THE contemporary

The contemporary art market
Dr David Bellingham,
Sotheby’s Institute of Art, UK
Iconic USA 1970s feminist artist Judy Chicago
(b. 1939) was ‘rediscovered’ by the market when
her career was relit after being selected as a key artist
in Pacific Standard Time, the Getty initiative,
launched in 2011, documenting and celebrating
southern California art from the 1970s onwards.
Subsequently Judy toured the UK and was exhibited
by London gallery Riflemaker at their Soho
premises as well as at Frieze Masters in 2013. Riflemaker
is currently (June 2015) showing work by
Chinese artist Wen Wu (b. 1978). Wen has just
been selected by the respected key curator Lu Peng
for a three-museum exhibition in China (November
2015), and Tot Taylor of Riflemaker expects
this event itself to boost her prices by a factor of
5. Riflemaker were also able to double Josephine
King’s prices after her painting ‘Uncotrollable’ was
selected to appear on a United Nations postage
stamp issue in the U.S. The gallery worked with
the artist in three solo exhibitions over a five year
period during which time prices increased by a factor
of 4.
Several significant events have increased the
reputation of German artist Andrea Büttner (b.
1972). Somewhat unusually for a practicing artist,
she researched a PHD at the Royal College of Art
London: the philosophical aspects of this research
have informed her art ever since. With the award
of the PHD in 2010 Andrea also won the Max
Mara Art Prize for Women and was displayed at
Whitechapel. In 2012 she was shown at dOCU-
MENTA (13), which according to the artist herself
marked a giant step in her career trajectory.
Since 2007 she has been represented in London
by Hollybush Gardens Gallery, and Director Lisa
Panting remarks that the reasons for increases in
market value “are multifactorial, based on solo
museum shows and general reception in the market,
with Andrea’s prices increasing on a consistent
upward curve.”
UK artist Chris Ofili (b. 1968) has had several
landmark events in his career, including winning
the Turner Prize (1998). One of the Turner Prize
works sold to US collector for a record £1.8 million.
A key recent event which has multiplied his
cultural and financial value was his exhibition
alongside two £50 million Titian mythologies at
the 2012 National Gallery London Metamorphosis
exhibition. Victoria Miro, his alpha London Gallery
was selling his Ovid series paintings at the 2012
FIAC Art Fair in Paris for £500,000. Prior to the
exhibition they had been a fraction of this value.
51