The most expensive Ukrainian artist Anatoly Krivolap talks about life and prices for painting. The most expensive Ukrainian artist Anatoly Krivolap: “For two days I burned my paintings, lighting a fire on my own site Anatoly Krivolap paintings

The world art market is increasingly interested in Ukrainian artists. Their paintings are not yet on the list of the most expensive, but the potential is great, experts say. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the most expensive work contemporary Ukrainian artists.

Artist: Anatoly Krivolap
Picture: “Horse. Evening"
Cost: $186,200

The work of the Ukrainian artist was auctioned at Phillips in 2013. Starting price for the canvas “Horse. The evening “was 76 thousand dollars. According to the results of the auction, it became the second most expensive among those sold, after the work of the American Keith Haring. The canvases of Anatoly Krivolap are recognizable due to their monochrome and bright colors. “Improving over the years acute feeling colors, the artist became known for his latest nostalgic thoughts about “The Breadbasket of Europe,” says the Phillips auction catalog. The canvas was painted in the village of Zasupoevka. According to the artist, it was especially difficult to choose the shades. Although when Crookedpaw said that he had mastered more than 50 shades of red, this challenge was special. The horse had to not stand out too much from the background and at the same time not merge with it. For sale at auction the painting was in private collection in Europe, and also exhibited at the Mystetsky Arsenal in 2012. The painting is part of an open series of works begun in 2005. It includes 14 more paintings.

Artist: Vasily Tsagolov
Painting: “Who is Hearst Afraid of”
Cost: $100,000

Vasily Tsagolov is a Kiev artist, well known abroad. He actively responds to many trends in society and art. He did not ignore Hirst, as one of the most famous, commercially successful artists in the world. The main theme of Hirst’s work is death, an application for its philosophical and religious understanding. Tsagolov subtly and ironically plays on this moment in the film “Who is Hearst Afraid of?” In 2009, the PinchukArtCentre hosted an exhibition of Damien Hirst. At the same time, Vasily Tsagolov exhibited this painting of his in the Kyiv gallery “Collection”. On the canvas, a cowboy with pistols in both hands walks forward, shooting left and right, leaving behind cemetery crosses. The image of a gangster, which occupies the entire space of the picture, painted from a lower angle, dominates the viewer so much that it is perceived as an allegory of commercial art, imposing on us its tastes, way of thinking and lifestyle. The work was purchased by a Ukrainian collector.

Artist Alexander Roitburd
Painting: “Farewell, Caravaggio”
Cost: $97,179

Odessa resident Alexander Roytburd is one of the founders of Ukrainian postmodernism. His works are exhibited at the New York Museum contemporary art. “Farewell Caravaggio” was sold in 2009. The painting was painted under the impression of a theft from the Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art famous painting Caravaggio “The Kiss of Judas, or the Taking of Christ into custody.” The canvas became the beginning of a series of monumental works “Roytburd vs Karavazhdo”. The exhibition of the same name was held in April-May 2010 in the Kyiv gallery “Collection”. According to the artist, such a game with classic masterpieces helps to reveal new meaning in them.

Artist Ilya Chichkan
Picture: “It”
Cost: $79,500

Representative New wave in Ukrainian art Ilya Chichkan is famous all over the world. His most recognizable works involve the representation of famous people in the form of monkeys. In the summer of 2008, Ilya Chichkan’s painting “It” was sold in London. The sale took place at Phillips de Pury - the third most important after Christie's and Sotheby's auction house. This was a secondary sale: the painting was put up for auction by a collector, not the artist himself. “I didn’t get anything from this,” Chichkan said. In fact, I got a reputation. If a painting is exhibited by a collector and it is sold, it means that its author has commercial potential.

Artist Oleg Tistol
Painting: “Coloring book”
Cost: $53,900

The work of the artist Oleg Tistol is classified as neo-baroque. His painting “Coloring Book” was auctioned at Phillips in 2012. The buyer wished to remain anonymous. The picture was created at the Ukrainian Fashion Week event. During fashion designer Anastasia Ivanova's fashion show, guests drew on canvas with colored markers.

