10 contemporary artists to follow
Brief notes on some artists partnering with the Gagosian gallery
https://gagosian.com/artists/
John Currin
Born 1962, aged 57
NYC based American painter, known for technically impressive figurative satirical works, inspired by Danish pornography and the Dutch Golden Age. He represents social and sexual taboos in an Old Masters’ way.
Currin’s painting, Bea Arthur Naked, sold at Christie’s on May 15, 2013 for US$1,900,000
The one thing I can do is make a fairly convincing fantasy of happiness. It doesn’t mean that I’m happy or the painting isn’t creepy, but good melancholy comes from a thwarted joy, which is another way to describe parenthood, or marriage, or being alive.
— John Currin
Walter de Maria
Born in 1935 in California – Died in 2013 in NYC
American Land Art and Conceptual Art pioneer, he designed works such as The Lightning Field (1977), which perception changes with the time of day and atmospheric conditions.
A scholar in painting, he quickly turned to minimalist sculpture and explored several media: performances, films, and music (he was a proto-member of the Velvet Underground).
He is now exhibited at the MoMA, SFMoMA, LACMA, and in 2007, Lot 58, “Circle/Rectangle 7 (Large Rod Series),” sold for $577,000, more than twice the artist’s previous auction record.
Bring the art to a place, and let it speak over time.
Heiner Friedrich, Walter de Maria’s art dealer
Mark Grotjhan
Born 1968, aged 51
Los Angeles based American abstract painter, best known for his bold geometric colorful paintings.
Late Modernist, he explores composition, perspective and colors in series of paintings, sculptures and drawings, among which The Butterfly series, 50 Kitchens and The Mask.
Demand for Grotjahn’s works has climbed steadily in recent years, with prices now typically reaching $500,000 to $800,000. In 2017, “Untitled (S III Released to France Face 43.14)” was sold for $16.8 million dollars.
Ellen Gallagher
Born 1965, aged 54
Afro-American abstract painter and multimedia artist exploring questions of race and stereotypes, Ellen Gallagher often refers to poetry and pop culture in her works.
Gallagher’s work is held in many permanent collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Goetz Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof, Studio Museum in Harlem, Walker Art Center, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Moderna Museet, Sammlung Goetz and the Centre Georges Pompidou.
Deluxe, 2004–2005, sold for $665,000 (including fees) on May 11, 2016, at Christie’s New York. Her record sale some years after, reaches USD 987,750
Urs Fischer
Born 1973 in Zurich, aged 46
Amsterdam-based Swiss artist Urs Fischer’s subversive works are often inspired by anti-art movements
In 2010, Untitled (Candle) (2001) sold for USD 1 million at Sotheby’s. Untitled (Lamp/Bear) (2005–2006) peaked at USD 6,8 million at Christie’s New York in 2011.
People seem to fear art. Art has always been a word for this thing that can’t be rationalized; when you see or hear something that you struggle to explain.
Urs Fischer
Rachel Whiteread
Born in 1963 in London — Aged 56
British sculptor Rachel Whiteread works on the white spaces of usual objects: she molds the negative of empty spaces, turning them inside out.
In 1993, she becomes the first female artist to receive a Turner Prize from the Tate Britain. Her rubber-and-foam moulding of a mattress sold for $365,500 the same year.
Seeing a great piece of art can take you from one place to another — it can enhance daily life, reflect our times and, in that sense, change the way you think and are.
— Rachel Whiteread
Glenn Brown
Born 1966 — Aged 53
Glenn Brown starts with works by other artists, from masters like Rembrandt, Fragonard, Van Gogh, Soutine and Delacroix, to contemporary artists like Chris Foss, Tony Roberts and Georg Baselitz, which he then alters in colour, tone or cropping. These artistic appropriations owed him several accusations of plagiarism.
I like my paintings to have one foot in the grave, to be not quite of this world. For me they exist in a dream world, a world that is made up of all the accumulated images stored in our subconscious that coagulate and mutate when we sleep.
— Glenn Brown
Böcklin’s Tomb (copied from ‘Floating Cities’, 1981, by Chris Foss), 1998, by Glenn Brown sold for £2,322,500 ($3,750,838 / €2,740,550) at Christie’s London in 2013.
Jenny Saville
Born 1970 — Aged 49
Oxford-based painter Jenny Saville is a leading figure of the Young British Artists, known for her large-scaled female nudes. She works with traditional oil paint, in a figurative style much larger than life-size.
“She found a way to niche gender studies within a late flowering of the grand tradition of the swagger portrait… Saville’s provocative twist was to extend the bravura technique and monumental scale of such painting to naked and isolated (or in some cases sardined) young women.”
David Cohen
In 2018, she sold a portrait for $12.4 million, an auction high for a living female artist.
Georg Baselitz
Born 1938 — Aged 81
German neo-expressionnist painter and sculptor, Georg Baselitz is known for his upside-down large-scaled works, violently painted in hasty brushstrokes.
“I was born into a destroyed order, a destroyed landscape, a destroyed people, a destroyed society. And I didn’t want to reestablish an order: I had seen enough of so-called order. I was forced to question everything, to be ‘naive’, to start again.”
Georg Baselitz
Internationally recognized and celebrated, his record sale hit the £3.2 million.
Richard Prince
Born 1949 — Aged 70
New-York-based multimedia artist Richard Prince works with rephotographs and reappropriation.
“What I find is that the taking, the stealing, the appropriation of images has to do with prior availability, and it sets up a degree where things can be shared… It’s like 50% off… You can let something of another emotion or another personality sign on your work, or co-sign it.”
Richard Prince
In 2008 the painting ‘Overseas Nurse’ from 2002 fetched a record-breaking $8,452,000 at Sotheby’s in London.
