Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Andrei Molodkin Goes with the Flow

April 13, 2009 by Marion Maneker

Peter Aspden in the Financial Times spends some time with Andrei Molodkin who will be Russia’s artist at the Venice Biennale:

“All that is solid melts into air,” wrote Karl Marx famously, but Molodkin positions himself in the middle of that process, concerned with the liquid state, fascinated by its ability to flow, to give life, to make money, and to transform itself. He is refreshingly unafraid to make epic statements on behalf of his art. One conclusion to be drawn from his work, he says, is that “democracy, freedom, terrorism, hope, war, sex – all these are connected vessels”. [ . . . ]

We talk, briefly, of Hirst. Molodkin is less interested in the work per se than in its socio-economic context. He was excited by the famous Sotheby’s auction of Hirst’s work last year, which raised £111m and which coincided with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. “That was a performance. That was the art work,” he says eagerly, “that moment, that context.”

“Culture,” as Molodkin says in a recent catalogue of his work, “is an emptiness we have to fill and affirm with economics.” Art and money have replenished each other over much of the last decade. Is it time they stood apart for a while and examined each other more closely?

The Man with Oil in his Veins (Financial Times)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Bonhams Opens Its New HQ with Boris JohnsonBonhams Opens Its New HQ with Boris Johnson
  • Fairey on a Soap BoxFairey on a Soap Box
  • Mediocre ArtistsMediocre Artists
  • Venice with Skate'sVenice with Skate's
  • De Kooning Deal Too Profitable To Be RealDe Kooning Deal Too Profitable To Be Real
  • A Quick Trip to FIAC via InstagramA Quick Trip to FIAC via Instagram

Filed Under: Artists

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • British Modernists Draw Deep Bidding in Christie's $42 M. London Sales
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • How to Chant Like an Auctioneer
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • $10 M. Picasso Portrait Unseen for Decades to Sell at Bonhams
  • Vienna Secession Painting, Long Thought to Be Lost, Sets a Record at Auction
  • Collection of Texas Heiress Anne Marion Expected to Fetch $150 M. at Sotheby’s
  • The Side Benefit of Christie's New 2% Performance Fee
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor