Kristina Lyamtseva in conversation with Daria Khristova

In response to the Russian Art Week which took place the 22-29 November, MADE IN BED magazine interviewed Daria Khristova, the Head of the Russian Art Department at Bonhams Auction House. Kristina Lyamtseva, MA Art Business Student and contributor for Made In Bed magazine reports.

K.L.: What do you think about the recent Russian Art Week which took place several days ago? What do you think about the top Goncharova lot? 

D.K.: We are extremely excited about the Goncharova top lot, which actually sold at twice the estimate. It shows there is a very strong interest of this period of her art – early 20th century. The recent exhibition of Goncharova at Tate Modern, which attracted lots of interest from the scholars and general public, helped the sale of Goncharova as well. Generally, we can say from the Russian Art Week that the market is improving since the fall of 2014-15 that was connected with the sanctions against Russia and other political problems. So now we can say that the market is recovering slowly.

K.L.: And what do you think about the Roerich lot? It sold really well!

D.K.: Yes, Roerich sold very well! But our record for Roerich was 8 million in 2013. I think in the current market, unfortunately, we wouldn’t be able to achieve that level of prices. Also, lots of Roerich collectors disappeared from the market. I would say that we are lucky that we sold the small Roerich.

K.L.: Exactly. Because Christie’s didn’t sell their Roerich…

D.K.: Yes, because we had a similar Roerich from the same period, which we sold to Christie’s for about £ 1.2 million, when the market for Roerich was strong. Afterwards the market became softer, because the biggest collectors left the market.

K.L.: And what about the Kluin at Sotheby’s?

D.K.: It’s an amazing work! I expected it to go much higher actually. It’s quite surprising! I mean, avant-garde pieces are rare and almost never appear on the market! Malevich once made 85 million, and you expect prices at least at similar level.

K.L.: Do you think that the Russian market is growing? What contributes to it? What larger geo-political challenges effect the Russian art market in general?

D.K.: No, I can’t say that the market is growing. I would say it’s still recovering. It still hasn’t got back to the pre-crisis level, but what will help for it to grow and recover are lots of Russian events, exhibitions, that will actually attract clients. And not only Russian clients, but also British, Americans clients, who don’t have Russian roots. I think it would be really important to attract these kinds of clients and to make the market international, because it’s still it’s quite closed and still strongly dependent on the Russian-speaking community, and of course there are problems in Russia in which the market is affected. We don’t want this, and that’s why we want to make this market more international.

K.L.: But did the sale go better this year compared to last year? 

D.K.: It depends. It did actually worse than exactly a year ago, but it’s not because of the lack of the clients, it’s because of the lack of top lots that we had. This season was extremely difficult. I would say it is connected with Brexit. Many of my clients mentioned that they don’t want to consign because of the situation in the UK. They don’t know what to expect or what’s going to happen with the taxes and there are different reasons.

K.L.: Interest in Russian art is emerging all over the world (Goncharova’s retrospective at Tate Modern etc). Do you agree with that? What are your predictions for the future?

D.K.: Yes, but not as much. And I know that even a few museums stopped the Russian projects as well, as it’s all connected with the political situation. But if you look at the number of Russian exhibitions that happened in the UK in the past year, even in past 2 years than we can say that there is lots of interest in Russian art. Definitely.

K.L.: What do you think about the contemporary Russian market? Which artists do you recommend collecting in terms of profit? Which artists have the potential? 

D.K.: The Russian contemporary market is very weak compared to the European or American contemporary art market. Russian artists rarely take part in the big art fairs. As far as I know, even at Frieze there is not even single Russian gallery presented and the Russian pavilion at the Biennale was not very impressive. A lot needs to be done by the collectors and the gallerists before we can start taking contemporary Russian artists in the sales, before we can start advising on collecting.

K.L.: And what about non-conformist artists such as Oleg Tselkov, Natalia Nesterova, Vladimir Nemukhin? Do you think that the prices will grow for them?

D.K.: The prices were quite high about 10 years ago and after they dropped and now because there are really strong non-conformist collectors on the market, they are growing again. So let’s just say it’s really important to collect and to support their work and I’m sure there will be more exhibitions and more interest toward this period of art. 

K.L.: Who is collecting Russian art nowadays? Do you think that the audience of buyers has changed in terms of everything going online and the younger generation having more and more money?

D.K.: Since I started working, we’ve had a younger generation joining the market, so I would say there are young cross-collecting people. Their limit is mid-market, so they don’t go for million-pound lots. Obviously, you need to be a very experienced collector to invest so much money. Unfortunately, I can’t say that we have as many new collectors that joined the market as I would like to and lots of our old clients moved away. They started to collect Russian art and then they moved to collect old masters or contemporary European art, because of the problems with authenticity and because the market is not as strong.

K.L.: What do you think about Russian women artists? Are their prices much lower compared to male artists? (Natalia Goncharova, Lyubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Varvara Stepanova) 

D.K.: We didn’t think about it actually, but yes of course it is always like this. Internationally, I would say that the prices are much lower and that female artists don’t appear on the market as much as male artists for obvious reasons. We don’t actually make this connection in auction houses, because we don’t choose what we sell. But it’s an interesting point to look at - the prices of female artists.

Thank you Daria Khristova.

Kristina Lyamtseva

Contributor, MADE IN BED