living artist could be represented by only one, his most expensive work. When compiling the rating, not only the results of public auctions were taken into account, but also the most high-profile private sales. The authors of the rating were guided by the principle “if something sells loudly, then someone needs it,” and therefore appreciated the work of marketers and press managers of artists who brought record private sales to the public. Important note: the rating is based solely on financial indicators; if it were based on the exhibition activity of artists, it would look somewhat different. External sources for analytics were resources Artnet.com, Artprice.com, Skatepress.com And Artinvestment.ru. The US dollar was chosen as the currency for the world ranking; the British pound sterling was taken as the equivalent of sales of Russian artists (since 90% of domestic sales took place in London in this currency). The remaining 10% of works sold in US dollars and euros were recalculated at the exchange rate at the time of the transaction, as a result of which some positions changed places. In addition to the actual cost of the work, data was collected on the total capitalization of artists (the number of top works sold at auction over all years), on the place of a contemporary artist in the ranking of artists of all times, on the place of the participant’s most expensive work among all works sold by other authors, and also about nationality and country of residence. Statistics on repeat sales of each artist also contain important information as an objective indicator of investment Last year, 2013, significantly changed the position of contemporary artists in the international sales rankings. Of the top 50 most expensive works of art, 16 modern works of art were sold last season - a record number (for comparison, 17 works were sold from 2010 to 2012; there was only one sale in the 20th century). The demand for living artists is partly identical to the demand for all contemporary art, partly to the cynical understanding that the capitalization of assets after their death will invariably increase. Among the Russian participants, the brothers turned out to be the most respectable Sergey And Alexey Tkachev(b. 1922 and 1925), the youngest - Anatoly Osmolovsky(b. 1969). The question is who will be new Jean-Michel Basquiat, while open. In the sales of our artists, clear classes of buyers are visible: the leaders are bought by foreign collectors and Russian oligarchs, places from 10th to 30th are provided by emigrant collectors, and the conditional bottom of the top 50 is our future, young collectors who have entered the market with “new » money. 1. Ilya Kabakov
2. Erik Bulatov 3. Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid
former comar&melamid artstudio archive 4. Semyon Faibisovich 5. Grigory (Grisha) Bruskin 6. Oleg Tselkov
7. Oscar Rabin 8. Zurab Tsereteli 9. Viktor Pivovarov 10. Alexander Melamid 11. Francisco Infante-Arana 12. Vladimir Nemukhin 13. Vladimir Yankilevsky 14. Alexander Vinogradov and Vladimir Dubossarsky 15. Sergey Volkov 16. AES + F (Tatyana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, Evgeniy Svyatsky, Vladimir Fridkes) 17. Lev Tabenkin 18. Mikhail (Misha Shaevich) Brusilovsky 19. Olga Bulgakova 20. Alexander Ivanov 21. Ivan Chuikov 22. Konstantin Zvezdochetov 23. Natalya Nesterova 24. Maxim Kantor 25. Andrey Sidersky 26. Valery Koshlyakov 27. Alexey Sundukov 28. Igor Novikov 29. Vadim Zakharov 30. Yuri Krasny 31. Sergey and Alexey Tkachev 32. Svetlana Kopystyanskaya 33. Boris Orlov 34. Vyacheslav Kalinin 35. Evgeny Semenov 36. Yuri Cooper 37. Alexander Kosolapov 38. Leonid Sokov 39. Vladimir Ovchinnikov 40. Konstantin Khudyakov 41. Ernst Neizvestny 42. Anatoly Osmolovsky 43. Dmitry Vrubel 44. Leonid Lamm
Irina Nakhova’s picturesque installations of the 1980s in her apartment can claim authorship in the “total” genre. 45. Irina Nakhova 46. Katya Filippova 47. Boris Zaborov 48. Rostislav Lebedev 49. Andrey Filippov 50. Vladimir Shinkarev Sales vs exhibitionsMarket recognition and recognition by the professional community seem like different things to many, but the division into “commercial” and “non-commercial” artists is very arbitrary. Thus, of the Russian artists who have exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art over the past ten years (and this is the pinnacle of their professional career), seven (if counting by person, then 11 people) are included in our rating. And the top 10 artists from the rating either exhibited at the Venice Biennale before, or had personal exhibitions in major museums. As for those wonderful artists who were not included in the rating, their absence or not very outstanding sales can be explained simply and banally. Collectors are conservative and even from the most avant-garde creators they prefer to buy paintings (paintings, objects similar to paintings or photographs) or sculpture (or objects similar to sculpture). There are no record-breaking performances or giant installations in our rating (installations are usually bought by museums, but the prices are museum-quality, at a discount). That is why such stars as Andrey Monastyrsky, Oleg Kulik, Pavel Pepperstein(until recently I mainly did graphics, and graphics are a priori cheaper than painting) or, for example, Nikolay Polissky, whose grandiose designs have not yet found any understanding collectors. In addition, the market is also conservative because recognition comes slowly - note that in the top 10 all artists were born in 1950 or older. That is, promising participants of the biennale still have everything ahead of them. The ranking of the most expensive works by living artists is a construction that says much less about the role and place of the artist in the history of art than about age and health The rules for compiling our rating are simple: firstly, only transactions with works by living authors are taken into account; secondly, only public auction sales are taken into account; and thirdly, the rule “one artist - one work” is observed (if in the ranking of works two records belong to Jones, then only the most expensive one remains, and the rest are not taken into account). The ranking is carried out in terms of dollars (at the exchange rate on the date of sale). 1. JEFF KOONS Rabbit. 1986. $91.075 million The longer you watch the auction career of Jeff Koons (1955), the more convinced you become that nothing is impossible for pop art. You can admire Koons' sculptures in the form of balloon toys, or you can consider them kitsch and bad taste - your right. One thing cannot be denied: Jeff Koons' installations cost crazy amounts of money. Jeff Koons began his path to fame as the world's most successful living artist back in 2007, when his giant metal installation "Hanging Heart" was purchased for $23.6 million at Sotheby's. The work was bought by Larry Gagosian's gallery, which represents Koons. they wrote to the press that it was in the interests of the Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk). The gallery acquired not just an installation, but, in fact, a work of jewelry art. Even though the work was not made of gold (the material was stainless steel) and it was clearly larger in size than an ordinary pendant (the sculpture is tall 2.7 m weighs 1,600 kg), but has a similar purpose. More than six and a half thousand hours were spent on the production of the composition with a heart covered with ten layers of paint. As a result, huge amounts of money were paid for the spectacular “decoration”. Next was the sale of “Balloon Flower” in purple for £12.92 million ($25.8 million) at Christie’s London auction on June 30, 2008. Interestingly, seven years earlier, the previous owners of “Flower” purchased the work for $1.1 million. It is easy to calculate that during this time its market price increased almost 25 times. The decline in the art market of 2008–2009 gave skeptics reason to complain that the Koons fad had passed. But they were wrong: along with the art market, interest in Koons’s works was revived. Andy Warhol's successor as the king of pop art updated his personal record in November 2012 with the sale at Christie's of a multi-colored sculpture “Tulips” from the “Celebration” series for $33.7 million, including commission. But “Tulips” were “flowers” in the literal and figurative sense. Just a year later, in November 2013, the sale of the stainless steel sculpture “Balloon Dog (Orange)” followed: the hammer price was as much as $58.4 million! A fabulous sum for a living artist. A work by a contemporary author was sold for the price of a Van Gogh or Picasso painting. These were already berries... With this result, Koons reigned for several years at the top of the ranking of living artists. In November 2018, he was briefly surpassed by David Hockney (see second place in our ranking). But just six months later, everything returned to normal: on May 15, 2019, in New York, at the auction of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s, a textbook sculpture for Koons from 1986 was put up for sale - a silver “Rabbit” made of stainless steel, imitating a balloon of a similar shape. In total, Koons created 3 such jokes plus one original copy. The auction included a copy of “Rabbit” number 2 - from the collection of the cult publisher Cy Newhouse, co-owner of the Conde Nast publishing house (magazines Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour, GQ, etc.). The silver “Rabbit” was bought by the “father of glamor” Cy Newhouse in 1992 for an impressive sum by the standards of those years - $1 million. After 27 years in the fight of 10 bidders, the hammer price of the sculpture was 80 times the previous sale price. And taking into account the Buyer’s Premium commission, the final result was $91.075 million, a record for all living artists. 2. DAVID HOCKNEY Portrait of the Artist. Pool with two figures. 