Art Market Watch Baku In London And Prints In New York By Jessica Mizrachi

The ancient Turkic land of Azerbaijan might not be first on the places-to-visit list of many art collectors, but that isn't stopping

Phillips de Pury & Company. "Fly to Baku: Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan," a special selling exhibition, opens at the firm's Howick

Place galleries in London on Jan. 17-29, 2012.
The show features works by 21 artists selected by Herv Mikaeloff, an independent art consultant who recently organized an exhibition

of emerging Indonesian artists at the Louis Vuitton Espace Culturel in Paris. About three-quarters of the works on view at Phillips

were made specifically for the exhibition, and prices range from 1,400 to 27,000.
Azerbaijan is a predominantly Muslim country that regained independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Socialist

Realism was the only type of art endorsed by the Soviet Union, and it was only after 1991 that artists were allowed to publicly work

in other styles.
Though many of the artists are unfamiliar to Western audiences, the works are varied and reflect a sophisticated sensibility that

fits into the global art market without difficulty.
Azeri art made waves last year at the Venice Biennale, when the government got into a pickle after it censored a pair of racy

sculptures by Aidan Salakhova, the chic artist and dealer who has operated one of the top Moscow galleries for almost 20 years. One

work showed the Black Stone, an Islamic relic, in a marble frame shaped like female genitalia. While some of the works at Phillips

contains religious or political themes, nothing on view is likely to upset Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijans president and the rumored

instigator of the biennale scrap.
Salakhova is not included in "Fly to Baku," but several other artists who have shown at the biennale are. Altai Sadiqzadeh

contributes The Thinker (14,700), an imaginative blue- and black-painted figurative iron sculpture -- rather reminiscent of Pablo

Picassos Memorial to Apollinaire -- covered in contemplative quotes from Hippocrates, Rumi -- and Ray Bradbury. Sadiqzadeh was

instrumental in designing Bakus right-angle-free Museum of Modern Art, which opened in 2009 and focuses on Azeri art of the last 50

years.
Also at Phillips is a witty pair of large, white minimalist sculptures by Faig Ahmed (b. 1982), who gives his works a native spin by

attaching traditional Azeri rugs to one of their surfaces (5,400 and 4,000). Ahmed showed a series of prints called Toys for

Terrorists at the 2007 Venice Biennale -- the first Azerbaijan participated in.
Oil exports are an important factor in the Azeri economy, a fact that is reflected on the cover of the shows catalogue. Splash, a

Plexiglas wall hanging by Orkhan Huseynov (b. 1978), shows a stylized raised fist clenching a splash of oil. The price is 8,000.

Huseynov also makes video art, including Oil Drinking, in which two men in bright orange jumpsuits apparently drink oil as if it were

coffee (2,700).
Most of the artists included in the exhibition studied art at the university level, but a few are self-taught. Rashad Babayev (b.

1979) has a degree in law from the Azerbaijan State University and has been painting since 2000. His black-and-white, expressionist

painting, St. Sebastian, updates the Christian story by superimposing a Johnsian target on a roughly painted figure that could be a

civilian in a war zone or a prisoner about to be executed. The work is not for sale.
Farid Rasulov (b. 1985) was pursing a career in medicine before turning to art. His immense triptych shows a realistically painted

collection of medical tools, citrus fruits and doll heads on what looks like a green fabric ground (20,000). Niyaz Najafov (b. 1968)

is a professional sports player who took up painting in 2003, and the color red figures prominently in his work -- more in his titles

than on the canvas. There is The Red Shoes (6,000), The Red Cockerels (9,400), The Nights of the Red Hen (6,700), Roses (5,400),

and Rose Room (8,700).