Before the crisis, the auction house Sovkom even conducted specialized auctions of contemporary Russian art, including the art of the XXI century. The organizers know firsthand about the specifics of work in this segment. ARTinvestment.RU asked Yuri Tyukhtin who is the manager and the owner of the auction house Sovkom to comment on the current critical situation in the market of contemporary art.
ARTinvestment.RU: What do you think is the main reason for the crisis in the contemporary art market?
Yuri Tyukhtin: The reason is because several players in our market poorly drove up prices. Yes, they have been successfully selling to two or three dozen clients over ten years. During that period these buyers didn't care how much to pay: everything grew with terrifying force. And we should keep in mind ambitions: "Does he already have it? And what's wrong with us? Let's take it!" Galleries sold their artists, who were really good, but they entirely forgot about small and average customers. Why? Many wealthy people asked me: "Why are you interested in all this chicken feed?" They say, it's easier to sell ten or twenty works and earn thousand percent per annum. And in general, there was a very condescending attitude towards our experiments.
The moment of truth has come. There is time to scatter stones and time to gather them. We have always set estimates and set them now according to the objective situation: we need to sell a hundred - two hundred lots at once. Galleries say in turn: "No, we cannot sell ours three - five times cheaper." They want to save their blushes. In my opinion, it really violates the laws of the market. The professional market participant should be a market maker - that means to give quotes for the purchase and sale at all times, and the client should decide whether he needs the sale at this particular moment, or it's better to wait until better times.
AI: Sovkom is one of the first houses, which decided to conduct specialized contemporary art auctions. Just before the crisis, in 2008, you conducted auctions dealing with Contemporary Art twice. Did the experience prove to be unsuccessful?
Y.T.: I think we just had a very positive experience. Both auctions were profitable. In addition, we conducted two charity auctions together with the theater "Praktika", there were mostly very young artists there. And everything was wonderful, the sale was very good. Just three years ago it became clear that the crisis in the market will last for a long time and the policies and approaches should be changed.
AI: If the experience was positive, then why did Sovkom cease to conduct contemporary art auctions? Nearly four years have passed since the last auction.
Y.T.: Twice a year we conduct special sections in our seasonal auctions and ten - fifteen lots are sold well: Our biddings are three, four times lower than those of the authors or the galleries that deal with them. But even if we have twenty auction lots, we will not be able to collect an auction, for the time being there will be special strings.
AI: Maybe all of our problems are in unaffordable prices? Do we need the market segment of works under thousand dollars? What is, by the way, the lower bound of auction interest?
Y.T.: Many people do not want to work with a lot of one thousand dollars. I will not argue with them, everybody has their own principles. If I conduct an auction with one hundred and fifty lots and sell more than a half, we make seventy or eighty thousand dollars within an hour and a half. It is clear that we prepare it for a long time, and bear the costs, but I'm quite satisfied with this math. It is important to attract primary customers. So we will keep working in all price categories.
AI: It is believed that the domestic Russian market for contemporary art stalled as a lot of former buyers had gone abroad. Do you agree with that?
Y.T.: Then what prevents galleries from putting their authors up for sale in western auctions? They did put them up for sale. If an auction feels support and understands that the work will be bought, they will be taken with great relish. And if the dealers do not want to maintain the market of their artists, it is unlikely that someone else will do the job for them. If you deal with anybody professionally, you simply should keep a close watch on all resales and give them support, otherwise your customers will not appreciate your activity.
AI: By the way, do the compatriots, who went abroad, buy Russian art there?
Y.T.: They do buy. All the departees have bought rather expensive real estate; they should have something to hang on the walls. Only the priorities have changed in my view. After all, the Western market did not fail, and I see a lot of familiar faces at the evening auctions. Those who bought the Russian classics and Soviet art of the first half-century, have they ceased to buy it? Let's recall that the main records on Feshin, Vereshchagin, Pimenov, Popkov, Laktionov are made in the past two years. And there's more money than things there. In my opinion, the sale of one of the Popkov's works in the United States has made the entire annual budget of the Russian contemporary art market in general. If we consider Bulatov, Kabakov, Weisberg to be a part of contemporary art, the demand for these names is very serious and I do not recall any unsold works at decent auctions in recent years. If the estimate is correct, then everything is fine for sale. Public sale is the only objective criterion. Of course, we should not focus on one sale, it is necessary to add together the statistics of twenty, thirty sales. Then the risk of price manipulation will be small. It is theoretically possible, of course, to spend money on paying commissions to auctions, but ninety-nine percent of dealers will not do this.
AI: Can the Arts Lottery breathe life into the contemporary art market?
Y.T.: Art Lottery in its old sense will not work now, as it is different time and different people. Why is it so? We have plenty of cash sweepstakes anyway, the whole market was divided long time ago here, and I do not mention it. I'm talking about the fact that you will not be able to collect thousands of interested persons who want to get a painting as a prize. I am willing to be wrong, but in my opinion, this is the reality.
AI: Is Sovkom ready to support the contemporary art market running a series of new contemporary art auction at its own risk? And what should be done to avoid contemporary art failure at auction?
Y.T.: We will not conduct special auctions, but we are definitely going to make strings with ten, twenty lots in the best seasonal auctions, depending on the estimates and names. While all that had been put up for sale recently, was sold well with the growth, and namely: Dmitry Vrubel, Sergei Shutov, Peter Belenok, Oksana Mas, Oleg Tselkov. For example, when a picture of Konstantin Batynkov was not sold at Sotheby's once, I bought it for a half of the estimate and I will try to resell it now. He is a great artist, but one should estimate in a different way now. Therefore, come to us if you want to resell.
AI: How do you think the "reformatting" (closing up of classic commercial activities) of the three oldest galleries, and namely: Gelman, Aidan and XL will influence the Russian market?
Y.T.: So far I see a brilliant promotional event, everybody is discussing this topic. So I suppose that all the moves are correctly calculated: A will be followed by B and so on. It is a pity, if XL ceases to exhibit in the West. They represented Russia for ten years at five, six annual fairs. The government should have carried them in their arms and have given them a reward! But, as we see, this never happened. I hope that if they will not do wonderful, they will do at least good.
Questions were asked by Vladimir Bogdanov, AI
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