Transavanguardia, blowing the dust off Italian painting

[06.09.2016]

The Italian Transavanguardia rehabilitated painting in Contemporary art during the second half of the 20th century. Today, artists like Marco Bagnoli, Sandro Chia, Enzo Cucchi, Francesco Clemente and Mimmo Paladino enjoy international fame but do not seem to be appreciated by the market.

Reconciliation of Contemporary art with painting

The Transavantguardia was a pure invention of the postmodern era and was essentially a group of Italian artists who wanted to revive painting against the backdrop of the austerity of modernist, conceptual and minimalist art. The movement gave preference to ‘emotion’ over the ‘art of reason’, which, in their view, characterized the conceptual movement. The works created by these artists draw on many influences, from cultures associated with other traditions, mythological symbols, literary and religious personalities, as well as banal themes from everyday life. Conceived and theorized in the 1970s by the Italian art critic Achille Bonito Oliva, the Transavantguardia revived the fate of painting which, at the time, was considered in a state of terminal decline… But it survived and their works, often compared with the neo-Expressionism that emerged in Germany and the United States, are still there for all the world to see today.

Forgotten by the market….

The new Transavantgarde movement was discovered by collectors and art critics amidst considerable enthusiasm at the 1980 Venice Biennale. Thereafter it was given a whole series of exhibitions around the world and the market prices of the artists involved gathered considerable momentum. In the late 1990s, the principal artists of the Transavantgarde found themselves especially coveted, particularly in New York where their auction prices were very buoyant indeed. On 18 November 1999, Sotheby’s in New York conducted a major sale of Contemporary art from a private European collector. Alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Julian Schnabel, the 17 lots by Francesco CLEMENTE, Sandro CHIA and Enzo CUCCHI elicited fervent bidding. In total the three artists generated over a million dollars and Francesco Clemente scored a new record with Experience of Love, an oil on canvas that fetched $310,500 against an estimate of $70,000 – $90,000. However, after a period of considerable enthusiasm the market for Italian figurative painting lost its momentum, and artists like Enzo Cucchi, Mimmo PALADINO and Francesco Clemente have lost value over the last 10 years.

Clemente’s American Adventure

For example, Francesco CLEMENTE price index is down 30% over the past decade… and his record has not been revised since 2006 when his Casa del Popolo (1984) soared to $717,000 (more than twice the high estimate) at Christie’s in London. That result just happened to coincide with an exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery’s London premises (8 December 2005 – 28 January 2006). But for the past ten years, the world’s greatest art dealer has not given him a platform… and with no major exhibition since 2006, Clemente’s prices have shrunk. This is all rather surprising as this superb representative of the Transavantguarde had everything in place to build a solid market, notably due to the fact that part of his history unfolded in the United States. In 1981, the artist settled permanently in New York with his family where he produced his first large-format oil paintings (1981-1982) and collaborated with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, the two seminal figures of Contemporary American art. Moreover, Clemente’s work achieved international recognition with exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (1997), the Guggenheim in New York (1999), the Reykjavik Art Museum in Iceland (2004), the James Cohan Gallery in Shanghai (2012), among others. This international dimension undoubtedly gave him a good standing on anglo-saxon markets (84% of his auction revenue comes from in London and New York, versus just 11% from Italy)… but it was not enough.

An affordable market

While art critics have often compared Clemente’s paintings – with their often allegorical and sexual content – to those of Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer, his prices are way below these two artists whose works have scored numerous million-plus results. Today, when Clemente’s works are consigned for auction, they usually fetch their low estimate, if they don’t remain unsold. It is therefore the right time to acquire his work, particularly his splendid large drawings, accessible for around $15,000 …
Likewise for Enzo CUCCHI whose works have been shown in major museums such as the Stedejijk Museum in Amsterdam (1983-1984), the Guggenheim Museum in New York (1986), the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris (1986), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux (1986) and the Kunstmuseum in Dusseldorf (1986), to name a few. Cuchi’s prices are currently showing an 18% contraction since 2006 with some of his drawings fetching less than $2,000, at the price of an artist just starting his career!
…And then there is Mimmo Paladino, another iconic figure of the Transavantgarde, whose drawings are currently fetching between $3,000 and $5,000 at auctions, with the occasional small canvas fetching around $10,000. Like Clemente, Paladino participated in the 1980 Venice Biennale and like Clemente, he went to live in New York. However, his market has acquired slightly less of an international dimension with 42% of his turnover generated between London and New York, 41% in Italy and 8% in France. Paladino’s prices have been losing momentum since 2008, a year marked by the sale of two paintings at over $200,000 each. While prices have rocketed for their Italian predecessors, like Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Agostino Bonalumi (1935-2013), Enrico Castellani (born in 1930) and Alberto Burri (1915-1995), the artists of the Italian transavantgarde seem to have been forgotten. But it could just be a calm before a storm.