Political Economy of the Contemporary Art Market in Russia, 1990–2022
Political Economy of the Contemporary Art Market in Russia, 1990–2022

Summary/Abstract: From the late perestroika period, when the socialist realist tradition lost its official status and support from the state, the Russian contemporary art scene attempted to follow common international tendencies. Like other aspects of post-Soviet cultural life, it underwent a process of marketisation when individual artistic creativity and an artist’s reputation acquired its economic value. However, this process was not straightforward; only a handful of artists were able to enter the high-end luxury art market with its own distribution channels and demand patterns. Like in other countries, the process of creation of economic value in the Russian contemporary art market represents a special case of business activity. It depends to a higher degree on artist branding, tastes, and networking as well as global and national trends in consumption. This makes investment in this type of art risky involving high transaction costs. Starting with the establishment of the first art galleries and emergence of the institution of art dealers in the late 1980s, the Russian contemporary art market and its actors have been to a great extent oriented towards importation and imitation of the key Western practices and institutional patterns.1 Besides the above-mentioned galleries and art dealers, these include art fairs, auction houses, specialised museums and art curatorship, critics, academic and educational institutions, and commercial expertise.

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