by Onajídé Shabaka - 20 Dec., 2007

  Russian Invasion at ABMB

    by Onajídé Shabaka

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Moscow-based collectors Oxana and Alexander Tarakanov arrived at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair with a wish list that included works by Neo Rauch, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Philip Guston and Ilya Kabakov.

By Thursday night, they were the proud owners of a small 1998 painting by Rauch, the German founder of the Leipzig school. It will join their growing collection of Russian contemporary art, which includes pieces by Kabakov, Timur Novikov and Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov.

"We've been looking at contemporary Western artists for a while,'' said Oxana Tarakanov, 37. "And now we are ready to start acquiring serious works.''

One of the prominent nationalities noticed at this year's Art Basel Miami Beach was the Russian (and Chinese). They were also here last year in an exhibition hosted by the Guggenheim Museum (with Thom Krens in attendance). There seems to be a great deal of enthusiasm in the newly democratic Russia for art and all things cultural. Of course, there is a long history of creative works that could be listed but, the new Russia is very much one focused on the contemporary.

International contemporary art is becoming more popular among the wealthy in the former Soviet Union. Ukrainian steel billionaire Victor Pinchuk's multimillion-dollar art collection includes works by Hirst, Jeff Koons and Andreas Gursky. In October, the world's leading art dealer, Larry Gagosian, organized an exhibition in a luxury mall outside Moscow. The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg recently kicked off its new contemporary-art initiative with a "USA Today'' exhibition, featuring 21 artists from Charles Saatchi's collection.

"More and more Russian collectors, who were limited before to Russian contemporary art, are turning to Western contemporary art,'' said Nicolas V. Iljine, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's director of corporate development in Europe and the Middle East. "They have fancy cars, pretty jewels, big houses. Now they need to fill them.''

"There are a lot of rich Russians who want to use their money to support their personal cultural interests,'' said Karl Schweizer, managing director of UBS AG's art banking division. "They are often among the top bidders at auctions.''

Western dealers and auction houses now aggressively court potential Russian clients. Both Christie's International and Sotheby's routinely preview their prized trophies in Russia, and Sotheby's opened a representative office in Moscow in May.

Russia has come a long way since the communist era 15 years ago. Russia now has an estimated 33 billionaires and up to 90,000 millionaires, and Moscow is home to more rich people than New York. Yet, this is just a bleak reminder of the tremendous gap between the small group of the extraordinarily wealthy and the nearly one-fifth of Russians who live below the poverty line of $410 per month. Russia is ranked third in the world for the number of billionaires, and thirteenth for having the largest enterprises.

New York dealers Jeffrey Deitch, Rachel Lehmann and Paul Judelson looked at a sleigh installation by Sergey Bugaev (aka "Africa''). Victoria Gelfand, a Gagosian director, arrived with Baibakova and the collector Inga Rubenstein. Blackstone Group's Stephen A. Schwarzman was seen passing through the show, as was Dmitry Logvin, director of the Pinchuk Foundation.

"This show is tremendous,'' said New York collector Tatiana Platt, who wore a skin-tight black Gucci dress and open-toe Manolo Blahniks. "I don't think many people think of Russia today as being a center of contemporary art. But this show has some strong examples of younger artists reflecting their world and doing it in all types of media.''

Showing that contemporary art is alive and well in Russia was exactly the point of the exhibition, said its sponsor Janna Bullock, founder and president of RIGroup.

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