Last year we set out on what some might call a fool’s errand by selecting the 50 most collectible living artists. Hoping to elevate this sort of list-making beyond a parlor game, we defined the parameters and embarked on research to find those artists who have a proven record in the market and also show promise of the continuing innovation and devotion to craft that will warrant attention for decades to come. The result was a list that peered beyond the headlines.
A year is no time at all in the long game that is serious collecting. For this second outing we decided to add to the challenge by focusing on artists under the age of 50. For such a group, auction stats can be erratic, and artists may just be adding a major museum solo to their exhibition history. But what follows is not an “emerging” artist list in the style of many art magazines, naming favorites from the latest MFA graduating class. Most names will be familiar to readers from years of gallery shows and even awards. The vast majority among the final selections are in their 30s, because the reality is that artists are still coming into their practice through their 20s, and only after that begin to build a committed collector base. Readers will also note the preponderance of painters. In the discussions during which we hashed out the list, two reasons for this emerged. First, there is a genuine resurgence of nonrepresentational painting as artists under 50 reexamine that key modernist pursuit. Second, collectors perennially favor painting because it is understandable within an established tradition and is comparably easy to display and conserve.
Diversity is the other big trend seen in this list, in terms of geography as well as in the individual artists’ practices. The language of contemporary art is global, and collectors are increasingly interested in seeing differences in dialogue. Today artists may be born in the Middle East, live in Europe, and sell to collectors in Asia and America, and our list reflects that ubiquitous internationalism. Just as pervasive, it seems, is the desire among artists to operate free of the constraints of medium. Even as recent years have seen a return to a focus on craft and the object and, sometimes, beauty, it seems that the ultimate triumph of Conceptualism has come in the form of younger generations who embrace the artist’s role as that of universal creator. Photographers sculpt, sculptors bridge the divide between two and three dimensions, and painters make films. Innovation is everywhere. —The Editors
JULIE MEHRETU
One of the few female artists to break the million dollar mark at auction—The Seven Acts of Mercy, 2004, sold for $2.3 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2010—the Ethiopia-born, New York–based artist is an established market favorite and a perennial good buy. Her often large-scale work, much of it blending architectural imagery and energetic abstraction, has an international following, says Alexander Branczik, head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s London. In fact, the house offered her characteristic Rising Down, 2008, at its contemporary art auction last April in Doha, where the 8-by-12-foot painting met its high estimate with a price of $3,077,000. Mehretu is represented by Marian Goodman in Paris and New York and White Cube in London; past solo exhibitions include the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Opera House, and the Guggenheim Museum. She appeared in Documenta 13.