1972. $90,312,500  David Hockney (1937) is one of the most significant British artists of the 20th century. In 2011, according to a survey of thousands of professional British artists and sculptors, David Hockney was voted the most influential British artist of all time. At the same time, Hockney beat such masters as William Turner and Francis Bacon. His work is usually classified as pop art, although in his early works he gravitated more towards expressionism in the spirit of Francis Bacon. David Hockney was born and raised in England, in the county of Yorkshire. The future artist’s mother kept the family in puritanical strictness, and his father, a simple accountant who did a little amateur drawing, encouraged his son to take up painting. In his twenties, David moved to California, where he lived for a total of about three decades. He still has two workshops there. Hockney made the heroes of his works local rich people, their villas, swimming pools, lawns drenched in the Californian sun. One of his most famous works of the American period - the painting "Splash" - is an image of a sheaf of splashes rising from a pool after a man jumped into the water. To depict this sheaf, which “lives” for no more than two seconds, Hockney worked for two weeks. By the way, this painting was sold at Sotheby’s in 2006 for $5.4 million and for some time was considered his most expensive work. Hockney (1937) is already over eighty, but he still works and even invents new artistic techniques using technical innovations. Once upon a time he came up with the idea of making huge collages from Polaroids, printed his works on fax machines, and today the artist enthusiastically masters drawing on the iPad. Paintings drawn on a tablet occupy a worthy place in his exhibitions. In 2005, Hockney finally returned from the States to England. Now he paints in the open air and in the studio huge (often consisting of several parts) landscapes of local forests and heaths. According to Hockney, during the 30 years he spent in California, he became so unaccustomed to the simple change of seasons that it truly fascinates and fascinates him. Entire cycles of his recent works are devoted, for example, to the same landscape at different times of the year. In 2018, prices for Hockney's paintings broke the $10 million mark several times. And on November 15, 2018, a new absolute record for the work of a living artist - $90,312,500 for the painting “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures).” 3. GERHARD RICHTER Abstract painting. 1986. $46.3 million  Living classic Gerhard Richter (1932) takes second place in our ranking. The German artist was the leader among his living colleagues until Jeff Koons' 58 million record broke. But this circumstance is unlikely to shake Richter’s already iron authority on the art market. At the end of 2012, the German artist's annual auction turnover is second only to those of Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso. For many years, nothing foreshadowed the success that has befallen Richter now. For decades, the artist occupied a modest place in the contemporary art market and did not at all strive for fame. We can say that fame overtook him on its own. Many consider the starting point to be the purchase by New York's MoMA in 1995 of Richter's "October 18, 1977" series of works. The American museum paid $3 million for 15 paintings in gray tones and soon began thinking about holding a full-fledged retrospective of the German artist. The grandiose exhibition opened six years later, in 2001, and since then interest in Richter’s work has grown by leaps and bounds. From 2004 to 2008, prices for his paintings tripled. In 2010, Richter's works already brought in $76.9 million; in 2011, according to the Artnet website, Richter's works at auctions earned a total of $200 million, and in 2012 (according to Artprice) - $262.7 million - more than the work of any other living artist. While, for example, Jasper Johns' overwhelming success at auction accompanies mainly only his early works, such a sharp division is not typical for Richter's works: the demand is equally stable for things from different creative periods, of which there were a great many in Richter's career. Over the past sixty years, this artist has tried himself in almost all traditional painting genres - portrait, landscape, marine, nude, still life and, of course, abstraction. The history of Richter’s auction records began with a series of still lifes “Candles”. 27 photorealistic images of candles in the early 1980s, during the period of their painting, cost only 15 thousand German marks ($5,800) per work. But still no one bought “Candles” at their first exhibition at the Max Hetzler Gallery in Stuttgart. Then the theme of the paintings was called old-fashioned; today “Candles” is considered a work for all times. And they cost millions of dollars. In February 2008, "Candle", written in 1983, was unexpectedly bought for £ 7.97 million ($16 million). This personal record lasted three and a half years. Then in October 2011 another one "Candle" (1982) went under the hammer at Christie's for £ 10.46 million ($16.48 million). With this record, Gerhard Richter entered the top three most successful living artists for the first time, taking his place behind Jasper Johns and Jeff Koons. Then the victorious march of Richter’s “Abstract Paintings” began. The artist paints such works using his unique technique: he applies a mixture of simple paints to a light background, and then, using a long scraper the size of a car bumper, smears them across the canvas. This produces intricate color transitions, spots and stripes. Examining the surface of his “Abstract Paintings” is like an excavation: on them, traces of various “figures” are visible through the gaps of numerous colorful layers. November 9, 2011 at Sotheby’s auction of contemporary and post-war art, a large-scale "Abstract painting (849-3)" 1997 went under the hammer for $20.8 million (£13.2 million). And six months later, May 8, 2012 at the auction of post-war and contemporary art at Christie's in New York "Abstract painting (798-3)" 1993 went for record $21.8 million(including commission). Five months later - another record: "Abstract painting (809-4)" from the collection of rock musician Eric Clapton on October 12, 2012 at Sotheby’s in London went under the hammer for £ 21.3 million ($34.2 million). The barrier of 30 million was taken by Richter with such ease, as if we're talking about not about modern painting, but about masterpieces that are already a hundred years old - no less. Although in the case of Richter, it seems that inclusion in the pantheon of “greats” occurred during the artist’s lifetime. Prices for the German's work continue to rise. Richter's next record belonged to a photorealistic work - landscape "Cathedral Square, Milan (Domplatz, Mailand)" 1968. The work was sold for 37.1 million at Sotheby's auction May 14, 2013. The view of the most beautiful square was painted by a German artist in 1968, commissioned by Siemens Electro, especially for the company’s Milan office. At the time of its writing, it was Richter's largest figurative work (measuring almost three by three meters). The Cathedral Square record lasted almost two years, until February 10, 2015 didn't interrupt him "Abstract painting" ( 1986): Hammer price reaches £ 30.389 million ($46.3 million). The “Abstract Painting”, measuring 300.5 × 250.5 cm, put up for auction at Sotheby’s is one of Richter’s first large-scale works in his special author’s technique of scraping off layers of paint. The last time in 1999, this “Abstract Painting” was bought at auction for $607 thousand (from this year until the current sale, the work was exhibited at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne). At the auction on February 10, 2015, an American client, in auction steps of £2 million, reached a hammer price of $46.3 million. That is, since 1999, the work has increased in price by more than 76 times! 4. CUI ZHUZHO “Great Snowy Mountains.” 2013. $39.577 million.  For a long time, we did not closely follow the developments in the situation on the Chinese art market, not wanting to overload our readers with too much information about “not our” art. With the exception of the dissident Ai Weiwei, who is not even as expensive as he is a resonant artist, Chinese authors seemed too numerous and distant from us to delve into what was happening in their market. But statistics, as they say, are serious, and if we are talking about the most successful living authors in the world, then we still cannot do without a story about the outstanding representatives of contemporary art in the Celestial Empire. Let's start with the Chinese artist Cui Ruzhuo. The artist was born in 1944 in Beijing and lived in the USA from 1981 to 1996. After returning to China, he began teaching at the National Academy of Arts. Cui Ruzhuo reinterprets the traditional Chinese style of ink painting and creates huge scroll paintings that Chinese businessmen and officials love to give to each other as gifts. In the West, very little is known about him, although many must remember the story of the $3.7 million scroll, which was mistakenly thrown away by cleaners at a Hong Kong hotel, mistaking it for garbage. So, it was precisely Cui Ruzhuo’s scroll. Cui Ruzhuo is already over 70, and the market for his work is thriving. More than 60 works by this artist have crossed the $1 million mark. However, his works have so far achieved success only at Chinese auctions. Cui Ruzhuo's records are truly impressive. First him "Landscape in the Snow" at Poly Auction in Hong Kong April 7, 2014 achieved a hammer price of HK$184 million ( $23.7 million US). Exactly one year later April 6, 2015, at a special Poly Auction in Hong Kong dedicated exclusively to the works of Cui Ruzhuo, series "The Great Snowy Landscape of Jiangnan Mountain"(Jiangnan is a historical region in China, occupying the right bank of the lower reaches of the Yangtze) of eight ink on paper landscapes reached a hammer price of HK$236 million ( $30.444 million US). A year later, history repeated itself again at Cui Ruzhuo's solo auction held by Poly Auctions in Hong Kong. April 4, 2016 six-part polyptych "Great Snowy Mountains" 2013 reached a hammer price (including auction house commission) of HKD 306 million ($39.577 million US)). So far, this is an absolute record among Asian living artists. According to art dealer Johnson Chan, who has been working with Chinese contemporary art for 30 years, there is an unconditional desire to raise prices for the work of this author, but all this is happening at a price level where experienced collectors are unlikely to want to buy anything. “The Chinese want to raise the ratings of their artists by inflating the prices of their works at large international auctions like the one organized by Poly in Hong Kong, but there is no doubt that these ratings are completely fabricated,” Johnson Chan comments on Cui Ruzhuo’s latest record. This, of course, is only the opinion of one individual dealer, but we have a real record recorded in all databases. So we will take him into account. Cui Ruzhuo himself, judging by his statements, is far from the modesty of Gerhard Richter when it comes to his auction successes. It seems that this race for records seriously fascinates him. “I hope that in the next 5-10 years the prices for my works will exceed the prices for the works of Western masters like Picasso and Van Gogh. This is the Chinese dream,” says Cui Ruzhuo. 