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Saturday, September 17, 2011

Richest Canadian Artists

This comes to me courtesy of the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver.
People love to find out about our world in a vertical order: Who’s richest, who’s the best and worst dressed, which is the greatest city to live in, and so on. Art is no exception. Art Review, for example, publishes its ‘Power 100’ list every November since 2002, to give us insight of whom we should be rubbing shoulders with at the next private view. We all agree that art in its purest form can only be subjective, and therefore a hierarchical ordering will seem to some as misleading. But the politics and practicalities of art as commodity inevitably demand an objective value for artworks in the real world, creating tensions between what the market determines as valid and what art professionals acknowledge as credible. M_KOS actually find this tension healthy, and as opposed to over-protecting itself by isolation, art needs to come to terms with its own commodification, which is nowadays the condition for art to circulate and be seen. The later rings particularly true with Canadian art. Inversely, the total absence of artist accomplishment guidelines would probably allow more relativity than subjectivity, leaving us stranded in an unchartered constellation of self-proclaimed stars. Many web resources already provide analytical information about art and its market, such as ArtTactic, ArtFacts and MuturalArt. These all host their own list of top contenders for different categories. Surprisingly, virtually no such list is present online for Canadian art. Is this because the Canadian market is totally out of league with what is happening globally? It seems so, according to Don Thompson, a Toronto based economist and the author of “The $12 million stuffed shark”. Thompson tells us, in an interview with Leah Sandals of Canadian Art Magazine (Oct 2008): The book talks about London and New York and the major evening auctions and dealers. And there’s no parallel in Canada to that art market. The best comparison I can give you is that [Damien] Hirst brought in $200 million with his two-day September auction, and that is four or five years of Canadian sales, period.
New York and London are undoubtedly the two biggest art trading centres in the world, hard to beat by any standard. For example, at the time this article is published, New York is hosting Armoury Week (March 3–7), with over ten different art fairs held simultaneously in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In addition to the Armory Show itself, we find ADAA’s The Art Show, Volta, Scope, Pulse, Independent, Red Dot, Pool, Moving Image, Verge Art Brooklyn and Fountain. Whilst we wait for any one city in Canada to come out of the margins, M_KOS propose Armory Week as the perfect time to publish its Top 100 Canadian artist list. Hopefully it will spark debates, but also bring more attention visual arts form Canada, within, so-called, the Art Eco-system. Simply, M-Kos have digged into ArtFacts.net’s existing worldwide database to extract a directory of 100 top Canadian living artists. ArtFacts houses the data of nearly 282,000 Modern and Contemporary artists worldwide and position them on point systems. Points are awarded for every artistic activity – exhibitions at commercial galleries, public institutions and museums, acquisitions in public collections, in which city an artist has been shown, and more. By no means arbitrary, ArtFact’s ranking system merely reflects the quantity of artistic activity rather than the quality of an artist’s work, which is impossible to ascertain without taking into account a vast variety of contexts. Enough said, lets see what results the list has to offer.


1 (44) Rodney Graham / 1949 / Vancouver, BC / Vancouver, BC

2 (69) Jeff Wall / 1946 / Vancouver, BC / Vancouver, BC

3 (248) Stan Douglas / 1960 / Vancouver, BC / Vancouver, BC

4 (305) Angela Bulloch / 1966 / Rainy River, ON / London, UK and Berlin, Germany

5 (417) Mark Lewis /1958 / Hamilton, ON / London, UK

6 (443) General Idea / Formed in 1969, by AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal / active until 1994

7 (508) Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller / JC: 1957, GBM:1960 / JC: Brussels, ON, GBM: Vegreville, AB / Grindrod, BC and Berlin, Germany

8 (535) Michael Snow / 1929 / Toronto, ON / Toronto, ON

9 (566) Edward Burtynsky / 1955 / St.Catherines, ON / Toronto, ON

10 (624) Jana Sterbak / 1955 / Prague, Czech Rep. / Montreal, QC

11 (669) Terence Koh / 1977 / Beijing, China; raised in Mississuga, BC / New York, USA

