Surrealism Continues Its Market Rise
- Surrealists have been a hot item in the upper echelon of the art market and continue to climb. Famous modern artists like Magritte, Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst have been garnering larger sales at auction, cementing the movement as leading the industry of global collecting. The rise of Surrealism “mirrors a larger market trend toward a return to representational and figurative work,” said Emmanuel Di Donna, director of New York’s Di Donna Galleries. The movement’s dreamy content and stark comparisons influence the work of emerging artists who have been successful in contemporary auctions, such as Jonathan Gardner, Julie Curtiss, and Nicolas Party. The exploration of the subconscious, and how it has influenced the art of the Surrealists, has been a key factor in the recent return to figuration in contemporary art.
Art and Science Converge
- Science has influenced artists’ work historically, and it seems that now science acknowledges the artist’s perspective as well. The next edition of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time mega exhibition series opening in 2024 will be “Art x Science x LA”, presenting an ambitious range of exhibitions and public programs that explore the intersections between the visual art and science. For example, the link in the City of LA between its artists and scientific community, like the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech. Additionally, as scientists work on staggeringly abstract problems like climate change, they need help delivering news in a way that people will respond to and act on, and artists help convey these complicated matters in their universal language. For example, The TBA21 Academy has commissioned research-
focused artworks related to global warming and the issues that humans will be dealing with in the future.
Another art/science-related exhibition coming from ICI:
Artists’ Exclusivity is Evolving
- Artists are shifting the way they work with galleries, and we see more flexibility when it comes to moving through different parts of the market, while retaining relationships. “With the development of supersized galleries with multiple locations worldwide, the trend has also gone in the other direction,” asserted Maggie Kayne, a partner at Kayne Griffin Corcoran gallery in L.A. Her gallery has moved to co-representation with a number of their artists like James Turrell, David Lynch, and Robert Irwin. “In our opinion, the most effective way to work with an artist is to have strategic partners who all bring different skill sets, different connections, different networks….I imagine there will be more movement in that direction.” As the hierarchies of the art world seem to flatten, it means artists are getting more work.
Anciens Constructeurs
Fernand Leger
Available at Jane Kahan Gallery
For more information, see the ArtNews article “18 Trends that Will Move the Art Market Forward”
