The Ultimate Snob
9 artists I discovered recently
Museum is a temple, they said. Libraries are temples too, they told me. And until very recently I shared this sentiment. If an artist made it to a museum, his oeuvre’s worth studying and following. Before starting my art advisory practice, I was never keen on hunting new artists, I was overwhelmed with thousands of names, connections and stories behind them already. I used to rely heavily on museums and libraries for getting new knowledge (after all I was told they were the temples). Quite snobbish it was I have to admit... very snobbish indeed. Today I go there mostly for pleasure.
Apparently the most valuable information I receive comes from the art fairs (I used to be very arrogant about their commercial nature), galleries’ newsletters and other materials. There are many dealers who changed the path of art history: the artsy-classy-jewish-princess Peggy Guggenheim; Ernst Beyeler, who gave birth to Art Basel, which has grown to become a monster; the founders of pop art and allegedly CIA spies Leo Castelli & his first wife Ileana Sonnabend, who discovered Warhol and Lichtenstien; such contemporary art tycoons like Larry Gagosian were also mentored by Castelli. The other two sources of my inspiration are Instagram (still struggling with the algorithm though) and student shows (oh, I love them!)
Although my snobbism subsided significantly, I still feel overwhelmed by the names and I haven’t yet figured out how to systemise this information. However, I do enjoy taking random pictures/screenshots from different sources only to realize that all of the works I’ve noticed are from the same artist. To me it’s a sign of a well-trained professional eye. Perhaps my 15 years in the field contributed to this?
Here are the nine artists I’ve discovered recently and have already purchased some of their works for my clients. By the way, most of them have been exhibited in temples (I mean in museums) and not even once.
Marcel Dzama, 49, Canada
Dzama is grounded in drawing but he has extended his artistic practices to many other forms, including staging design and performance. Eclectic, playful, erotic and fairy-tale-like artworks may seem simple at the first glance, but upon closer inspection, each piece reveals multiple stories to be discovered layer by layer. Cool facts: he worked on the music video for Bob Dylan’s When the Deal Goes Down; Justin Peck asked him to work for NYC Ballet and together they staged Hans Christian Andersen’s The Most Incredible Thing (2016); he collects masks!
Price range: 20-80K USD for a single piece; up to 200K for a mural size
Dario Villalba, 1939–2018, Spain
It’s a shame to admit, but I figured out who Villalba was only during ARCO 2023. His works were featured in many booths. Basic google search shows him as ‘a pioneer in the use of photography as a painting, emulsified, intervened and transformed and his work has been recognised by the most important artistic institutions’ and one of the most influential Spanish artists of the second half of 20th century.
Price range: 30-60K EUR for a large size mixed media canvas
Petrit Halilaj, 38, Kosovo
I was aware of Halilaj before, but really discovered him when I received a PDF from Kamel Mennour gallery. Petrit is a child of the Kosovo war. He spent 15 months in the refugee camp, where he met a psychologist (Giacomo “Angelo” Poli). Poli was giving out paper and felt-tip pens to any child who wanted to draw. That changed Petrit’s life: since then he’s been pouring out images that are so powerful… Some of these drawings form the basis of Halilaj’s installation at Tate St. Ives. Angelo and Petrit have been working together for many years. Cool fact: Petrit Halilaj is picked to create the MET's Rooftop Sculpture Commission.
“Birds represented to me the colour and joy of my imagination, even in the worst of places. Behind it you can see the shadow of a soldier with a knife. It’s up to you which way you turn: you have either the unfolding of war or the unfolding of dreams.”
Price range: 10-60K EUR for sculptures/installations of various sizes
Bosco Sodi, 54, Mexico
If Anish Kapoor and Antoni Tàpies have had a child it would be Bosco Sodi. Obviously, the grandfather in this family would have been Yves Klein. I saw him at Axel Vervoordt’s gallery in Kanaal. The overwhelming beauty of his work almost made me scream. The scale and rich texture make the paintings so powerful that you can stop breathing next to it without even noticing. Cool fact: in 2014, Sodi created Fundación Casa Wabi, a Tadao Ando-designed artist residency on the coast of Oaxaca.
