Without sensations, but with dynamics

After the Sotheby's auction, the Russian art market has become more transparent

Sotheby's won, although not big. The bold decision to separate lovers of antiques from buyers of contemporary art turned out to be noticeably more successful than attempts to sell works of the late 20th and early 21st centuries at the end of the usual “Russian auctions”. The London auction on February 15 passed smoothly, without deafening sensations and ended, according to the participants, with applause from the public. Almost all the lots were sold for a quite impressive 2 million 630 thousand 880 English pounds. Despite the absence of the sharks of the Russian antique market, there was no shortage of buyers; on the contrary, the auction house reported a record number of participants - both foreigners and domestic collectors of contemporary art competed for the lots, the number of which has recently been increasing more rapidly than the number of artists. Most of the lots presented went for amounts slightly higher than stated, the price of only a few works increased sharply, but the usual records at “our” auctions did not happen, the list of millionaire paintings was not replenished, almost all prices look quite reasonable (at the moment, just a few years ago they would have seemed insanely high).

Erik Bulatov should have taken first place: “Revolution-Perestroika,” although not one of his best paintings, comes from a well-known American collection, and there are not very many works of this wonderful artist on the market (and in nature), and therefore, the final 198 thousand pounds looks quite logical. But logic is not a decree for the domestic market: the leader of the auction - -288,000 pounds - quite unexpectedly became the abstraction of the gallery's favorite Gary Tatintsian, Evgeniy Chubarov, who has not yet appeared on the lists of grandees of domestic contemporary art. In third place - 192 thousand for “The Ardent Eye” by the mystic Mikhail Shvartsman, also a rare author on the market. Not the best “Nude” by Vladimir Weisberg was bought for 186 thousand. The leaders were the sixties, represented by very high-quality works: Oleg Tselkov, Oleg Vasiliev, Lidiya Masterkova, Viktor Pivovarov, Oscar Rabin. The not-so-successful works of their no less eminent colleagues were much cheaper - they paid not for names, but for quality.

But with the sixties, promoted and sometimes raised to million-dollar heights at previous auctions, everything was more or less clear before; it is much more curious that the next generation of artists looked quite decent, although, of course, their works were much cheaper. With only one exception - Maxim Kantor (66 thousand pounds), who recently complained in two thick volumes that it is impossible for a good artist to make it in our difficult times: there are only scoundrels all around who choose only opportunists.

The conceptualists branded by Kantor had more modest successes: a diptych by Sergei Volkov, which stood out against the general background and was worthy of a museum collection, was bought for 36 thousand, two early paintings by Vadim Zakharov - for 24 and 19 thousand, of the same time, “Sprouts of the Cross” by Nikolai Ovchinnikov - for 30, photographs by Sergei Borisov - for 6 thousand. All these are works of the turbulent perestroika period, which were once scattered among unknown collections. But there were also very recent works at the auction, mostly they went for not very serious money, although the large “City” by Valery Koshlyakov was bought for 31,200 pounds. Works by not very well-known artists were also dismantled. Less than twenty works out of 116 lots offered to the respectable public did not find buyers. As a result, the obscure Russian market has become a little more transparent, prices are clearer, and the rules are clearer. Buyers are still not very visible, but only this spring private collections of contemporary art will open to the public - the Ekaterina Foundation of Ekaterina and Vladimir Semenikhin and the Art4.ru Museum of Igor Markin, so it seems that soon we will know not only how much they cost works of art, but also who acquires them.

Faina BALAKHOVSKAYA