5. JASPER JONES Flag. 1983. $36 million  Third place in the ranking of living artists belongs to an American Jasper Johns (1930). The current record price for Jones' work is $ 36 million. They paid so much for his famous "Flag" at Christie's auction November 12, 2014. The series of “flag” paintings, begun by Jones in the mid-1950s, immediately after the artist returned from the army, became one of the central ones in his work. Even in his youth, the artist became interested in the idea of the readymade, the transformation of an everyday object into a work of art. However, Jones's flags were not real, they were painted in oil on canvas. Thus, the work of art acquired the properties of a thing from ordinary life; it was at the same time both an image of the flag and the flag itself. A series of works with flags brought Jasper Johns world fame. But his abstract works are no less popular. For many years, the list of the most expensive works, compiled according to the above rules, was headed by his abstract "False start". Until 2007, this very bright and decorative canvas, painted by Jones in 1959, was considered to have a price almost inaccessible for a living artist (even a lifetime classic) - $ 17 million. That's how much they paid for it in gold for the art market 1988. Interestingly, Jasper Johns' tenure as a record holder was not continuous. In 1989, he was interrupted by the work of his colleague Willem de Kooning: the two-meter abstraction “Blending” was sold at Sotheby's for $20.7 million. Jasper Johns had to move. But 8 years later, in 1997, de Kooning died, and “ False Start by Jones again took first place in the auction rankings of living artists for almost 10 years. But in 2007 everything changed. The False Start record was first eclipsed by the works of the young and ambitious Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons. Then there was a record sale for $33.6 million of the painting “The Sleeping Benefits Inspector” by Lucien Freud (now deceased, and therefore not participating in this rating). Then Gerhard Richter's records began. In general, so far, with a current record of 36 million, Jasper Johns, one of the masters of American post-war art, working at the intersection of neo-Dadaism, abstract expressionism and pop art, is in honorable third place. 6. ED RUSHEY Smash. 1963. $30.4 million  The sudden success of the painting “Smash” by an American artist Edward Rushay (b. 1937) at the auction Christie's November 12, 2014 made this author one of the most expensive living artists. The previous record price for the work of Ed Rusha (the last name Ruscha is often pronounced in Russian as “Rusha”, but the correct pronunciation is Rusha) was “only” $6.98 million: that much was paid for his canvas “The Burning Gas Station” in 2007. Seven years later "Smash" with an estimate of $15–20 million reached the hammer price $30.4 million. It is obvious that the market for this author’s works has reached a new level - it is not for nothing that he is decorated with his works The White house Barack Obama, and Larry Gagosian himself exhibits it in his galleries. Ed Ruscha never gravitated to post-war New York with its craze for abstract expressionism. Instead, for more than 40 years, he looked to California for inspiration, where he moved from Nebraska at age 18. The artist stood at the origins of a new movement in art, called pop art. Together with Warhol, Lichtenstein, Wayne Thiebaud and other singers of popular culture, Edward Ruscha took part in the exhibition “New Images of Ordinary Things” at the Pasadena Museum in 1962, which became the first museum exhibition of American pop art. However, Ed Rusha himself does not like it when his work is classified as pop art, conceptualism or some other movement in art. His unique style is called "text painting". Beginning in the late 1950s, Ed Ruscha began to paint words. Just as for Warhol a can of soup became a work of art, for Ed Rushay these were ordinary words and phrases, taken either from a billboard or packaging in a supermarket, or from the credits of a movie (Hollywood was always “nearby” for Rushay, and unlike many fellow artists, Rusche respected the “dream factory”). The words on his canvases acquire the properties of three-dimensional objects; these are real still lifes of words. When looking at his canvases, the first thing that comes to mind is the visual and sound perception of the painted word, and only then the semantic meaning. The latter, as a rule, cannot be unambiguously deciphered; Rushay's choice of words and phrases can be interpreted in different ways. The same bright yellow word “Smash” on a deep blue background can be perceived as an aggressive call to smash something or someone into pieces; as a lonely adjective taken out of context (part of some newspaper headline, for example), or simply as a separate word caught in the urban flow of visual images. Ed Ruscha enjoys this uncertainty. “I have always had a deep respect for strange, inexplicable things... Explanations in a sense kill the thing,” he said in an interview. 7. CHRISTOPHER WOOL Untitled (RIOT). 1990. $29.93 million  American artist Christopher Wool(1955) first broke into the ranking of living artists in 2013 - after selling the work “Apocalypse Now” for $26.5 million. This record immediately put him on a par with Jasper Johns and Gerhard Richter. The amount of this historic transaction - more than $20 million - surprised many, since before it prices for the artist’s works did not exceed $8 million. However, the rapid growth of the market for Christopher Wool’s works was already evident by that time: the artist’s track record included 48 auction transactions for amounts over $1 million, and 22 of them (almost half) took place in 2013. Two years later, the number of works by Chris Wool sold for more than $1 million reached 70, and a new personal record was not long in coming. At the auction Sotheby’s May 12, 2015 work “Untitled (RIOT)” was sold for $ 29.93 million including Buyer's Premium. Christopher Wool is known primarily for his large-scale works of black lettering on white aluminum sheets. They are the ones who, as a rule, set records at auctions. These are all things from the late 1980s - early 1990s. As the legend goes, one day Wool was walking around New York in the evening and suddenly saw graffiti in black letters on a new white truck - the words sex and luv. This sight impressed him so much that he immediately returned to the workshop and wrote his own version with the same words. It was 1987, and the artist’s further search for words and phrases for his “letter” works reflects the contradictory spirit of this time. This is the slogan “sell the house, sell the car, sell the children”, taken by Wool from the film “Apocalypse Now”, and the word “FOOL” (“fool”) in capital letters, and the word “RIOT” (“rebellion”), often found in newspaper headlines of the time. Wool applied words and phrases to aluminum sheets using stencils with alkyd or enamel paints, deliberately leaving drips, stencil marks and other evidence of the creative process. The artist divided the words in such a way that the viewer did not immediately understand the meaning. At first, you see only a cluster of letters, that is, you perceive the word as a visual object, and only then do you read and decipher the meaning of the phrase or word. Wool used a font that was used by the American military after World War II, which enhances the impression of an order, a directive, a slogan. These “letter” works are perceived as part of the urban landscape, like illegal graffiti that has violated the cleanliness of the surface of some street object. This series of works by Christopher Wool is recognized as one of the pinnacles of linguistic abstraction, and therefore is valued so highly by lovers of contemporary art. 8. PETER DOIG Rosedale. 1991. $28.81 million  British Peter Doig(1959), although he belongs to the generation of postmodernists Koons and Hirst, chose for himself a completely traditional genre of landscape, which for a long time was not in favor with advanced artists. With his work, Peter Doig revives the public's fading interest in figurative painting. His works are highly appreciated by both critics and non-specialists, and evidence of this is the rapid rise in prices for his works. If in the early 1990s his landscapes cost several thousand dollars, now they cost millions. Doig's work is often called magical realism. Based on real landscapes, he creates fantasy, mysterious and often gloomy images. The artist loves to depict objects abandoned by people: a dilapidated building built by Le Corbusier in the middle of the forest or an empty white canoe on the surface of a forest lake. In addition to nature and imagination, Doig is inspired by horror films, old postcards, photographs, amateur videos, etc. Doig's paintings are colorful, complex, decorative and non-provocative. It’s a pleasure to own such painting. The interest of collectors is also fueled by the author’s low productivity: the artist living in Trinidad creates no more than a dozen paintings a year. In the early 2000s, individual landscapes by the artist sold for several hundred thousand dollars. At the same time, Doig’s works were included in the Saatchi Gallery, at the Whitney Museum Biennial and in the MoMA collection. In 2006, the auction level of $1 million was overcome. And the following year, an unexpected breakthrough occurred: the work “White Canoe,” offered at Sotheby’s on February 7, 2007 with an estimate of $0.8–1.2 million, was five times higher than the preliminary estimate and was sold for £5.7 million ($11.3 million). At that time, this was a record price for works by a living European artist. In 2008, Doig had solo exhibitions at the Tate Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Multi-million dollar price tags for Doig's work have become the norm. Peter Doig's personal record has recently begun to be updated several times a year - all we have time to do is change the picture and place of this artist in our ranking of living authors. To date, Peter Doig’s most expensive work is the snowy landscape “Rosedale” from 1991. Interestingly, the record was set not at Sotheby’s or Christie’s, but at the auction of contemporary art at the Phillips auction house. This happened on May 18, 2017. A view of snowy Toronto neighborhood Rosedale sold to a telephone buyer for $28.81 million, about $3 million above the previous record ($25.9 million for “Swallowed by the Mire”). "Rosedale" took part in Doig's key exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1998, and in general this work was fresh for the market, and therefore the record price is well deserved. 