The Financial Times reported some sales from Art Moscow held in mid-September:

• XL Gallery had sold an edition of three of the Electroboutique’s political pieces that allowed the public to text a message on to the facade of Moscow’s White House.
• Aidan, sold eight works, including Jewgenija Tschuikowa’s nail polish on stainless steel, “Everything is fine, Perfect”, for $9,000.
• Photography dealers Pobeda found new homes for 15 pieces, mostly silver gelatin prints by the American Jefferson Hayman.

We’ve had a few reports from Art Moscow. Not many of them have been effusive. The public relations firm for the fair has its own view of the event. Boom Boom PR provided this report:

Art Moscow has ended on a high note for about 240 artists and 37 gallerists, with sales volumes on the rise and an attendance of approximately 25 000 visitors during the five days of the 14th edition of the International Art Moscow Art Fair which ran from 22^nd till 26^th September 2010.

When deliberately reducing the number of participating galleries from 73 in 2007 to 37 in 2010, Art Moscow sent a clear signal to artists, collectors and gallerists that quality should prevail over quantity. Significant efforts were made to ensure that the fair will keep on growing. The most important addition to the fair was the introduction of an art director supervising the overall quality level of the fair and the development of Art Moscow’s special projects.

Ekatherina Iragui, Iragui Gallery, described the impact of the new art director – Christina Steinbrecher – as follows: “Steinbrecher’s initiatives raised the level of Art Moscow which has been somehow inconsistent in the last few years. It is true Art Moscow is a unique event, especially for the region, but in recent years the fair attracted galleries with questionable esthetic taste and the fair suffered from the commercialization of contemporary art.”Continue Reading

Artnet has Michael Bown wandering Art Moscow. Here he ducks into a Kiev gallery and gets a cold dose of reality:

Natasha Sheiko of Tsekh Gallery, Kiev’s leading contemporary gallery, told a similar tale. Nearly all the buyers in her fine high-ceilinged post-industrial space in Kiev hail from Europe or Russia, while Ukrainian demand remains very weak. Sheiko also reported that Viktor Pinchuk, the man who brought international contemporary art to Kiev, has slashed his exhibition budget, and the opening of his new museum is still unscheduled.Continue Reading