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Have you ever heard of Ultra-Contemporary art? The term, coined by the art market, refers to art produced by artists under the age of 40.
In fact, a report focusing on auction results of works by artists under 40 years old, published by Artprice a few weeks ago, reveals that the ultra-contemporary art market is booming, generating $420 million between July 2021 and June 2022, an increase of 28 percent from the previous year. The average price of the top five works rose from $618,000 to $4.9 million.
But who are these young authors who are depopulating exhibition booths and sales rooms? Most of them are women, some are digital artists, and many are artists of African American descent. Women artists Ayako Rokkaku, Flora Yukhnovich, Avery Singer, María Berrío, Anna Weyant, Christina Quarles, and Loie Hollowell are among the most successful names in recent months, and the top ten also includes Ghana's Amoako Boafo and Ivorian-American artist Aboudia Diarrassouba. All the new stars are painters, most of whom straddle the line between figuration and digital abstraction.
Indeed along with the growing interest of the contemporary art market in NFTs, which we have discussed in previous articles, lately the ongoing fairs, auctions and exhibitions in museums and galleries halfway around the world tell of a clear return to figurative art. Two contrasting realities that nevertheless illustrate well today's society, poised between the possibilities of digital reality and the tragicomic narrative of real life.
Take the much-talked-about case of Anna Weyant, the Canadian artist who, since the May 2022 sale of the painting Falling Woman at Sotheby's New York auction, has become the youngest author represented by the well-known Gagosian gallery. Her paintings, which combine cues drawn from Flemish art from the 1600s with John Currin's hyperrealism, took off via Instagram and in 2019 and exponentially grew in price from $12,000 in her first to $1.6 million in the auction mentioned above. A phenomenal success driven by the appetite for new trends, which just so happen to harken back to ancient art with a bit of irony.
Also confirming this trend are the museums: between New York and London alone, monographic exhibitions dedicated to Alex Katz (Guggenheim Museum), Edward Hopper (Whitney Museum) and Lucian Freud (National Gallery of London) are on view in November. If many say that interest in ultra-contemporary art is a passing bubble, we hope that the return to the figure is here to stay.