9. FRANK STELLA Cape of Pines. 1959. $28 million  Frank Stella is a prominent representative of post-painterly abstraction and minimalism in art. At a certain stage, he is classified as a representative of the hard edge painting style. At first, Stella contrasted the strict geometricity, ascetic monochrome and structure of his paintings with the spontaneity and chaos of the paintings of abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock. In the late 1950s, the artist was noticed by the famous gallery owner Leo Castelli and was awarded an exhibition for the first time. On it he presented the so-called “Black Paintings” - canvases painted over with parallel black lines with thin spaces of unpainted canvas between them. The lines form geometric shapes, somewhat reminiscent of optical illusions, those same pictures that flicker, move, twist, create a feeling of deep space if you look at them for a long time. Stella continued the theme of parallel lines with thin dividing stripes in his works on aluminum and copper. The colors, the pictorial basis and even the shape of the paintings changed (among others, works in the shape of the letters U, T, L stand out). But the main principle of his painting was still clarity of outline, monumentality, simple form, and monochrome. In subsequent decades, Stella moved away from such geometric painting towards smooth, natural forms and lines, and from monochromatic paintings towards bright and varied color transitions. In the 1970s, Stella was captivated by the huge patterns used to paint ships. The artist used them for huge paintings with assemblage elements - he included pieces of steel pipes or wire mesh in the works. In his early interviews, Frank Stella openly discusses the meanings put into his works, or rather, the lack thereof: “What you see is what you see.” A painting is an object in itself, and not a reproduction of something. “It’s a flat surface with paint on it and nothing else,” Stella said. Well, signed by Frank Stella, this "surface with paint on it" could be worth millions of dollars today. For the first time, Frank Stella entered the ranking of living artists in 2015 with the sale of the work “Crossing the Delaware” (1961) for $13.69 million, including commission. Four years later, on May 15, 2019, a new record was set by the early (1959) work “Cape of Pines”: the hammer price was over $28 million, including commission. This is one of the 29 “black paintings” - the same ones with which Stella debuted at his first exhibition in New York. Princeton University graduate Frank Stella was 23 years old at the time. He often did not have enough money for oil paint for artists. The young artist earned money doing repair work, he really liked the pure colors of the paint, and then the idea arose to work with this paint on canvas. Using black enamel paint, Stella paints parallel stripes, leaving thin lines of unprimed canvas between them. Moreover, he writes without rulers, by eye, without a preliminary sketch. Stella never knew exactly how many black lines there would be in a particular painting. For example, in the painting “Cape of Pines” there were 35 of them. The title of the work refers to the name of the cape in Massachusetts Bay - Point of pines. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was a large amusement park, and today it is one of the areas of the city of Revere. 10. YOSHITOMO NARA Knife behind his back. 2000. $24.95 million  Yoshitomo Nara (1959) is one of the key figures of Japanese neo-pop art. Japanese - because, despite global fame and many years of work abroad, his work is still distinguished by a pronounced national identity. Nara's favorite characters are girls and dogs in the style of Japanese manga and anime comics. The images he invented have “gone to the people” for many years: they are printed on T-shirts, souvenirs and various “merch” are made with them. Born into a poor family, far from the capital, he is not only loved for his talent, but also valued as a self-made man. The artist works quickly and expressively. It is known that some of his masterpieces were completed literally overnight. The paintings and sculptures of Yoshitomo Nara are usually very laconic, if not stingy. expressive means, but always carry a strong emotional charge. Nara's teenage girls often look at the viewer with an unkind squint. In their eyes there is audacity, challenge and aggression. In his hands - either a knife or a cigarette. There is an opinion that the depicted perversions of behavior are a reaction to oppressive social morality, various taboos, and the principles of education adopted by the Japanese. Almost medieval severity and shame push problems inside and create the ground for a delayed emotional explosion. “The Knife Behind Your Back” succinctly reflects one of the artist’s main ideas. In this work there is a girl’s hateful gaze and a hand threateningly placed behind her back. Until 2019, paintings and sculptures by Yoshitomo Nara had already reached the million mark, or even several million, more than once. But twenty million is the first time. Nara is one of the world's most famous Japanese-born artists. And now the most expensive one alive. On October 6, 2109, at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, he took this title from Takashi Murakami and noticeably beat out 90-year-old avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama (the maximum auction prices for her paintings are already approaching $9 million). 11. ZENG FANZHI Last Supper. 2001. $23.3 million  At Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong October 5, 2013 year large-scale canvas "The Last Supper" Beijing artist Zeng Fanzhi (1964) was sold for a record amount of HK$160 million - $23.3 million USA. The final cost of Fanzhi's work, written, of course, under the influence of the work of Leonardo da Vinci, turned out to be twice as high as the preliminary estimate of about $10 million. The previous price record of Zeng Fanzhi was $ 9.6 million, paid at Christie’s Hong Kong auction in May 2008 for the work "Mask series. 1996. No. 6". “The Last Supper” is the largest (2.2 × 4 meters) painting by Fanzhi in the “Masks” series, covering the period from 1994 to 2001. The cycle is dedicated to the evolution of Chinese society under the influence of economic reforms. The introduction of elements of a market economy by the PRC government led to urbanization and disunity of the Chinese people. Fanzhi depicts residents of modern Chinese cities who have to fight for a place in the sun. The well-known composition of Leonardo's fresco in Fanzhi's reading takes on a completely different meaning: the scene of action is transferred from Jerusalem to a classroom in a Chinese school with typical hieroglyph boards on the walls. “Christ” and the “apostles” have turned into pioneers with scarlet ties, and only “Judas” wears a gold tie - this is a metaphor for Western capitalism penetrating and destroying the usual way of life in a socialist country. Zeng Fanzhi's works are stylistically close to European expressionism and equally dramatic. But at the same time they are full of Chinese symbolism and specificity. This versatility attracts both Chinese and Western collectors to the artist’s work. A direct confirmation of this is the provenance of “The Last Supper”: the work was put up for auction by the famous collector of Chinese avant-garde of the 1980s and early 1990s, the Belgian baron Guy Ullens. 12. ROBERT RYMAN Bridge. 1980. $20.6 million  At the auction Christie's May 13, 2015 abstract work "Bridge" 85-year-old American artist Robert Ryman(Robert Ryman) was sold for $20.6 million taking into account the commission - twice as expensive as the lower estimate. Robert Ryman(1930) did not immediately realize that he wanted to become an artist. At the age of 23, he moved to New York from Nashville, Tennessee, wanting to become a jazz saxophonist. Until he became a famous musician, he had to work as a security guard at MoMA, where he met Sol LeWitt and Dan Flavin. The first worked at the museum as a night secretary, and the second as a security guard and elevator operator. Impressed by the works of abstract expressionists he saw at MoMA - Rothko, De Kooning, Pollock and Newman - Robert Ryman took up painting himself in 1955. Ryman is often considered a minimalist, but he prefers to be called a “realist” because he is not interested in creating illusions, he is only demonstrating the qualities of the materials he uses. Most of his works are painted with paints of all possible shades white(from grayish or yellowish to dazzling white) based on a laconic square shape. During his career, Robert Ryman tried many materials and techniques: he painted in oil, acrylic, casein, enamel, pastel, gouache, etc. on canvas, steel, plexiglass, aluminum, paper, corrugated cardboard, vinyl, wallpaper, etc. His friend, professional restorer Orrin Riley advised him on the corrosiveness of the materials that he thought of using. As the artist once said, “I never have a question What write, the main thing is How write". It's all about the texture, the nature of the strokes, the boundary between the paint surface and the edges of the base, as well as the relationship between the work and the wall. Since 1975, a special element of his work has been the mountings, which Ryman designs himself and deliberately leaves visible, emphasizing that his work is “as real as the walls on which they hang.” Ryman prefers to give his works "names" rather than "titles." The “name” is what helps distinguish one work from another, and Ryman often names his works by paint brands, companies, etc., and the “title” claims some kind of allusions and deep hidden meanings, the presence of which in his works the artist regularly denies. Nothing matters except material and technique. 