Banksy's "#WithSyria" image.
Image: Courtesy Twitter.
According to the official artnet Top 300, Banksy, the beloved anonymous British street artist, has received the most page visits of any artist listing on the site for six months in a row.
This hardly surprising, given his popularity and ability to generate headlines over the smallest incidents.
Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki unseated Andy Warhol for the number two slot in September. Araki, who was recently featured in a controversial faux-massage parlor gallery installation in New York, is just one of several unexpected names in the top ten artists searched, which also includes Joel-Peter Witkin (seventh) and Jock Sturges (eighth).
Nobuyoshi Araki, Bondage series (2008).
Photo: artnet.
What do those artists have in common?
Araki, Witkin, and Sturges, and even the better-known Helmut Netwon and Francesca Woodman (ranked sixth and tenth) are all photographers who often feature nudes in their work. In other words, they may be getting a boost from the scintillating nature of their imagery, rather than their market prowess.
Tracking the search habits of those searching for collecting, rather than recreational purposes, would likely paint a different picture. Indeed, when we limited the results to searches in the artnet Price Database (PDB), Araki and Newton dropped out the top ten entirely. So did Banksy, his celebrity edge effectively erased. Instead, more traditional blue chip artists get the most attention.
Pablo Picasso, number four on the Top 300, snags the top spot among PDB searches, followed by Warhol and Joan Miró. Roy Lichtenstein, however, ranks high on both lists (fifth overall, and fourth on the PBD), while Damien Hirst and Salvador Dalí, barely outside the top 10 overall at 11th and 12th, respectively, are ranked ninth and tenth according to PDB results.
The fifth through eighth place PDB spots—Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, Gerhard Richter, and Lucio Fontana—all rank much lower among overall searches, clocking in at 19th, 32nd, 21st, and 86th, respectively.
Another difference is that the PDB searches also seem more steady over time: though the order has shifted slightly, the names on the top ten list have remained constant since April. No less than 21 artist have appeared in the Top 300's top ten over the last six months, including Sally Mann, who has dropped from 10th in June to 35 in September.
Here are the artists on the artnet Top 300:
Banksy
Nobuyoshi Araki
Andy Warhol
Pablo Picasso
Roy Lichtenstein
Helmut Newton
Joel-Peter Witkin
Jock Sturges
Keith Haring
Francesca Woodman
Damien Hirst
Salvador Dalí
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Fernando Botero
Victor Vasarely
Michael Dweck
Wayne Thiebaud
Nan Goldin
Marc Chagall
Joan Miró
Gerhard Richter
Andreas Gursky
Shepard Fairey
Sebastião Salgado
Takashi Murakami
Jim Dine
Frank Stella
David Hockney
Diane Arbus
Alex Katz
Yayoi Kusama
Alexander Calder
Robert Mapplethorpe
Jeff Koons
Sally Mann
Alec Monopoly
Liu Bolin
Tom Wesselmann
Thomas Ruff
Robert Rauschenberg
Mr. Brainwash
Wolfgang Tillmans
Tahia Halim
Jean Dubuffet
Yoshitomo Nara
Ed Ruscha
Gregory Crewdson
Andy Goldsworthy
KAWS
Nick Brandt
Henri Matisse
Francis Bacon
Peter Doig
Cy Twombly
Sol LeWitt
Chuck Close
Maurice Utrillo
Pierre Soulages
Candida Höfer
Cindy Sherman
Anish Kapoor
Raoul Dufy
Robert Longo
Anselm Kiefer
Vik Muniz
Emil Nolde
Niki de Saint Phalle
Georg Baselitz
Niclas Castello
Margaret Keane
Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Garry Gross
John Baldessari
William Kentridge
Bridget Riley
Tony Cragg
Günther Uecker
David Hamilton
Harland Miller
Sigmar Polke
Julian Opie
Tracey Emin
David LaChapelle
Sam Francis
Daniel Richter
Lucio Fontana
Helen Frankenthaler
Fernand Léger
Bert Stern
Josef Albers
Karel Appel
Man Ray
Antoni Tàpies
Grayson Perry
Wolf Kahn
Robert Motherwell
Jasper Johns
Herb Ritts
Louise Bourgeois
Markus Lüpertz
Peter Max
Robert Indiana
Vernon Ward
Christian Boltanski
Hans Zatzka
Ai Weiwei
Egon Schiele
Ellsworth Kelly
Thomas Struth
George Condo
Heinz Mack
Walton Ford
Henri Cartier-Bresson
José Parlá
Käthe Kollwitz
Christopher Wool
Kees van Dongen
Imi Knoebel
Mel Ramos
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Rufino Tamayo
Richard Prince
Raymond Pettibon
Vivian Maier
Swoon
Irving Penn
Maurice de Vlaminck 127
Ushio Shinohara
Massimo Vitali
Wassily Kandinsky
Dennis Sheehan
Marina Abramovic
RETNA
Yves Klein
Marie Laurencin
Paul Klee
Arman
Julie Mehretu
Jean Paul Riopelle
Janet Fish
Will McBride
James Rizzi
Kiki Smith
William Eggleston
Joseph Beuys
Jackson Pollock
Mike Kelley
Agnes Martin
Barbara Kruger
David Lynch
Piet Mondrian
Grandma Moses
Harding Meyer
Richard Serra
Otto Dix 155
Stephan Balkenhol
René Magritte
Jenny Holzer
Bahman Mohasses
Pierre Molinier
Kehinde Wiley
Joan Mitchell
Igor Mitoraj
Louise Nevelson
Georges Braque
Willem de Kooning
Max Ernst
Hans Erni
Julian Schnabel
Sean Scully
Hans Hartung
A.R. Penck
Yue Minjun
George Grosz
Lyonel Feininger
Saul Leiter
Richard Estes
Zao Wou-Ki
Brett Whiteley
Neo Rauch
Alberto Giacometti
Royal Dux
Günther Förg
Andrew Wyeth
Lucien Clergue
Slim Aarons
Lucian Freud
Anton Pieck
Kazuo Shiraga
Lee Ufan
Wifredo Lam
James Rosenquist
Jane Peterson
Milo Manara
Jesús Rafael Soto
Milton Avery
Bettina Rheims
Albert Marquet
Martin Parr
Marilyn Minter
Montague Dawson
Jaume Plensa
Riusuke Fukahori
Anton Corbijn
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Amedeo Modigliani
Russell Young
Richard Diebenkorn
Deborah Butterfield
Jean Prouvé
Gustav Klimt
Itzchak Tarkay
Ernesto Neto
Paul Signac
Frank Gehry
Thomas Hart Benton
Manolo Valdés
Irina Ionesco
Marc Quinn
Mu Boyan
Elger Esser
Roberto Fabelo
Jonathan Meese
Elizabeth Catlett
Claude Monet
Per Kirkeby
Nam June Paik
JonOne
Hieronymus Bosch
Axel Hütte
Le Corbusier
Franz West
Mel Bochner
Andres Serrano
Chris Ofili
Ben Shahn
Pierre Bonnard
Annie Leibovitz
Charlotte Perriand
William Klein
Erwin Olaf
Donald Sultan
Eduardo Chillida
Donald Baechler
Bernar Venet
Nicole Eisenman
Romero Britto
Beatriz Milhazes
Shirin Neshat
Walasse Ting
Donald Judd
Adrian Ghenie
Richard Misrach
Rainer Fetting
Patrick Hughes
Duane Michals
Sean Henry
Elizabeth Peyton
Romare Bearden
Cecilia Paredes
Oscar Murillo
Charles Fazzino
Emmanuel Villanis
Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova
Marcel Dyf
Franz Kline
Bernard Dufour
Erwin Wurm
Jacques Adnet
Edward Burtynsky
Rembrandt van Rijn
Invader
Arnulf Rainer
Otto Piene
Peter Tunney
Séraphine de Senlis
Roberto Matta
Marlene Dumas
Alphonse Mucha
M. C. Escher
Georges Rouault
Bernd Zimmer
Jenny Saville
Aristide Maillol
Ettore Sottsass
Martin Kippenberger
John Chamberlain
Claes Oldenburg
William Wegman
Mark Rothko
Georgia Russell
Mimmo Paladino
Antony Gormley
Andre de Dienes
Adolph Gottlieb
Erich Heckel
Miquel Barceló
Bill Henson
LeRoy Neiman
James Turrell
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The post Banksy and Araki Top artnet's Top 300 List of the Internet's Most Popular Artists appeared first on artnet News.