VoCA has long championed Winnipeg as a hotbed for contemporary artists – Guy Maddin, Sarah Anne Johnson and Paul Butler among them.

Since he was included in AA Bronson’s School for young shamans at John Connelly Presents in NYC last year, along with other VoCA favorite Item Idem, young Winnipeg artist Michael Dudeck is fast emerging as one of the country’s most intriguing performance artists.

Michael Dudeck, Parthenogenesis at Pari Nadimi Gallery. Image: courtesy the artist.

Fresh from his first exhibition at Toronto’s Pari Nadimi Gallery, VoCA contributor Whitney Light caught up with Dudeck in Winnipeg:

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“When the empires fall — Roman, Greek — all that is left is the art.”

The Mugrabi family, from left: Alberto, David and the patriach, Jose. Image: nytimes.com

As private dealers, the Mugrabi (family) do not own a gallery or represent artists. They buy or sell works in about 100 art auctions annually, nearly one every three days (sometimes, with smaller auctions, they bid via phone). And the rest of the time, they buy and sell through galleries and fellow dealers.

“We’re market makers,” Alberto said. “You can’t have an impact buying one or two pictures per artist. We’re not buying art like Ron Lauder — just to put it on a wall. We want inventory.” He equated inventory with liquidity: “It gives you staying power.” In the commodities sector, the analogue would be making a run on a precious metal — in order to manipulate the price.

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