13. DAMIEN HURST Sleepy spring. 2002. $19.2 million  To the English artist Damien Hirst (1965) was destined to be the first to take first place in this rating in a dispute with the living classic Jasper Johns. The already mentioned work “False Start” could have remained an unsinkable leader for a long time if June 21, 2007 installation by the then 42-year-old Hirst "Sleepy Spring"(2002) was not sold at Sotheby's for £ 9.76 million, that is, for $19.2 million. The work, by the way, has a rather unusual format. On the one hand, there is a display cabinet with dummies of pills (6,136 pills), essentially a classic installation. On the other hand, this showcase is made flat (10 cm deep), placed in a frame and hung on the wall like a plasma panel, thereby fully ensuring the comfort of ownership typical of paintings. In 2002, this installation's sister, Sleepy Winter, sold for $7.4 million, more than half the price. Someone “explained” the difference in price by saying that the tablets are more faded in winter. But it's clear that given explanation absolutely groundless, because the pricing mechanism for such things is no longer related to their decorative nature. In 2007, many recognized Hirst as the author of the most expensive work among living artists. The question, however, is from the category of “depending on how you count.” The fact is that Hirst was sold for expensive pounds, and Jones for now cheaper dollars, and even twenty years ago. But even if we count at face value, without taking into account 20-year inflation, then Hirst’s work was more expensive in dollars, and Jones’s in pounds. The situation was borderline, and everyone was free to decide who was considered the most dear. But Hearst didn’t last very long in first place. In the same 2007, he was displaced from first place by Koons with his “Hanging Heart”. Just on the eve of the global decline in prices for contemporary art, Hirst undertook an unprecedented undertaking for a young artist - a solo auction of his works, which took place on September 15, 2008 in London. The news of the Lehman Brothers bank bankruptcy announced the day before did not spoil the appetite of contemporary art lovers at all: of the 223 works offered by Sotheby’s, only five did not find new owners (one of the buyers, by the way, was Victor Pinchuk). Work "Golden Taurus"- a huge stuffed bull in formaldehyde, crowned with a gold disk - brought as much £10.3 million ($18.6 million). This is Hirst's best result if calculated in pounds (the currency in which the transaction was carried out). However, we are ranking in terms of dollars, so (may the Golden Calf forgive us) we will still consider “Sleepy Spring” to be Hirst’s best sale. Since 2008, Hirst has not had sales at the level of “Sleepy Spring” and “The Golden Calf”. Fresh records of the 2010s - for the works of Richter, Jones, Fanzhi, Wool and Koons - moved Damien to sixth place in our ranking. But let’s not make a categorical judgment about the end of the Hearst era. According to analysts, Hirst as a “superstar” has already gone down in history, which means he will be bought for a very long time; However, the greatest value in the future is predicted for works created during the most innovative period of his career, that is, in the 1990s. 14. MAURIZIO CATTELAN Him. 2001. $17.19 million  Italian Maurizio Cattelan (1960) came to art after working as a security guard, cook, gardener and furniture designer. The self-taught artist has become world famous for his ironic sculptures and installations. He dropped a meteorite on the Pope, turned a client's wife into a hunting trophy, made holes in the floor of the Old Masters Museum, showed a giant middle finger to the Milan Stock Exchange, and brought a live donkey to the Frieze fair. In the near future, Cattelan promises to install a gold toilet at the Guggenheim Museum. Ultimately, the antics of Maurizio Cattelan received wide recognition in the art world: he was invited to the Venice Biennale (the installation “Others” in 2011 - a flock of two thousand pigeons that look menacingly from all the pipes and beams at the crowds of visitors passing below), arrange he received a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (November 2011) and finally got paid a lot of money for his sculptures. Since 2010, Maurizio Cattelan's most expensive work has been a wax sculpture of a man looking out from a hole in the floor, similar in appearance to the artist himself (Untitled, 2001). This sculpture-installation, which exists in three copies plus the author's copy, was first shown at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. Then this mischievous character looked out from a hole in the floor of the hall with paintings by Dutch painters of the 18th - 19th centuries. In this work, Maurizio Cattellan associates himself with a daring criminal invading the sacred space of a museum hall with paintings by great masters. Thus, he wants to deprive art of the halo of sanctity that museum walls give it. The work, which requires holes in the floor to be displayed each time, was sold for $7.922 million at Sotheby’s. The record lasted until May 8, 2016, when Cattelan’s even more provocative work “Him,” depicting a kneeling Hitler, was auctioned for $17.189 million. It’s a strange thing. The name is strange. Choosing a character is risky. Like everything from Cattelan. What does Him mean? “His” or “His infernal majesty”? It is clear that we are definitely not talking about glorifying the image of the Fuhrer. In this work, Hitler appears rather in a helpless, pitiful form. And absurd - the incarnation of Satan is made as tall as a child, dressed in a schoolboy costume and kneeling with a humble expression on his face. For Cattelan, this image is an invitation to think about the nature of absolute evil and a way to get rid of fears. By the way, the sculpture “Him” is well known to Western audiences. Her brothers in the series have been exhibited more than 10 times in leading museums around the world, including the Pompidou Center and the Solomon Guggenheim Museum. 15. MARK GROTJAN Untitled (S III Released to France Face 43.14). 2011. $16.8 million  On May 17, 2017, one of the most powerful paintings by Mark Grotjahn ever put up for auction appeared at Christie’s evening auction in New York. The painting “Untitled (S III Released to France Face 43.14)” was exhibited by the Parisian collector Patrick Seguin with an estimate of $13–16 million, and since the sale of the lot was guaranteed by a third party, no one was particularly surprised by the establishment of a new personal auction record by the 49-year-old artist . The hammer price of $14.75 million (and including the Buyer's Premium of $16.8 million) exceeded Grotjahn's previous auction record by more than $10 million, placing him in the club of living artists whose works sell for eight-figure sums. There are already about thirty seven-figure results (sales over $1 million, but not more than $10 million) in Mark Grotjahn’s auction treasury. Mark Grotjahn (1968), in whose work experts see the influence of modernism, abstract minimalism, pop and op art, came to his signature style in the mid-1990s, after moving with his friend Brent Peterson to Los Angeles and opening a gallery there "Room 702" As the artist himself recalls, at that time he began to think about what came first for him in art. He was looking for a motif with which to experiment. And I realized that he had always been interested in line and color. Experiments in the spirit of Rayonism and minimalism with linear perspective, numerous vanishing points and multi-colored abstract triangular shapes eventually brought Grotjahn world fame. From abstract colorful landscapes with multiple horizon lines and vanishing points of perspective, he eventually arrived at triangular shapes reminiscent of butterfly wings. Grotjahn's paintings 2001–2007 That’s what they call “Butterflies”. Today, moving the vanishing point or using several vanishing points at once, spaced apart in space, is considered one of the artist’s most powerful techniques. The next large series of works was called “Faces”; in the abstract lines of this series one can discern the features of a human face, simplified to the state of a mask in the spirit of Matisse, Jawlensky or Brancusi. Speaking about the extreme simplification and stylization of forms, about the compositional solution of the paintings, when the scattered contours of eyes and mouths seem to be looking at us from the forest thicket, researchers note the connection between Grotjahn’s “Faces” and the art of the primitive tribes of Africa and Oceania, while the artist himself simply “likes the image eyes looking out from the jungle. I sometimes imagined the faces of baboons or monkeys. I cannot say that I was consciously or subconsciously influenced by primitive African art; rather, I was influenced by artists who were influenced by it. Picasso is the most obvious example." The works in the “Faces” series are called brutal and elegant, pleasing to the eye and pleasing to the mind. Over time, the texture of these works also changes: to create the effect of internal space, the artist uses broad strokes of thick paint, even splashing in the style of Pollock, but the surface of the painting is leveled so that upon close examination it appears absolutely flat. The painting “Untitled (S III Released to France Face 43.14)”, which set an auction record, belongs precisely to this famous series by Mark Grotjahn. 