12 (715) Marcel Dzama / 1974 / Winnipeg, MB / New York, USA

13 (727) Ken Lum / 1956 / Vancouver, BC / Vancouver, BC

14 (1031) Brian Jungen / 1970 / Fort St.John, BC / Vancouver, BC

15 (1374) Steven Shearer / 1968 / New Westminster, BC / Vancouver, BC

16 (1382) Roy Arden / 1957 / Vancouver, BC / Vancouver, BC

17 (1487) David Rabinowitch / 1943 / Toronto, ON / New York, USA

18 (1568) Tim Lee / 1975 / Seoul, S.Korea / Vancouver, BC

19 (1578) David Altmejd / 1974 / Montréal, QC / New York, USA

20 (1603) Ian Wallace / 1943 / Shoreham, UK/ Vancouver, BC

21 (1687) Callum Morton / 1965 / Montréal, QC / Melbourne, Australia

22 (1858) Rebecca Belmore / 1960 / Upsala, ON / Vancouver, BC

23 (1989) Geoffrey Farmer / 1967 / Eagle Island, BC / Vancouver, BC

24 (2049) Lisa Milroy / 1959 / Vancouver, BC / London, UK

25 (2249) Luis Jacob / 1971 / Lima, Peru / Toronto, ON

26 (2272) Germaine Koh / 1967 / Georgetown, Malaysia / Toronto, ON

27 (2298) Janice Kerbel / 1969 / Don Mills, ON / London, UK

28 (2306) Scott McFarland / 1975 / Hamilton, ON / Vancouver, BC

29 (2397) Terence Gower / 1965 / BC / New York, USA; Mexico City, Mexico

30 (2491) Ron Terada / 1969 / Vancouver, BC / Vancouver, BC

31 (2577) Althea Thauberger / 1970 / Saskatoon, SK / Vancouver, BC; Berlin, Germany

32 (2611) Micah Lexier / 1960 / Winnipeg, MB / Toronto, ON

33 (2645) AA Bronson / 1946 / Vancouver, BC / New York, USA

34 (2655) Dorothea Rockburne / 1932 / Montréal, QC / New York, USA

35 (2677) Jon Pylypchuk / 1972 / Winnipeg, MB / LA, USA

36 (2689) Geneviève Cadieux / 1955 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC

37 (2730) Angela Grauerholz / 1952 / Hamburg, Germany / Montréal, QC

38 (2735) Liz Magor / 1948 / Winnipeg, MB / Vancouver, BC

39 (2744) Graham Gillmore / 1963 / Vancouver, BC / Winlaw, BC ; New York, USA

40 (2774) Kelly Mark / 1967 / Welland, ON / Toronto, ON

41 (2796) Laura Letinsky / 1962 / Winnipeg, MB / Chicago, USA

42 (2887) Miles Coolidge / 1963 / Montréal, QC / LA, USA

43 (2903) Pascal Grandmaison / 1975 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC

44 (2988) Karin Davie / 1965 / Toronto,ON / New York, USA

45 (3061) Susan Turcot / 1966 / Montréal, QC / London, UK: Berlin, Germany

46 (3199) Alex Morrison / 1971 / Redruth, UK / Vancouver, BC

47 (3387) Bruce LaBruce / 1964 / Southampton, ON / Toronto, ON

48 (3390) David Rokeby / 1960 / Tillsonburg, ON / Toronto, ON

49 (3395) Ed Pien / 1958 / Taipei, Taiwan / Toronto, ON

50 (3448) Conrad Bakker / 1970 / Urbana ON / Chicago, USA

51 (3481) Stephen Andrews / 1956 / Sarnia, ON / Toronto, ON

52 (3614) Robert Polidori / 1951 / Montréal, QC / New York, USA

53 (3615) Miriam Schapiro / 1923 / Toronto, ON / USA

54 (3778) Francesca Gabbiani / 1965 / Montréal, QC / LA, USA

55 (3804) Françoise Sullivan / 1925 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC

