Dear members (and non-member readers),

we have been asking ourselves who are the most "favourite" artists among the members of Independent Collectors.

A few days ago we looked into our database and we are now trying to analyse the data (so entering other ones in your profile won't change anything, now). And no, it won't be a "Top 10" list, but an overview of which artists are more "present" than others. Our results will be publoished on December 16th.

While we're waiting for that, we wanted to ask you:

Who do you think will be among the most favourite ones?

Just as promised (if a little earlier than announced), here are the “most favourite” artists of our members, at least according to the data available. And the result is as varied as the member base with over 2.500 registered collectors.

We decided to look for the following criteria: How many collectors have uploaded how many works by an artist? How many collectors listed the artist as one of their “favourites”? From that, we deducted the “presence” of the artist on Independent Collectors.

Very present in the lists of “favourite artists” is the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, closely followed by the controversial yet entertaining Jonathan Meese. Photo artist Wolfgang Tillmans and the British artist Jonathan Monk are also quite “highly ranked”.

Olafur Eliasson, see works owned by IC members: http://bit.ly/6WRFom
Jonathan Meese: http://bit.ly/7J5VPd
Wolfgang Tillmans: http://bit.ly/6PB2jo
Jonathan Monk: http://bit.ly/4vB8BE

While these four are already from the cadre of well-known artists, none of the inevitable superstars of the global art scene can seem to match their popularity among our members. The names of Damien Hirst and his Japanese colleague Takashi Murakami have been entered often enough to secure them a mention, of course.

Damien Hirst: http://bit.ly/8GUDl2
Takashi Murakami: http://bit.ly/6L5AHg

The German concept artist Sven Johne is also very popular, in terms of uploaded works he is even one of the strongest artists, with 50 works in multiple public exhibitions created by various collectors. And since we had the discussion elsewhere in the forum (http://bit.ly/4IC90q), one of the highest “ranked” female artists is Karin Sander.

Sven Johne: http://bit.ly/4U3ABT
Karin Sander: http://bit.ly/8EaC7s

The list we compiled according to the above-mentioned criteria further includes discoveries like Wade Guyton and Mathieu Mercier as well as street artists like D*Face. And our members are equally excited about old masters like Robert Indiana and the painting pop-art-nun Sister Corita.

Wade Guyton: http://bit.ly/52SrwY
Mathieu Mercier: http://bit.ly/4wIN3N
D*Face: http://bit.ly/8V6jHD
Robert Indiana: http://bit.ly/6lXFPX
Sister Corita: http://bit.ly/6r0omp

It is a very interesting analysis that we might repeat soon in a similar way. The increasing activity of you, our members will keep this “ranking” dynamic and ever changing.

We stay curious!

Looking through the favorite artists on Independent Collectors there are interesting links to be found ...

For example, both Mathieu Mercier and Wade Guyton work with recycled materials. Good to know that IC collectors are so interested in such issues! Both artists revisit everyday objects and give them new lives. Here some words about their practice:

“I spend a lot of time with books and so logically I've ended up using pages from books as material – pages torn from books and fed through an inkjet printer […]There is often a struggle between the printer and my material – and the traces of this are left on the surface – snags, drips, streaks, mis-registrations, blurs.” (Wade Guyton on http://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org)

“Mathieu Mercier has for many years been shaping an œuvre that challenges our society as to its relationship with objects and the material world, and as to the place of beauty and the original work of art in daily life. His multiple talents as painter, sculptor, architect and video maker allow him to play with startling assemblages of mass consumption items that we already know well but are led to perceive in a new way.” (http://www.langepult.com)

And also D*Face shows a similar approach:
“Slowly I figured the pencil could be replaced with a marker pen - the Pentel N50 to be exact - and the paper replaced with cheap vinyl which was 'acquired' from DIY stores, these characters once resigned to a life on paper filed in a folder under 'Not suitable for visual consumption' began to have a life of their own.” (D*Face on http://www.dface.co.uk)

There is a dialogue also between Robert Indiana and D*Face, who reinterpreted the sculptural poems by the pop artist, and between Robert Indiana and Sister Corita.

And this is just a start …

Over at "Morality" there is a critical response to this list we pulled from our database.

I quote from Zoe's article:

"(...) their survey seems designed simply to rank by popularity a handfull of already successful artists. For whom is this an interesting exercise? For the artists? For the collectors? Or is it just another case of playing into the hands of the Media who already portray the art world as a self-obsessed star system totally empty of content?"

Zoe does have a point. That is exacly what the survey was designed for, to list artist that are "popular" by number of appearance on IC. For whom is this interesting? Well, we were interested because we were curious whether there would actually be surprises and there have been a few.

Yet I tend to agree on the "Media who already portray the art world as a self-obsessed star system" bit. Have we playing into their hands? Maybe.

But I would be interested in hearing opinions about whether such a "survey" is generally going to turn out results as outlined above, or what other kind of survey would be interesting to collectors.

Read the full blurb here: http://bit.ly/7Kx9v5

I admit such top-artist lists act a little bit arid, this is also why I thought it may be interesting to search for links and connections among the artists, but it is a statistics, and as such it's interesting because it provides statistical data that can be used as a basis for further thoughts.

What the media discourse concerns, I think it depends on which media we are talking about. Not all magazines portray the art world as a self-obsessed star system without content. It's a big difference if you read the Damien Hirst portrait on GALA or if you read Texte zur Kunst, to make two examples from the German press. One must have the ability of discerning.