16. TAKASHI MURAKAMI My lonely cowboy. $15.16 million  Japanese Takashi Murakami (1962) entered our rating with sculpture "My Lonely Cowboy", sold at Sotheby's in May 2008 for $ 15.16 million. With this sale, Takashi Murakami was long considered the most successful living Asian artist - until he was eclipsed by the sale of Zeng Fanzhi's The Last Supper. Takashi Murakami works as a painter, sculptor, fashion designer and animator. Murakami wanted to take something truly Japanese as the basis for his work, without Western or any other borrowings. During his student years, he was fascinated by traditional Japanese nihonga painting, which was later replaced by the popular art of anime and manga. This is how the psychedelic Mr DOB, patterns of smiling flowers and bright, shiny fiberglass sculptures, as if straight from the pages of Japanese comics, were born. Some consider Murakami's art to be fast food and the embodiment of vulgarity, others call the artist the Japanese Andy Warhol - and in the ranks of the latter, as we see, there are many very rich people. Murakami borrowed the name for his sculpture from the Andy Warhol film “Lonely Cowboys” (1968), which the Japanese, as he himself admitted, had never watched, but he really liked the combination of words. Murakami both pleased fans of erotic Japanese comics and laughed at them with one sculpture. Increased in size, and also three-dimensional, the anime hero turns into a fetish of mass culture. This artistic statement is quite in the spirit of classic Western pop art (remember the furniture set of Allen Jones or Koons’ “The Pink Panther”), but with a national twist. 17. KAWS. Album by KAWS. 2005. $14,784,505  KAWS is the pseudonym of American artist Brian Donnelly from New Jersey. He is the youngest participant in our ranking, born in 1974. Donelly started out as an animator at Disney (he painted backgrounds for the cartoon “101 Dalmatians” and others). From his youth he was interested in graffiti. His signature design at first was a skull with “X’s” in place of the eye sockets. The young writer’s works were loved by show business figures and people from the fashion industry: he created the cover for Kanye West’s album, and released collaborations with Nike, Comme des Garçons and Uniqlo. Over time, KAWS became a well-known figure in the world of contemporary art. His signature figure, reminiscent of Mickey Mouse, has taken root in museums, public spaces and private collections. Once upon a time, KAWS released a limited edition of vinyl toys together with the My Plastic Heart brand, and they unexpectedly became the subject of high collectible interest. One of the passionate collectors of these “toys” is the founder Black Star rapper Timati: he almost completely collected the entire “Cavs Companions” series. KAWS's work set a record for the artist's work - $14.7 million - at Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong on April 1, 2019. Previously, she was in the collection of Japanese fashion designer Nigo. The KAWS Album is an homage to the cover of The Beatles' famous 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Only instead of people, there are Kimpsons on it - stylized characters from the animated series The Simpsons with "X's" instead of eyes. 18. JIN SHANI Tajik bride. 1983. $13.89 million  Among the relatively young and contemporary Chinese artists, who all belong to the so-called “new wave” of the late 1980s in Chinese art, a representative of a completely different generation and a different school completely unexpectedly entered our rating. Jin Shangyi, now in his 80s, is one of the prominent representatives the first generation of artists in communist China. The views of this group of artists were formed to a large extent under the influence of their closest communist ally - the USSR. Official Soviet art, socialist realism, and oil painting, which was then unusual for China (as opposed to traditional Chinese ink painting), were at the peak of popularity in the 1950s, and he came to Beijing Art University for three years (from 1954 to 1957) to teach Soviet artist Konstantin Mefodievich Maksimov. Jin Shani, who at that time was the youngest in the group, ended up in his class. The artist always remembered his teacher with great warmth, saying that it was Maksimov who taught him to correctly understand and depict a model. K. M. Maksimov trained a whole galaxy of Chinese realists, now classics. In the work of Jin Shan, one can feel the influence of both the Soviet “severe style” and the European school of painting. The artist devoted a lot of time to studying the heritage of the Renaissance and classicism, while he considered it necessary to preserve the Chinese spirit in his works. The painting “Tajik Bride”, painted in 1983, is considered a universally recognized masterpiece, a new milestone in the work of Jin Shan. It was put up for auction by China Guardian in November 2013 and sold several times more than the estimate - for $13.89 million including commission. 19. BANKSY Decomposed Parliament. 2008. $12.14 million  Banksy-tagged murals began appearing on city walls (first in Britain and then around the world) in the late 1990s. His philosophical and at the same time poignant graffiti were devoted to the problems of the state’s attack on the freedoms of citizens, crimes against the environment, irresponsible consumption, and the inhumanity of the illegal migration system. Over time, Banksy’s wall “reproaches” gained unprecedented media popularity. In fact, he became one of the main exponents public opinion, condemning the hypocrisy of states and corporations, producing growing injustice in the capitalist system. The significance of Banksy, the sense of the “nerve of time” and the accuracy of his metaphors were appreciated not only by viewers, but also by collectors. In the 2010s, hundreds of thousands, or even more than a million dollars were given for his works. It got to the point where Banksy’s graffiti was broken out and stolen along with pieces of the walls. In an era of advanced digital surveillance, Banksy still manages to maintain anonymity. There is a version that this is no longer one person, but a group of several artists, headed by a talented woman. That would explain a lot. And the external dissimilarity of the writers, caught in the lenses of witness cameras, and the impersonal stencil method of application (provides high speed and does not require the direct participation of the author), and the touching romance of the subjects of the paintings (balls, snowflakes, etc.). Be that as it may, the people from the Banksy project, including his assistants, know how to keep their mouth shut. In 2019, Banksy’s most expensive work unexpectedly became the four-meter canvas Devolved Parliament (“degraded,” “decayed,” or “devolved” parliament). Chimpanzees arguing in the House of Commons seem to be mocking the audience in the year of the scandalous Brexit. It is surprising that the painting was painted 10 years before this historical turning point, and therefore someone considers it prophetic. At a Sotheby's auction on October 3, 2019, during a fierce bidding, an unknown buyer purchased this oil for $12,143,000 - six times more expensive than the preliminary estimate. 20. JOHN CURREN “Sweet and simple.” 1999. $12.007 million  American artist John Curran (1962) known for his satirical figurative paintings on provocative sexual and social themes. Curren's works manage to combine the painting techniques of the old masters (especially Lucas Cranach the Elder and the Mannerists) and fashion photographs from glossy magazines. Achieving greater grotesquerie, Curren often distorts the proportions of the human body, enlarges or reduces its individual parts, and depicts heroes in broken, mannered poses. Curren started in 1989 with portraits of girls redrawn from a school album; continued in the early 1990s with paintings of busty beauties, inspired by photos from Cosmopolitan and Playboy; in 1992, portraits of wealthy elderly ladies appeared; and in 1994, Curren married sculptor Rachel Feinstein, who became his main muse and model for many years. By the late 1990s, Curren's technical mastery, combined with the kitsch and grotesqueness of his paintings, brought him popularity. In 2003, Larry Gagosian took on the job of promoting the artist, and if a dealer like Gagosian takes on the artist, then success is guaranteed. In 2004, a retrospective of John Curran was held at the Whitney Museum. Around this time, his works began to sell for six-figure sums. The current record for a painting by John Curren belongs to the work “Sweet and Simple,” sold on November 15, 2016 at Christie’s for $12 million. The painting with two nudes barely surpassed the lower estimate of $12–18 million. And yet, for John Curran, who Now over 50, this is definitely a breakthrough in my career. His previous record in 2008 was $5.5 million (paid, by the way, for the same work, “Sweet and Simple”). 21. BRYCE MARDEN The Attended. 1996–1999 $10.917 million  Another living American abstract artist in our ranking is Brice Marden (1938). Marden's works in the style of minimalism, and since the late 1980s - gestural painting, stand out for their unique, slightly muted palette. The color combinations in Marden's works are inspired by his travels around the world - Greece, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka. Among the authors who influenced Marden’s development are Jackson Pollock (in the early 1960s, Marden worked as a security guard at the Jewish Museum, where he witnessed Pollock’s “dripping” with his own eyes), Alberto Giacometti (acquainted with his works in Paris) and Robert Rauschenberg (some Marden worked as his assistant for a time). The first stage of Marden’s work was devoted to classic minimalist canvases consisting of colored rectangular blocks (horizontal or vertical). Unlike many other minimalists, who sought the ideal quality of works that looked as if they were printed by a machine rather than drawn by a person, Marden preserved traces of the artist’s work and combined different materials (wax and oil paints). Since the mid-1980s, under the influence of oriental calligraphy, geometric abstraction was replaced by winding, meander-like lines, the background for which was the same monochrome color fields. One of these “meaning” works, “The Attended,” was sold at Sotheby’s in November 2013 for $10.917 million, including commission. 