Category TOPIC OF THE ISSUE

We came to the artist on a hot summer day and immediately felt the contrast with the hot bustle big city. One hundred kilometers from Kyiv, a magical landscape, birds circling over the lake, a cozy living room and a leisurely flow interesting conversation... This is the ecosystem in which Crookedpaw’s work is born, and it is here that the main motives become clear newest series artist. This is the window from which he watches the sunset over the lake, these are the houses, cattle and other elements of rural pastoral that appear on his canvases of recent years.

Krivolap received an academic education, but for a long time he studied exclusively abstract art. Several years ago, the artist began to actively introduce realistic elements into his works, and today, skillfully balancing on the edge of abstraction, he creates meditative landscapes in a recognizable hot color scheme.

Anatoly Krivolap. Photo: Maxim Belousov

The bold use of active, often open colors is one of Anatoly Krivolap’s signature techniques. His sense of color is close to the folk one - we find the same daring combinations on traditional Ukrainian clothing, the decor of scarves and applied arts. In the artist's studio, along with dozens of finished and unfinished works different years lie several rows: in the contrasting multi-colored stripes of these creations of a rural genius is the strength that a modern artist so needs so as not to get lost in the midst of numerous borrowed “-isms.” Modernism, abstractionism, etc. - contemporary artist cannot break out of the framework of “branding”, which is extremely necessary in a world oversaturated with information. But beyond the usual markings lies the concept of a genetic code - and it is this code that has found its vivid expression in the work of Anatoly Krivolap.

At sunset

He is one of the most successful Ukrainian artists, he has a huge number of fans and collectors who collect the artist “in depth”. Krivolap's works are sold at record prices at the world's leading auctions and art fairs, and are exhibited in all prestigious Ukrainian museums. And what is striking about the artist is his modesty - not only in everyday life, where he is far from the “New Russian” craving for excessive luxury, but also in his work. Anatoly Krivolap is not one of the creators who actively do PR for themselves in parallel with their main activity. You rarely see him at social gatherings. He doesn’t even come to creative events often. The wild beginning of the 90s is far behind us, when the artist, together with other masters of domestic non-figurative painting - Tiberiy Silvashi, Alexander Zhivotkov, Nikolai Babak, Nikolai Krivenko and Mark Geiko, was part of the association modernist direction“Picturesque Reserve”, argued about the ways of developing modern art, etc. Now Krivolap continues to be friends with people from the “Reserve”, but in his work he has chosen an individual path. But the artist’s interest in the problems of the evolution of art and the current domestic art process does not fade. In March 2011, Krivolap published his manifesto on the website of the ART UKRAINE magazine, where he briefly expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of contemporary art. This publication became one of the most visited articles in our online version and clearly caused a wide public interest. So, we offer you a continuation of our dialogue with the living classic.

March

— Today you are rightfully called a classic of Ukrainian fine art. But where did your passion for painting begin?

- It probably happened by accident. I was born in Yagotin, it was post-war era, no roads, no radio, no television. When autumn arrived, at five it was already night, there was nothing to do, and we, the children, were not yet asleep. And I started drawing. I always thought that I had been drawing since I was ten years old, but then my mother told me that I had been drawing horses since early childhood. And I got so carried away that I was not interested in anything else.

— You started with figurative painting, you attended school in Soviet time, studied at the school, later at the art institute. When did interest in abstraction begin?

- That's quite long story. Around the age of 20, I first heard that there was such a movement in world art as abstraction, and some picture from the catalog simply burned through me. Before that, I planned for myself that I would be a sophisticated colorist like Serov. At the institute, I specifically asked to see Puzyrkov, he was the only truly academic teacher. That is, I did everything to avoid being attracted to abstract art. But you can’t escape yourself.

Evening field

— When did you start doing non-figurative painting?

— You could say that at the same time I was doing it all the time.

My serious acquaintance with art took place in Riga, in 1965-67, when I served in the army, but had the opportunity to go to exhibitions. In the Baltics there was no such censorship as in Ukraine; everything could be seen there, including abstraction. Therefore, when I returned to Kyiv, I studied with an eye to experimenting with color. But even when I was doing academic work, I was dissatisfied with what I had done, to the point of rage - I didn’t know what the reason was, but I understood that I was doing something wrong.

It took almost 20 years to find myself. I worked as if in a laboratory, kept diaries, experimented. Was serious problem- harmonize bright colors, and I tried to solve it. There are many laws in painting, for example, the main law of the academy: “More dirt - more connection,” then everything can be harmonized using white. But to take pure, flashy colors and make them match perfectly - for this it was necessary to find some non-standard approaches. I have always been fascinated by bright colors, but at first I could not harmonize them. And I realized that I need to make an effort to cope with such a task.

Sunset on the lake

- This hard way, apparently, required remarkable courage from you...

“I don’t think it’s courage, I just had no choice.” I always knew that creative work- this is a flight, and for me, until I found my way, there was no flight. The importance of color is intuitively felt by folk art, in particular Ukrainian, which very often combines open, bright colors. I have always been surprised that with this variety of colors in folk art palette of domestic academic masters old school I've always been so poor.

— Despite such a tangible connection with folk tradition, you are one of the pioneers of contemporary art in Ukraine; The “Picturesque Reserve” association, of which you were a member, was in the early 90s the flagship of contemporary art, which replaced socialist realism. How did it happen that you took this particular path?

- I have never left it, I have never been Soviet artist. I graduated from the institute, completed the norm for the Union of Artists in two years, and at that time it was a rare case to make three republican exhibitions in such a period. I could have joined the youth section of the Union of Artists, but I didn’t go there.

Lake. Morning

- What have you been doing all this time?

- Experimented. The pictorial material led to some searches and new steps. There were no revolutions in my work, it was just evolution.

— Interest in non-figurative art was rather characteristic of the modernist era, and then world art went further. When you were actively involved in abstraction, there were completely different, postmodern landmarks in Europe. After the collapse of the USSR, did you experience the trauma of know-it-all, characteristic of the Russian humanitarian intelligentsia?

“I believe that art is selfish, and everyone should live their destiny as it is.” I've always been so immersed in own relationships with color, who wasn’t even particularly interested in all these trends. Look how many times painting has been buried, but it is alive. And as long as there are paints, as long as there are people born with the gift of communication through paints, there will be painting. Even ours domestic artists, who quickly abandoned their brushes in the 90s to play with photos and videos, subsequently returned to painting.

Near the lake

— Were you interested in experiments with new media?

— For twenty years I looked very carefully at new media, went to exhibitions, but this art did not touch me and does not touch me. I think that artists are divided into groups: some have a very rich imagination, they usually “invent worlds”, paint complex compositional figures, some are probably more capable of acting, self-PR, others see what technologically interesting things are, and still others he's good for jokes. And if a person best language which he masters by nature is painting, then there is no point in breaking with it. Another thing is that, indeed, new times require a new form.

— You are an active cultural tourist: you often travel abroad, visit leading art exhibitions?

- Moderate. I just don't have that need. I think it is important to get the maximum amount of information in your youth, and then the path goes to yourself.

Lake. Sunrise of the month

— You recently became the most expensive artist in Ukraine, your works are also in the National art museum, and in other leading meetings, that is creative career has developed. Do you feel like a meter?

- I am a person who always doubts, so there is no such feeling. And regarding the fact that I am expensive... I was the most expensive initially, that is, since 1990. Since then I have only raised prices all the time. I had a contract in Germany, my work was sold back in 1992 for 11 thousand marks (87 x 105). When I arrived in Kyiv, everyone here gave works for 200 dollars, and my works were already worth thousands.

— And today, where do people buy you more - do you work for a domestic or a Western collector?

— For the first 15 years I had no clients in Ukraine at all, and in the last 5 years almost all of my collectors are from Ukraine.

Evening shore

— Doesn’t it tire you to be present at all the events where your work is featured?

— I have never even been present at the opening of my own exhibitions. It’s torture for me to survive the discovery. Actually, my position has always been this: an artist should be known by his work, and not by sight.

— How fast do you work? Are you able to meet the demand for you? For example, for many artists entering the global market, this is very significant issue, because their production speed does not coincide with the frantic demand for them, and the queue for their creativity can line up for several years.

- I think it's a question of technology. In such cases, as a rule, an artificial situation is created, a stir. But this does not mean that the artist has no works. I know of cases where an artist was forbidden to paint so that he would be more expensive.

As for me, sometimes canvases last for years, and sometimes a large canvas can appear in an hour. This does not depend on my desire, nor on necessity, nor on anything - it is pure chance.

Ukrainian motive. Hut

— Do you follow events in contemporary Ukrainian art, its development, and subsequent generations?

- Certainly. But I am more in the role of an observer and in anticipation.

— So you still haven’t found like-minded people among your young colleagues?

— I would really like to, but I haven’t seen it yet. Contemporary art has an extremely wide spectrum, and in this spectrum I have not yet seen any interesting solutions. And about exhibitions - contemporary art nevertheless, it must be very clearly tied to life, and when there is no such connection, then it is more like a game.

Polonina Carpathians

— Is the collective model of artistic reflection and understanding of reality relevant for you?

- No, those times are behind us. In human terms I have a lot good relations, but in a creative way... In the early 90s there was a period when we, the artists of the “Picturesque Reserve” circle, were very enriched by creative communication. But then we separated, each going his own path. This is fine.

— Western art system is designed in such a way that the artist, having reached a certain degree of success, a certain age, begins to teach the next generation. Do you teach somewhere?

— I tried to teach. I even trained several artists, and their color schemes are easy to recognize. It turned out to be some kind of cloning. And then I generally felt that I myself was starting to do something that I didn’t want to do, and I realized that these experiments needed to be shut down.

Evening on the lake

- But someone has to teach people!

- Mediocre artists should teach... They provide the foundation, the foundation, and then the person must follow on his own. It’s easier, of course, to take and adopt someone else’s vision, but that’s how good artist you won't. Therefore, I see no point in teaching. The strong will survive on their own and find their own language. Artistic language- this is the code. An artist encodes with images, a poet with words, but feelings and thoughts are encoded, not ideas. I find it very funny when people talk about ideas in art. The idea can be in science, philosophy, because there is a discovery there. I don’t know a single philosopher among artists.

— How interested are you in the history of art? With which artists can you conduct a dialogue through time or space?

— This is a standard situation for all artists: everyone goes through almost the entire history of art in order to come to themselves. At each stage I had some kind of sample with whom I could carry on a conversation.

— What thoughts and feelings do you live today, what does your art breathe?

— I returned to such an outsider in art as landscape. The landscape, which, in fact, made both the revolution and the evolution of all art, was practically thrown out of its borders from the beginning of the twentieth century. I always wrote sketches and landscapes for support, for receipts - and recently I realized that I became interested in this as a big project.

- How long ago did this return take place?

— I have been painting landscapes all my life. When I was making abstractions, I was also making landscapes at the same time, even in the 90s. Then I saw that I couldn’t raise the bar higher than the hut, the Ukrainian motif, so I went into abstraction, which opened up completely different horizons, new sensations. But when I moved to live here, in Zasupoevka, I wanted something truly Ukrainian, maybe even Gogolian. And I meaningfully returned to landscape painting.

— Your landscape borders on abstraction, sometimes you can’t guess whether it’s abstract or figurative.

- Yes, I remain faithful to abstraction, because I believe that this moment abstraction is the most interesting thing that humanity has created in art.

— Distinctive feature of your works - very active, original purple, on the verge of red-blue-lilac... Is this just a tribute to the beauty of the sunset or a manifestation of some specific internal state?

- This internal state. After all, I don’t paint the landscape itself, but create an emotional space.

— What does this color mean to you?

- This is probably timeless. Somehow, since childhood, I have not felt time, I have never perceived reality as it is, I saw everything through my own feelings.

— Aren’t you afraid of not keeping up with time? Miss some important aspect of the present?

— The contemporary direction reminds me of a marathon - people come from all over the world and run, but this is all a temporary thing, today the marathon is in Sydney, tomorrow in Germany. Look how quickly all these directions are changing. Art is such a ship, huge and quiet, which sails strictly along its own course, while boats and boats scurry around. In art you have to live with your own feelings, thoughts and own world, otherwise you will just participate in some ridiculous marathon. Who cares, he runs. I have no interest in living like this.

-What remains when time stops?

