 With oil and gas pumping up Russia’s economy the country’s newly rich with money to spare have become a world magnet for those who have goods to sell. Topping the list of consumer preferred “must haves” not counting second and third residences are luxury goods like art, furniture and jewelry. Catering to this newly hatched class of caviar and champagne devotees is the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, which since it inception five years ago has been growing dramatically in both sales and the number of exhibitors. While this year’s fair (May 24 - June 2) with its 80 international exhibitors (virtually half from Paris and Moscow) has not yet knocked the 21 year old Maastricht Art Fair with its 200 exhibitors out of the sales arena ― despite fears of a world-wide recession, so far there seems to be enough money to make a lot of Art & Antique Fair people happy ― it is a serious challenger, especially in the area of contemporary and classical Russian art and high-end fine jewelry, the latter being the largest and most breathtaking exhibition of diamonds, emeralds, and other colored gems, on the planet.
Unlike most art fairs that throw up a few white walls and pile in the exhibitors, making one think “business as usual” rather than “an extraordinary event” the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, which is housed at the Manége, once a riding school for imperial forces, makes no bones about being an exclusive, ultra chic showcase. With many of the art galleries resembling small private museums, and the exhibition spaces of the fine art and furniture exhibitors, channeling the rooms of richly appointed country estates, one feels, before they realize just how poor they really are, both rich and privileged just being at this fair. While there are a few galleries, with slight exaggeration, that are two inches from being trailer trash – one wonders why they are even there – for the fecund and those that are in touch with their gonads, there are quite a number of life-changing galleries that are so beautifully appointed that like Madame Pompadour’s love affair with her Boucher paintings, waves of ecstasy wash over you.
Prime examples of such ecstasy inducing galleries, are B. & B. Steinitz and Galerie Schmit, both headquartered in Paris and both cleverly positioned close to the entrance to the fair. Steinitz who specializes in 17th and 18th century furniture, paintings and objets d’art, as well as wood paneling and fire places, recreated a room from a country manor, the type that often appears as background in many of John Singer Sargent’s portraits. Interestingly enough every time I asked the price of an object or a piece of furniture I was told that it was sold to a Russian buyer and the price was no longer available. However, one stunningly ornate mirror, not yet sold, could be taken home for $190,000. Galerie Schmit, with all paintings hung at eye level, presented itself as a museum. As such it was both familiar and welcoming. Viewers were greeted with small works by Degas, Manet, Monet, Sisley, Renoir, and Boudin to name a few. Most were priced in the millions. The piéce de résistance, and perhaps the most expensive work of art at the fair, was Cezanne’s, museum quality, Paysage du Midi (1885-1887). For 44.6 million dollars it could be yours.
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Rauf Mamedov, Supper at Emmaus (2007) |
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According to gossip and rumor, as sales figures in general are closely guarded, not to mention for foreign exhibitors many purchases are made out of county and shipped back to the buyer, so as to avoid the 18% VAT taxes, the nearly 30 Moscow Art galleries that bought space at the fair, especially those art galleries that showed Russian contemporary artists, made out like bandits. Like Cuba in the 80s and China channeling Mao now, as the phenomena goes, those contemporary artists whose work appeared to oppose or portray opposition to their government be it overt or covert or ironic, flew off the wall. Most were snapped up by Russian collectors. Despite flawless technique, most often it was the subject matter that stopped people in their tracks. At Aidan Gallery, Russia’s first gallery of contemporary art (founded in 1992), Rauf Mamedov’s three color photo-triptychs from his series Supper at Emmaus (2007) were stunners. One set sold for $112,000. Except for the nude girl who represents the Resurrection of Jesus as described in the Gospel of Luke, all of the models that posed for his tableaus are afflicted with Down syndrome. Strangely enough, the expression on their faces, one of awe, matches the expressions on the faces of apostles in Rembrandt’s painting of the same subject.
