EXHIBITION “99.9”  DURING MIAMI BASEL PARIS+ ART FAIR

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For those who art is life, the problem is the same. Art prices are incredibly high. Who can afford 10,000 euros for a contemporary piece, let alone 20,000 Euro, 50,000 euro and lets not even mention the million of Euro some pieces sell for at auction.

 

So on the 20 October 2022 during a week of Grand Art Fairs including Miami Basel Paris+, ‘The Circle of Zoia’ an underground group of well known artists launched an exhibition called "99.9", an experimental sale of original work for just 99.9 Euro. These were no nebulous NFTs, or limited prints of 100000, or signed posters, these were original pieces by known artists wishing to break down the wall of ownership to art lovers most of whcih simply can’t afford the prices the system demands.

While normally these artists sell their art for thousands, they set aside pieces for this exhibition for sale at 99.9 Euro allowing real people to own their work.

Every morning of the exhibition there was a selection of work from the exhibiting artists at the 99.9 Euro.

And it worked! The first 2 mornings half of show was sold and many young people bought their first original pieces. 

“Morning is a quiet time for any gallery, people are usually visit exhibitions later in the afternoon or in the evening, so with the concept of 99.9 Euros in the morning from 10 to 12am we let committed art lovers to get to the gallery early to be first to pick up art pieces before the usual late crowd - says Skoropadenko, the artist and organiser of this exhibition. 

Exhibition also included a masterpieces from private collections of such art geniuses like Man Ray, original drawing and painting by Keith Haring, pencil sketch by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and artworks by Francoise Gilot, Louis Anquetin and Marie Laurencin. The idea of mixing contemporary art and works by old masters on the same wall is to show to art collectors that even if you collect only Rembrandt or Da Vinci, they will look great with Snorri Asmundsson’s piece on the wall of your bedroom  

 

“This #99Point9Exhibition was created in the hope of reminding everyone it can be fun to collect art and not necessarily a prohibitively expensive hobby for the super-rich" said Skoropadenko.

 

Exhibition was organised in partnership with New York Art Magazine Vellum, which is a media sponsor of Miami Basel Art Fair.

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THE ARTISTS:  Exhibition features pop up paintings by Icelandic contemporary artist Snorri Asmundsson, who is world famous for his performance “Dance with dead” and “Best pianist in the world”. Prolific Los Angeles-based contemporary artist who is a pioneer in iPad painting and Augmented Reality art Daniel Leighton presents his  visceral, heavily archetypal art research which emanate from resurrected and persistent visions. A lenticular Art master Heather Lowe exhibited her recent work from California including series “Money”.

 Parisian photographic legend Antoine Poupel  presented  his photo collages dedicated to nature.  Poupel is famous for his  30 year old collaboration with Crazy Horse and Zingaro. 

The photographer to French State Philippe Daurios brought to the historical gallery his surrealistic photography of oyster boxes. 

Mathematical Art will  be represented by paintings of English-Monaco based artist Clem Chambers who will show his long time series based on mathematical theory of his friend late professor Benoit Mandelbrot “Fractals”. 

The ceramist who joined the exhibition was Bernard Vitour from Sable sur Sarthe. Before becoming a farmer 60 years ago, Bernard was trained as a butcher and his tactile knowledge of animal forms unfolds in the clay. Vitour doesn’t use a wheel, all his pieces are moulded by hand.

The young generation of artists represented during this exhibition was Monaco artist Eva Dmitrenko whos installation “Rose de vent” around Monaco gardens and parks had a great success and recently was sold by Artcurial Auction House. At the 99.9 Exhibition Eva presented her other floral works she is working on right now.

The artist group was joint by Brazilian young artist Bianca Caloi Di Grassi who presented her geometrical abstract works. 

Monaco based Zoia Skoropadenko who is not only link between all these multidisciplinary artists around the world but also an art curator and person behind this exhibition. She premiered her renown series of “Notre Dame Brule” - the development of reconstruction of the Cathedral from her studio window.

 

“If you want to start your art collection - 99.9 Exhibition is great start.” says Skoropadenko.

 

Exhibition is one of the series of pop up exhibitions created by Circle fo Zoia and The Meloy Art. 

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