Russians Ready to Burst Art Bubble?

The profile of former William Morris employee turned poster-art-seller turned contemporary art dealer and new money seducer Larry Gagosian in this week’s Evening Standard magazine might have been a bit fluffy, but there was one moment I loved:

“‘It’s a miscalculation to think that Russia is a market for anything you give them,’ says banker Maxim Moskalev. ‘We are nationalistic. We will play with this for a while. Then Damien Hirst will be gone and the new Russian avant-garde artists will stay.’” 

Really? Just like you buy Gucci handbags made in the Ural Mountains and Maybach’s from high-tech plants in Vladivostok?

Moskalev did have a pretty relevant follow up though:

“The oligarchs know about assets like oil fields and factories. They only buy art for fun… to be famous and entertaining. It’s a toy to them.”

Right on. Ever since Robert Hughes started referring to Hirst’s as ‘decor’, and Gagosian declaring that half his sales of shiny Koons’ trinkets are now going to Russians, I’ve been starting to think maybe this whole contemporary art market thingoe is turning into a little bit of a super-rich Habitat. That is, most of this art is being sold to very very green investors with bucketloads of cash and large houses in Kensington that need filling with big ol’ status baubles. What happens when they stop wanting these ‘toys’ (er, look at the Russian stock market people)? Is anyone else going to want to buy this art? Do you really want some hand-me-down decor from Dasha Zhukova’s second toilet? This market is fickle people – all that has to happen is the Russian’s decide it’s boring and go off to do something else like adventure sports or F1 or whoring or money hoarding and IT’S ALL OVER. OK, if you’re not convinced, see some cold hard numbers here.

Posted by Daniel Stacey in Creative Economy | October 12, 2008 9:59PM |