Leonid Sokov, Stalin and Marilyn (2007) |
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A large and strikingly vivid, black and white photograph, by Oleg Kulik, one of Russia’s most famous contemporary artists, was prominently featured at XL Gallery (Moscow). Here a naked girl ― from the artist’s 1999 Fear Series ― mysteriously standing in nearly waist-high water, sadly watches as her gauzy white wedding dress floats away. At Galerie Orel Art (Paris), God for the Big People (2008), an Andrei Molodkin painting was selling for $72,000. Based on a photo taken by a public surveillance camera, the type that seem to be going up in major cities around the world, the painting presents a speeding cavalcade of limos whisking untouchable politicos as they sit behind darkened windows, to their next meeting. In the background, overshadowing everything, albeit in reality with more bark than bite, is Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. At the same gallery Leonid Sokov’s oil on gold leaf pop art painting, Stalin and Marilyn (2007) with a red dot next to it sold for $44,000. The irony here is that it was Khrushchev, rarely mentioned in Russia today, and not Stalin who harbored a crush on Monroe.
The Regina Gallery (Moscow), founded in 1990 one of the first private galleries in Moscow, chose to cover all three of their walls with large portraits, recreated from Wall Street Journal illustrations of Russian personalities ―all priced at $55,000 ― by the Spanish artist Jose Maria Cano. The most recognizable face was that of Vladimir Putin Russia’s controversial prime minister and the alleged power behind the throne. Judging from the number of people that wanted to have their picture taken in with Putin ― I saw one lady actually kissing his portrait ― the guy seems to be quite popular. Sticking out like a sore thumb, and one of the few American painters represented at the fair, was the work of Andy Warhol, which mostly filled the Rudolf Budja Gallery (Saltzburg). Hidden in the back of the gallery, a few feet down from a couple of Lichtenstein’s, and going for a cool 5.7 million, was Warhol’s Holstentor (1980), a late work from the artist’s "German Monuments" series, which depicts the historical gate to the city of Lübeck.
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Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, Venice at Night |
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Equally startling, for who expects to find a gallery of Aborigine works at an art fair in Moscow, was the appearance of Lauraine Diggins Fine Art (North Caulfield, Victoria, Australia). Intricately painted works displayed sans frame ― obviously a huge saving on shipping costs ― were hung on the walls and stacked on the floor like rugs at a Turkish fair. On display were a number of exquisite paintings, all of which draw on traditions of ceremonial body painting and Batik, by two of the five renowned, Utopia based, Petyarr sisters. Arguably the most sublime painting at the fair – with a price tag slightly over one million dollars ― wisely kept under lock and key in a antique cabinet at the Aretvera’s Gallery (Geneva) was Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky’s (1817-1900) Venice at Night. With the dark and mysterious domes of Santa Maria Salute hovering in the background, coupled with the glow from the light of the full moon as it reflects off the waters of the Grand Canal, one could not help but think of his contemporary, James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
Last, but definitely not least, is the fair’s jewelry contingent. With a billion dollars worth gems guarded by a dozen or so Russian secret service types, it is truly the Mother of All Bling. Not even the jewelry lined Ponte Vecchio, the Gold Souk in Dubai or the Romanov’s in their heyday, could hold a candle to riches that lit up the lower level of the Manége. Every internationally famous jeweler from Bulgari, Moussaieff, and Graff, to Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier and Tiffany & Co, all housed cheek to jowl, turned somersaults to outshine the other. Jewel-filled vitrines sparkled, champagne flowed and music, initiated by hip DJs, filled the air. Beating the pack to the punch was the Paris branch of the world renowned Harry Winston. Its four-room Art Deco space designed by architect Frederic Legendre with imput from Winston’s artistic director Sandrine de Laage, formerly with Cartier, won the fair’s Presentation Award for “the consistency of his stand, the unity of the space between the pieces and the quality of the lights and color.” Occupying center stage at this Deco Heaven was a 2.9 million dollar necklace composed of 113 various cut (brilliant, marquis, and pear) shaped diamonds. Hanging from this chain of diamonds, was an extremely rare 37.92 carat, orange-pink Padparadscha Sapphire. The only thing missing from this very rich and royal affair was the Czar himself.
by Edward Rubin
Further information
Moscow World Fine Art Fair |