22. Pierre Soulages Peinture 186 x 143 cm, 23 December 1959. $10.6 million  23. ZHANG XIAOGAN Eternal love. $10.2 million  Another representative of Chinese modern art - symbolist and surrealist Zhang Xiaogang (1958). At Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong April 3, 2011, where Chinese avant-garde art from the collection of the Belgian baron Guy Ullens, a triptych by Zhang Xiaogang was sold "Eternal love" was sold for $ 10.2 million. At that time, this was a record not only for the artist, but for all Chinese contemporary art. They say that Xiaogang's work was bought by billionaire wife Wang Wei, who is planning to open her own museum. Zhang Xiaogang, who is interested in mysticism and Eastern philosophy, wrote the story “ Eternal love"in three parts - life, death and rebirth. This triptych was included in the iconic 1989 China/Avant-Garde exhibition at the National Museum of Art. Also in 1989, student demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the military in Tiananmen Square. Following this tragic event, the tightening of the screws began - an exhibition in National Museum was dispersed, many artists emigrated. In response to socialist realism imposed from above, the direction of cynical realism arose, one of the main representatives of which was Zhang Xiaogang. 24. BRUCE NAUMAN Helpless Henry Moore. 1967. $9.9 million  American Bruce Nauman (1941), winner of the main prize at the 48th Venice Biennale (1999), took a long time to achieve his record. Nauman began his career in the sixties. Connoisseurs call him, along with Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, one of the most influential figures in the art of the second half of the twentieth century. However, the intense intellectuality and absolute lack of decorativeness of some of his works obviously prevented his rapid recognition and success among the general public. Nauman often experiments with language, discovering unexpected meanings in familiar phrases. Words become the central characters of many of his works, including neon pseudo-signs and panels. Nauman himself calls himself a sculptor, although over the past forty years he has tried himself in absolutely different genres- sculpture, photography, video art, performances, graphics. In the early nineties, Larry Gagosian uttered prophetic words: “We have yet to realize the true value of Nauman’s work.” This is how it happened: May 17, 2001 at Christie's, Nauman's 1967 work "Helpless Henry Moore (back view)"(Henry Moore Bound to Fail (Backview)) set a new record in the post-war art segment. A cast of Nauman's hands tied behind his back, made of plaster and wax, went under the hammer for $ 9.9 million to the collection of the French tycoon Francois Pinault (according to other sources, the American Phyllis Wattis). The estimate for the work was only $2–3 million, so the result came as a real surprise to everyone. Before this legendary sale, only two of Nauman's works had crossed the million-dollar mark. And in his entire auction career, so far only six works, in addition to “Henry Moore...”, have gone for seven-figure sums, but their results still cannot be compared with nine million. "Helpless Henry Moore" is one of a series of polemical works by Nauman about the figure of Henry Moore (1898–1986), a British artist who in the sixties was considered one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century. Young authors, who found themselves in the shadow of the recognized master, then attacked him with ardent criticism. Nauman's work is a response to this criticism and at the same time a reflection on the topic of creativity. The title of the work becomes a pun, as it combines two meanings of the English word bound - bound (in the literal sense) and doomed to a certain fate. If you think that all great artists are in the past, then you have no idea how wrong you are. In this article you will learn about the most famous and talented artists of our time. And, believe me, their works will remain in your memory no less deeply than the works of maestros from past eras. Wojciech BabskiWojciech Babski is a contemporary Polish artist. Finished his studies in Silesian Polytechnic Institute, but associated himself with . Lately he has been painting mainly women. Focuses on the expression of emotions, strives to obtain the greatest possible effect using simple means. Loves color, but often uses shades of black and gray to achieve the best impression. Not afraid to experiment with different new techniques. Recently, he has been gaining increasing popularity abroad, mainly in the UK, where he successfully sells his works, which can already be found in many private collections. In addition to art, he is interested in cosmology and philosophy. Listens to jazz. Currently lives and works in Katowice.
Warren ChangWarren Chang is a contemporary American artist. Born in 1957 and raised in Monterey, California, he graduated with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1981, where he received a BFA. Over the next two decades, he worked as an illustrator for various companies in California and New York before embarking on a career as a professional artist in 2009. His realistic paintings can be divided into two main categories: biographical interior paintings and paintings depicting people at work. His interest in this style of painting dates back to the work of the 16th century artist Johannes Vermeer, and extends to subjects, self-portraits, portraits of family members, friends, students, studio interiors, classrooms and homes. His goal is to create mood and emotion in his realistic paintings through the manipulation of light and the use of muted colors. Chang became famous after switching to traditional fine arts. Over the past 12 years, he has earned numerous awards and honors, the most prestigious of which is the Master Signature from the Oil Painters of America, the largest oil painting community in the United States. Only one person out of 50 is given the opportunity to receive this award. Warren currently lives in Monterey and works in his studio, and he also teaches (known as a talented teacher) at the San Francisco Academy of Art.
Aurelio BruniAurelio Bruni is an Italian artist. Born in Blair, October 15, 1955. He received a diploma in scenography from the Institute of Art in Spoleto. As an artist, he is self-taught, as he independently “built a house of knowledge” on the foundation laid in school. He began painting in oils at the age of 19. Currently lives and works in Umbria. Bruni's early paintings are rooted in surrealism, but over time he begins to focus on the proximity of lyrical romanticism and symbolism, enhancing this combination with the exquisite sophistication and purity of his characters. Animated and inanimate objects acquire equal dignity and look almost hyper-realistic, but at the same time they do not hide behind a curtain, but allow you to see the essence of your soul. Versatility and sophistication, sensuality and loneliness, thoughtfulness and fruitfulness are the spirit of Aurelio Bruni, nourished by the splendor of art and the harmony of music.
Aleksander BalosAlkasander Balos is a contemporary Polish artist specializing in oil painting. Born in 1970 in Gliwice, Poland, but since 1989 he has lived and worked in the USA, in Shasta, California. As a child, he studied art under the guidance of his father Jan, a self-taught artist and sculptor, so he early age, artistic activity received full support from both parents. In 1989, at the age of eighteen, Balos left Poland for the United States, where his school teacher and part-time artist Kathy Gaggliardi encouraged Alkasander to enroll in art school. Balos then received a full scholarship to the University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he studied painting with philosophy professor Harry Rozin. After graduating in 1995 with a bachelor's degree, Balos moved to Chicago to study at the School of Fine Arts, whose methods are based on the work of Jacques-Louis David. Figurative realism and portraiture formed the majority of Balos' work in the 90s and early 2000s. Today, Balos uses the human figure to highlight the characteristics and shortcomings of human existence, without offering any solutions. The subject compositions of his paintings are intended to be independently interpreted by the viewer, only then will the paintings acquire their true temporal and subjective meaning. In 2005, the artist moved to Northern California, since then the subject matter of his work has expanded significantly and now includes freer painting methods, including abstraction and various multimedia styles that help express ideas and ideals of existence through painting.
Alyssa MonksAlyssa Monks is a contemporary American artist. Born in 1977, in Ridgewood, New Jersey. I began to be interested in painting when I was still a child. She studied at The New School in New York and Montclair State University, and graduated from Boston College in 1999 with a bachelor's degree. At the same time, she studied painting at the Lorenzo de' Medici Academy in Florence. Then she continued her studies in the master's degree program at the New York Academy of Art, in the department of Figurative Art, graduating in 2001. She graduated from Fullerton College in 2006. For some time she lectured at universities and educational institutions throughout the country, teaching painting at the New York Academy of Art, as well as Montclair State University and Lyme Academy of Art College. “Using filters such as glass, vinyl, water and steam, I distort the human body. These filters allow you to create large areas of abstract design, with islands of color peeking through - parts of the human body. My paintings change the modern view of the already established, traditional poses and gestures of bathing women. They could tell an attentive viewer a lot about such seemingly self-evident things as the benefits of swimming, dancing, and so on. My characters press themselves against the glass of the shower window, distorting their own bodies, realizing that they thereby influence the notorious male gaze on a naked woman. Thick layers of paint are mixed to imitate glass, steam, water and flesh from afar. However, up close, the amazing physical properties oil paint. By experimenting with layers of paint and color, I find a point where abstract brushstrokes become something else. When I first started painting the human body, I was immediately fascinated and even obsessed with it and believed that I had to make my paintings as realistic as possible. I “professed” realism until it began to unravel and reveal contradictions in itself. I am now exploring the possibilities and potential of a style of painting where representational painting and abstraction meet – if both styles can coexist at the same moment in time, I will do so.”
