Yuriy Tyukhtin, the owner of the auction house Sovkom and the eponymous art gallery, told to what kind of art shifted the Russian collectors emigrated to London, explained why art collectors from China are buying art of the Leningrad academic school and explained the reasons for closing down the Russia's leading galleries. Interviewed by Mary Ganiyants. - What is in the fashion now among the Russian collectors? - The top ten ratings of our collectors are buying top-rated things, and not only the Impressionists, modernists and old masters, but contemporary authors as well, Gerhard Richter, for example. It is easier to part with a top-rated thing, and expensive things show the fastest grow in value. In addition, they actually reflect the ambitions, and the people who do not live in Moscow now have really considerable ambitions, believe me. Russian contemporary art is not interesting for the majority of them at present, as it is largely derivative, and there is a very low quantity of high class artists, there are no more than ten names. The Russian mass buyer prefers our realistic painting, as it is clearer and fits well into the interior. - At one time, they said that the socialist realists of the 60s-70s were undervalued, and their prices would skyrocket. It is not just like that at the moment. - High-quality paintings and drawings are still in demand, as well as dominant names. There is no crisis in the art market; on the contrary, the prices are growing for many segments by times every year, including the Soviet and Russian art. For example, Viktor Popkov sets record after record. Yuri Pimenov, Alexander Deineka, Alexander Laktionov cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But these markets, in contrast to the Russian contemporary art market have a lot of support among collectors all over the world. - Could you set an example? - Socialist realism is actively bought by the Americans and the Chinese, the latter is buying the paintings of the Leningrad school artists and namely: Andrei Mylnikov, Evsei Moiseenko and Boris Ugarov. The point is that many Chinese contemporary artists have studied at the Leningrad Academy of Arts, and their collectors are consistently buying up those ones who taught in the academy or in China, as Konstantin Maksimov, for example. - They say that there are no major collectors left in Russia. - This is not like that. Many of the things that are bought in the West remain there. Money likes quietness. However, there are beautiful collections preserved in our country that no one has exported, so we have what to work with. - Why did close, in your opinion, the oldest galleries - Aidan and Marat Guelman Gallery? Gallery owners explained their decision by the curtailment of Russian market of contemporary art and the departure of the collectors abroad. - Indeed, nearly 80% of collectors have left the country, here I agree with Marat. But they have not stopped collecting. People just started to buy other things, the priorities changed. It turned out that the quality of contemporary art is often higher in the West than that offered by our countrymen, and prices are lower. Another reason is that it is more profitable to buy the original sources. The works of Banksy, for example, which though expensive grow in value by one hundred percent per year in spite of the crisis, instead of buying our Blue Noses with their conceptual, but still derivative ideas. When viewed from a business perspective, our galleries were not simply prepared for the consequences of the crisis. Both Aidan Salakhova and Guelman, as well as Elena Selina (XL Gallery) worked brilliantly, they exhibited good artists, but they just did not adjust their activities to the crisis of 2008.And they could not, and maybe did not want to keep the galleries that did not yield such a profit as in the previous 10 years. After all, operational costs of a good gallery come up to at least 50-60 thousand dollars per month. We strongly cut costs in 2008 in our gallery and auction house Sovkom for simply everything: staff, printing, advertising, internet, trade fairs, etc. But the most important thing is that we survived in those years not because of the sale of masterpieces, they come only several in a year, but at the expense of the buyers, whose average cashier's check is just one or two thousand dollars. The galleries of contemporary art did not work with this segment at all. - Does it turn out that the oldest art dealers were bad businessmen? - No, I think they have made considerable earnings in monetary and reputational terms, since they began in the 90s, and have done a lot for the formation of the market, but the gallery format of that time is not working under the current conditions. Largely because the market of the contemporary Russian art collapsed, as its support is objectively small, it is only 30-50 serious collectors all over the country. Trees never grow to the sky, so crises occur, but they are not infinite. They could not or did not want to convey to the customers that the prices for artists had changed, the market crashed, and now these things were cheaper than they had been before 2008. However, they were not willing to lower prices for their artists, even though the market objectively demanded it. They, probably, inflated an extremely big bubble, and it burst out. At the same time gallery owners did not have money for support and promotion of their authors (the most expensive things are the exhibitions and the participation in international fairs). I think that nobody works even with such brilliant authors as Anne Zhelud, Oksana Mas at present. - And what should have been done? - Suppose I am selling artist Ivanov or Petrov, and his paintings are exhibited at some auction, I call all my clients and understand, if they want to buy it or not. And if no one is interested in this work, I will buy it in myself. I will not let it fail. One of the main principles of Western art galleries (and we took the Western model as a sample) is, that on selling an artist, the gallery is waiting for the client to come back, if he will want to part with the picture. Gallery should work with this picture: either put it on sale, or buy it itself. And nobody will do this job for the gallery. But our gallery owners released into free flight both collectors, and artists in a difficult moment. But it cannot be so that the gallery sells paintings only in good times. In addition, some artists who find themselves in a difficult situation began to sell their works, and this fact aggravated the situation even more. Collectors, of course, were offended, why did the gallery owner sell me the work for 15 thousand dollars and the artist will sell it tomorrow for five? As a result, there are almost no Russian contemporary artists in contemporary art trading of the leading auctions. Previous Russian auctions in London showed a complete lack of interest in Russian contemporary artists, some of them were sold after the auction, but for a half of the estimate. The living classics, Eric Bulatov, Ilya Kabakov and Victor Pivovarov do not count, the demand for their works is very good, but they do not work with Russian gallerists. This does not mean that Russian buyers are not interested in contemporary art; the money simply very quickly spills over to the places where the demand and excitement is felt. Let's see how many Russian buyers will be in the evening contemporary art auction with their estimates that come up to millions in New York on May 9. - And how effective can be a state aid for the galleries? May the market rise, if the money will be allocated to the art projects of the galleries? Both Marat Guelman and Elena Selina is counting on government funding. - Gallery is a private institution. I do not leave it out that under the current situation the projects common with the government are commercially viable, but it is a dead end in the long term for both the gallery and for the market. If the gallery is working on state money, it is not effective, and therefore dependent. I am confident, one can earn in this market, but not everybody is simply willing to work much more now, and receive much less. According to statistics, nine out of ten galleries go west throughout the world, as the competition is very high. But, unfortunately, what is going on in the field of art is a reflection of the situation as a whole. Now big business, which generates customer demand, can work effectively only if it gets into the act with the state, while the normal market mechanisms should work. This leads to the development of depressive subsidized model of society. Although, I personally hope for the best, for the positive changes. There is much emphasis on the formation of an investment-attractive model, but the matter does not get any farther than the manifests. Start with the rules of export and import: all postwar and contemporary art should be freely imported and exported without a declaration. It is unclear why the government takes no measures to liberalize the rules in this area.
ENG
Рус
SOVCOM in social networks: