These days we’re all talking Turkey

Before the doors of the first exhibition of contemporary Turkish art in London had even opened, nearly half of the 70 or so workd had been sold.

By Colin Gleadell 6:54PM BST 18 Apr 2011

The first exhibition of contemporary Turkish art in London got off to a flying start last weekend. Before the doors had even opened, nearly half of the 70 or so works by 19 different artists, most of whom had never exhibited in London before, had been sold. Confessions of Dangerous Minds is the alluring title to the exhibition which is being held in the Saatchi Gallery, selected by two young independent curators, Jason Lee and Carlo Berardi. Lee, a Singaporean who studied graphic design in London before becoming a collector and curator of Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern and now Turkish contemporary art, has made artists from the “emerging” markets something of a speciality. Berardi, the son of an Italian collector, found his way to Turkish art through an interest in the Middle Eastern market.

The two decided on an exhibition in London after visiting the Istanbul Contemporary fair in 2008. By now, the blossoming of the market for modern and contemporary Turkish art inside Turkey had persuaded Sotheby’s to hold the first auction of contemporary Turkish art in London to bring it to a wider, international audience.

That sale, in March 2009, was held in the teeth of the recession but still managed to achieve its lower estimate at £1.3 million. Modern art from the Fifties and Sixties formed the backbone of the sale, but it also helped launch younger, less expensive artists, led by Taner Ceylan, whose hyper-realist painting of a boxer’s bloodied head sold for £70,000 to Turkish collector Omer Koc. Two thirds of the buyers were new to Sotheby’s and hailed from as far afield as Asia, the Middle East and North America.

Sotheby’s second sale, a year later, saw an improved £2.4 million return, and led the bankers HSBC to report that “Turkey stands to be one of the most exciting contemporary art markets of the next decade.”

Lee and Berardi decided to time their exhibition to follow Sotheby’s third auction which, this year, was accompanied by Bonhams’ first contemporary Turkish art sale. It was a brave effort by Bonhams, which brought £1 million. But approximately two thirds of the lots, which were too familiar to collectors, went unsold.

Sotheby’s, which had lost its leading expert in the field, also struggled at points, but sold two thirds of the lots and roughly equalled the previous year’s total with a £2.3 million sale. As with all emerging markets, records tumbled for the younger generation, many of whom were making their first appearance at auction. And it was on this aspect of the market that Lee and Berardi had set their sights.

Several artists in their exhibition were also included in the Sotheby’s sale, and collectors who sensed auction prices would go higher than in the gallery made their purchases before the auction – wisely, it would appear. A satin and embroidery work of the Pope engulfed by fire, The Sacred Fire of Faith, by 43 year-old Ramazan Bayracoglu was one of the first to go, says Lee, selling for £40,000 to a French collector. A similarly sized embroidery by Bayracoglu, estimated at £12,000, then sold at Sotheby’s for £61,250. A digitally manipulated photographic print, Guns of War, by 32-year-old Ansen Atilla, sold for £25,000. At Sotheby’s, a similar work by Ansen, estimated at £22,000, sold for a record £39,650. Treacherous Wolf, a bronze sculpture by Yasam Sazmazer, doubled its estimate at Sotheby’s to sell for almost £14,000. The original wood carving, theoretically worth much more after that, sold at the Saatchi Gallery before the auction for £20,000.

Other works in the exhibition have been selling for as little as £3,000, while a painting by Taner Ceylan, whose work soared to a £233,000 record at Sotheby’s, is also spoken for at an undisclosed price. None of the buyers, says Lee, have been Turkish.

The show, which is more of a reflection on what Lee and Berardi have tipped for the future than an academic survey, is the last to be sponsored by the auctioneers Phillips de Pury & Co, which has had a sponsorship arrangement with the Saatchi Gallery since it opened in Chelsea two and a half years ago, and runs until April 30.

via These days we’re all talking Turkey – Telegraph.