56 (3830) Jayce Salloum / 1958 / Kelowna, BC / Vancouver, BC

57 (3957) Robert Adrian / 1935 / Toronto, ON / Vienna, Austria

58 (4087) Michel de Broin / 1970 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC; Europe

59 (4195) Jean-Pierre Gauthier / 1965 / Matane, QC / Montréal, QC

60 (4258) Deborah Grant / 1968 / Toronto, ON / New York, USA

61 (4279) Damian Moppett / 1969 / Calgary, AB / Vancouver, BC

62 (4281) Nancy Davenport / 1965 / Vancouver, BC / New York, USA

63 (4296) George Legrady / 1950 / Budapest, Hungary (Raised in Montréal) / Santa Barbara, USA

64 (4311) Suzy Lake / 1947 / Detroit, USA / Toronto, ON

65 (4317) Atom Egoyan / 1960 / Cairo, Egypt / Toronto, ON

66 (4428) Roland Poulin / 1940 / St.Thomas, ON / Sainte-Angèle-de-Monnoir, QC

67 (4449) Nicolas Baier / 1967 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC

68 (4569) Brendan Fernandes / 1979 / Nairobi, Kenya / Toronto, ON

69 (4674) Julie Moos / 1965 / Ottawa, ON / Toronto, ON

70 (4682) Kim Adams / 1951 / Edmonton, AB / Toronto, ON

71 (4689) Laura Kikauka / 1963 / Hamilton, ON / Meaford, ON; Berlin, Germany

72 (4733) Philip Pocock / 1954 / Ottawa, ON / Karlsruhe, Germany

73 (4817) John Massey / 1950 / Toronto, ON / Toronto, ON

74 (4906) Tony Scherman / 1950 / Toronto, ON / Toronto, ON

75 (4918) Claude Tousignant / 1932 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC

76 (4964) Sarah Anne Johnson / 1976 / Winnipeg, MB / Winnipeg, MB

77 (5122) Dianna Frid / 1960 / Mexico City, Mexico; raised in Canada / Chicago, USA

78 (5144) Kent Monkman / 1965 / St.Mary’s, ON / Toronto, ON

79 (5162) Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay / 1973 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC; Berlin, Germany

80 (5205) Pierre Dorion / 1959 / Ottawa, ON / Montréal, QC

81 (5209) Larry Towell /1953 / Chatham, ON / Lambton County, ON

82 (5275) Jackie Winsor / 1941 / St.Johns, NL / New York, USA

83 (5390) Annie Pootoogook / 1969 / Baffin Island, NU / Ottawa, ON

84 (5402) Rober Racine / 1952 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC

85 (5618) Shary Boyle / 1972 / Scarborough, ON / Toronto, ON

86 (5618) Luc Courchesne / 1952 / St. Léonard d’Aston, QC / Montréal, QC

87 (5685) Arnaud Maggs / 1926 / Montréal, QC / Toronto, ON

88 (5699) Isabelle Hayeur / 1969 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC

89 (5730) Shannon Bool /1972 / Comox, BC / Berlin, Germany

90 (5765) BGL / Formed in 1996 / live and work in Quebec City, QC

91 (5776) Royden Rabinowitch / 1943 / Toronto, ON / Ghent, Belgium

92 (5787) Evan Penny / 1953 / South Africa / Toronto, ON

93 (5850) Monique Van Genderen / 1965 / Vancouver, BC / LA, USA

94 (5872) Geoffrey James / 1942 / Wales, UK / Toronto, ON

95 (5884) Adad Hannah / 1971 / New York, USA / Montréal, QC

96 (6251) Aurel Schmidt / 1982 / Kamloops, BC / New York, USA

97 (6311) Melvin Charney / 1935 / Montréal, QC / Montréal, QC

98 (6325) Kevin Schmidt / 1972 / Ottawa, ON / Vancouver, BC

99 (6384) Bozidar Brazda / 1972 / Cambridge, ON / New York, USA

100 (6407) Scott Treleaven / 1972 / Toronto, ON / Paris, France
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