— For one catalog I wrote that silence is the meeting of eternity with everyday life, I think that this phrase may be your answer. In principle, the same sun, the same greenery existed on Earth two and three thousand years ago, and artists did something then, but they always saw the same thing. Everything in the world is stable, but there is simply a change in interests, perceptions and attitudes. Everyone must find their own way.

—You have such an introverted view of art. Is this due to the influence of religion? Are you a believer?

— I didn’t go too deep into these questions; such things are felt on an intuitive level. I've been working with paints all my life, and what you do with them can really make a believer out of an unbeliever. When I started, I was very self-confident, I thought that I could easily do it the way I wanted. But no matter how much I did, nothing worked. This went on for a very long time until I intuitively jumped. And while working where it was necessary to take it with gray, I began to take it with yellow, or blue, or red - and then I wondered how this could be. I will teach color and harmony even to a bear, but this does not mean giving birth to an artist... I am just a pipe - something goes through me, and I embody it. And this state is probably the happiest, but such moments in creative life, unfortunately, are infrequent.

— You settled in a wonderful place, in nature, doing what you love. What else interests you, how do you live, besides painting? Are you interested, for example, in politics?

- How a common person I see everything, but, despite my frantic temperament, I don’t allow myself to get too caught up in such things, otherwise I simply won’t be able to work normally. I believe that doing a good job is the best political position.

— “The world caught me, but didn’t catch me,” as Skovoroda wrote?..

— To a certain extent, yes. I lived my life only with work, and all my interest was always in it. Everything outside of it is, perhaps, 10% of my life. I didn’t even notice how the children grew up, how I lived this time.

— Did your descendants become artists?

- Daughter. My son is a driver, like my father, because I come from a family of railway workers. My daughter began to draw from childhood, she has an extraordinary gift for color, what I learned through work, experiments, experiences, she has by nature. Whether this is good or bad, time will tell. Because it is obstacles that do their good work, in the sense that a person either retreats, or, conversely, becomes strong and develops the character necessary for an artist, position and everything else.

Famous Ukrainian artist Anatoly Krivolap set a new world record for sales of Ukrainian art at international market contemporary art.

Record at auction of contemporary art

On the auction contemporary art Phillips de Pury & Co painting “Horse. Night”, created by Anatoly Krivolap, was sold for a record amount for Ukrainian art - $124.4 thousand. This was almost three times the original cost of the painting.

Mystical landscape “Horse. Night” took sixth place at the Phillips de Pury & Co. auction. The work of the Ukrainian artist was sold along with works by recognized world masters of contemporary art, such as Wade Guyton, Anselm Reilly, George Condo.

"Horse. Night"

Even before the sale of this painting, Anatoly Krivolap was the most expensive Ukrainian artist. His painting “The Steppe” was sold at Phillips de Pury & Co in New York for $98.5 thousand.

Victory of Ukrainian art

The head and co-founder of the Phillips de Pury & Co auction house, art critic and curator Simon de Pury, commented on the record sale of the work of the Ukrainian artist: “This sale is real victory Ukrainian art. We consider Anatoly Krivolap a very promising artist. Our auction house and in the future he will definitely work with Anatoly Krivolap and other Ukrainian artists.”

In addition to the work of Anatoly Krivolap, from the auction Phillips de Pury & Co. was sold famous picture Viktor Sidorenko from the “Levitation” project, who represented Ukraine in 2003 at the Venice Biennale. It was sold for $23.7 thousand.

A painting by the famous Odessa artist Igor Gusev “The Return of Elvis” from the Cosmo collection was sold for $16 thousand. And a photograph of Vitaly and Elena Vasilyev from the No Art project, created at the M17 Center for Contemporary Art, went under the hammer for $8 thousand.

A total of 171 works were sold at the Phillips de Pury & Co. toga, held in mid-October in New York. contemporary art, and the amount received from their sale was $5.7 million.

Anatoly Krivolap is the most sought-after artist in Ukraine

Anatoly Krivolap was born on September 11, 1946 in the city of Yagotin, Kyiv region. He is a graduate of the Kyiv State Art Institute. The famous artist is currently a leading member of the “Picturesque Reserve” group.

Anatoly Krivolap is the most sought-after Ukrainian artist, whose works are sold with great success at the most famous auctions in the world - Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury & Co.