October 11, 2007

Europe | Russia | Moscow

Gagosian Revolution

By Nicole Cotroneo

Make your material bid in the new Moscow — and bag a Lamborghini at the mall.

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With several swank hotels springing up in Moscow, and a record number of Russian billionaires hanging about, it’s little wonder that high-end art dealer Gagosian Gallery has the city on its radar. On October 19, the New York gallery — along with its burgeoning empire of outposts in Beverly Hills, London and Rome — brings Insight?, a 10-day exhibition, to Barvikha Luxury Village, an ultra-luxe shopping mall in Moscow’s cushiest suburb. Just think: you can shop your way from Prada to Russia’s first Lamborghini dealership, and then stop off at Gagosian for a piece by Damien Hirst, whose diamond-crusted skull recently sold for a reported $100 million.

Gagosian’s dealers will be fresh from their kills at London’s annual Frieze Art Fair, which begins today in Regent’s Park. Frieze auctioneers aim to sell nearly $400 million in contemporary art this year — and the Tate Modern has already made its contribution, snatching up $300,000 worth even before the public opening. That’s a drop in the bucket, though, for the young Russian oligarchs who will fork over millions at Gagosian’s Moscow show. Clearly no one’s taking to heart Hirst’s Beautiful Bleeding Wound Over the Materialism of Money Painting — not even Hirst himself.