Antonio FinelliItalian artist – “ Time Observer” – Antonio Finelli was born on February 23, 1985. Currently lives and works in Italy between Rome and Campobasso. His works have been exhibited in several galleries in Italy and abroad: Rome, Florence, Novara, Genoa, Palermo, Istanbul, Ankara, New York, and can also be found in private and public collections. Pencil drawings " Time Observer“Antonio Finelli takes us on an eternal journey through the inner world of human temporality and the associated scrupulous analysis of this world, the main element of which is the passage through time and the traces it leaves on the skin. Finelli paints portraits of people of any age, gender and nationality, whose facial expressions indicate passage through time, and the artist also hopes to find evidence of the mercilessness of time on the bodies of his characters. Antonio defines his works with one, general title: “Self-portrait”, because in his pencil drawings he not only depicts a person, but allows the viewer to contemplate the real results of the passage of time inside a person.
Flaminia CarloniFlaminia Carloni is a 37-year-old Italian artist, the daughter of a diplomat. She has three children. She lived in Rome for twelve years, and for three years in England and France. She received a degree in art history from the BD School of Art. Then she received a diploma as an art restorer. Before finding her calling and devoting herself entirely to painting, she worked as a journalist, colorist, designer, and actress. Flaminia's passion for painting arose in childhood. Her main medium is oil because she loves to “coiffer la pate” and also play with the material. She recognized a similar technique in the works of artist Pascal Torua. Flaminia is inspired by great masters of painting such as Balthus, Hopper, and François Legrand, as well as various artistic movements: street art, Chinese realism, surrealism and Renaissance realism. Her favorite artist is Caravaggio. Her dream is to discover the therapeutic power of art.
Denis ChernovDenis Chernov is a talented Ukrainian artist, born in 1978 in Sambir, Lviv region, Ukraine. After graduating from the Kharkov Art School in 1998, he remained in Kharkov, where he currently lives and works. He also studied at the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Arts, Department of Graphic Arts, graduating in 2004. He regularly participates in art exhibitions; at the moment there have been more than sixty of them, both in Ukraine and abroad. Most of Denis Chernov's works are kept in private collections in Ukraine, Russia, Italy, England, Spain, Greece, France, USA, Canada and Japan. Some of the works were sold at Christie's. Denis works in a wide range of graphic and painting techniques. Pencil drawings are one of his most favorite painting methods; the list of themes in his pencil drawings is also very diverse; he paints landscapes, portraits, nudes, genre compositions, book illustrations, literary and historical reconstructions and fantasies.
The art of modern painting is works created currently or in the recent past. A certain number of years will pass, and these paintings will become part of history. Works of painting created from the 60s of the last century to the present day reflect several trends in modern art that can be classified as postmodernism. During Art Nouveau times, the work of painters was more widely represented, and in the 70s of the twentieth century there was a change in the social orientation of the art of painting. Contemporary artArtists of modern painting primarily represent new trends in fine art. In cultural terminology, there is the concept of “contemporary art”, which in some way correlates with the concept of “contemporary painting”. By contemporary art, artists most often mean innovation, when the painter turns to cutting-edge themes, regardless of their focus. The picture can be painted in and depict any industrial enterprise. Or on the canvas there is a landscape landscape with a wheat field, meadow, forest, but at the same time a combine harvester will certainly be drawn in the distance. The style of modern painting assumes a social orientation of the picture. At the same time, landscapes by contemporary artists without social overtones are valued much more highly.
Choosing a directionSince the late 90s, artists of modern painting have abandoned industrial themes and transferred their creativity into the mainstream of pure fine art. Masters of fine portrait painting, landscape subjects, and still lifes in the style of Flemish painting appeared. And gradually, true art began to appear in modern painting, in no way inferior to the paintings created by outstanding artists of the 18th and 19th centuries, and in some ways even superior to them. Today's brush masters are helped by a developed technical base and an abundance of new tools that allow them to fully reflect their plans on canvas. Thus, artists of modern painting can create to the best of their abilities. Of course, the quality of paints or brushes is important in the process of painting, but the main thing is talent. Abstract expressionismModern artists adhere to painting methods that allow the use of non-geometric strokes applied in large numbers on a large canvas. Large brushes are used, sometimes paint brushes. Such painting can hardly be called art in the classical sense of the word, but abstraction is a continuation of surrealism, which appeared back in 1920 thanks to the ideas of Andre Breton and immediately found a lot of followers, such as Salvator Dali, Hans Hofmann, Adolf Gottlieb. At the same time, artists of modern painting understand expressionism in their own way. Today, this genre differs from its predecessor in the size of the canvases, which can reach three meters in length.
Pop ArtA counterbalance to abstractionism was the conceptual new avant-gardeism, which promoted aesthetic values. Modern artists began to include images of famous figures in their paintings, such as Mao Zedong or Marilyn Monroe. This art is called "pop art" - a popular, generally recognized direction in painting. Mass culture replaced abstract art and gave rise to a special type of aesthetics, which in a colorful, spectacular manner presented to the public what was on everyone’s lips, some recent events or images of well-known people in different life situations. The founders and followers of pop art were Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Peter Blake, Roy Lichtenstein.
PhotorealismContemporary art is multifaceted; often a new direction arises in it, combining two or more types of visual creativity. Photorealism became such a form of artist’s self-expression. This style of painting appeared in the USA in 1968. It was invented by avant-garde artist Louis Meisel, and the genre was introduced two years later, at the Whitney Museum during the exhibition “Twenty-Two Realists.” Painting in the style of photorealism is associated with photography; the movement of the object is frozen in time. A photorealist artist collects his image, which will be captured in the picture, using photographs. From a negative or slide, the image is transferred to the canvas by projection or using a scale grid. Then a full-fledged picture is created using painting technologies. The heyday of photorealism occurred in the mid-70s, then there was a decline in popularity, and in the early 90s the genre was revived again. Established artists worked mainly in the USA, among them there were many sculptors who also created their works using image projection. The most famous masters of painting based on photorealism are Richard Estes, Charles Bellet, Thomas Blackwell, Robert Demekis, Donald Eddy, Duane Hanson. Photorealist artists of the younger generation - Raffaella Spence, Roberto Bernardi, Chiara Albertoni, Tony Brunelli, Olivier Romano, Bertrand Meniel, Clive Head.
Contemporary artists of Russia
Russian impressionists
Russian artists painting in nude style
Contemporary Russian artists and their work are of increasing interest to connoisseurs of fine arts around the world.
Contemporary painting as world artCurrently, visual creativity has taken forms different from those that were in demand in the 18th and 19th centuries. Contemporary artists of the world turned to the avant-garde in a narrower interpretation, the canvases acquired sophistication and became more meaningful. Society today needs updated art; the need extends to all types of creativity, including painting. Paintings by contemporary artists, if they are made at a sufficiently high level, are sold out and become the subject of bargaining or exchange. Some paintings are included in the list of especially valuable works of art. Paintings from the past, painted by great painters, are still in demand, but contemporary artists are becoming increasingly popular. Oil, tempera, watercolor, and other paints help them in creativity and the successful implementation of their plans. Painters, as a rule, adhere to one style. This could be a landscape, portrait, battle scenes or another genre. Accordingly, the artist chooses a certain type of paint for his work. Contemporary artists of the worldThe most famous contemporary artists differ in their painting style, their brush is recognizable, sometimes you don’t even need to look at the signature at the bottom of the canvas. Famous masters of modern painting are Philip Pearlstein, Alexander Isachev, Francis Bacon, Stanislav Plutenko, Peter Blake, Freud Lucien, Michael Parkes, Guy Johnson, Eric Fischl, Nikolai Blokhin, Vasily Shulzhenko. |
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