Price range: 15K-180K EUR for different sizes
Carmen Calvo, 74, Spain
Another treasure found during the ARCO week. Calvo is both a collector and an archaeologist. I’m fascinated with covered faces and up-drawn or hidden identities. In my opinion Calvo could become a Spanish version of Louise Bourgeois, her work was discovered and accepted by broad audiences quite recently.
Price range: 12K-40K EUR for different sizes
Dhewadi Hadjab, 31, Algeria
Hadjab became a superstar in just one day. Instagram, Kamel Mennour, debates around his extreme photorealism and the fairs – all contributed to his rise. His first solo show was a sold out, with prices immediately increasing tenfold (yet still affordable) and a long waiting list for purchases. Just 31 years old, the artist had no shows at any respectable institution yet, but he is sure to grow in all senses. Don’t you think that he might have a collaboration with Adidas? Cool fact: the press has already compared him to Caravaggio… well it could be too early to make such a comparison, but he does paint super sexy feet.
Price range: around 50K EUR for a large painting
Nadya Likhogrud, 32, Russia
Nadya is a sculptor, who has been working with ceramics since very young. I have a collection of ceramic pieces and enjoy seeing how this art form develops (so I could buy even more). Perhaps it’s due to the soviet aesthetic and a tradition of having (seeing) porcelain statues in every apartment, or maybe the images of shared childhood memories from the 90s that move me. Cool facts: as a student Nadya took side-hustles, and once she was asked to make a sculpture of a sonogram; she can make a life-size sculpture of a person, but struggles with making a ceramic plate; she did a beautiful collaboration with a fancy supermarket chain.
I took a soviet rounded basa-relief tradition and impregnated it with my (or not only my) memories.
Price range: 350 - 7K USD from full range of artworks
Zoe Buckman, 38, UK
Thank god, I learned about Zoe before discovering her celebrity status. Otherwise I may have fallen into stereotype thinking. She stitches embroidery rap lyrics onto vintage lingerie, paints gynaecological instruments bubblegum pink, makes a neon sculpture of an abstracted reproductive organs; she also installs boxing gloves as ovaries, while engaging in conversations about contraception, abortion and rape. Cool facts: She was married to David Schwimmer; Zoe is often referred to as a ‘badass feminist artist’
Spanning embroidery, sculpture, poetry, photography and film, her work – with echoes of Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago and Tracey Emin – explores sex, trauma and violence from both a personal and a social perspective.
Price range: 5K - 90K USD from full range of artworks
Klara Kristalova, 57, Sweden
Kristalova has a studio in the woods, in the northernmost points of the Stockholm archipelago. Although trained as a painter, she works predominantly with ceramics and stoneware. Klara discovered her voice after attending the YBA exhibition Sensation at the Royal Academy in London. Her works are vulnerable and human, using nordic fairytale images mixed with nature to address climate change and survival matters. Cool facts: Maurizio Cattellan discovered her during the Frieze and he introduced her to Perrotin Gallery.
I wanted to do something three-dimensional. I started to experiment with ceramics and stayed with it. I see my work as three-dimensional drawings – for that, ceramics is an excellent material.
Price range: 800 - 45K EUR for full range of artworks
It took me ages to compose it all together and at the same time I had so much fun. I promised not to stick exclusively to the arts and it looks like I found the way. Last week I listened for a 2 hours episode starring Esther Perel of The Diary of A CEO podcast (listened to it twice in fact, and even made some notes); almost finished an over-informative book The Making of the Modern Middle East by Jeremy Bowen (can’t wait to get done with Middle-East-conflict-reading-list and bring back my fiction books; it’s quite annoying to read about something you live in); a new release of the British TV show titled Truelove was also a good surprise.
Yours,
Miri