Lucky Seven

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I'm running late with art fair reporting so in the meantime, a little quiz.

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What do these things have in common:

. a pickled shark . . .

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.a topiary puppy . . .
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Louis Vuitton bags in candy colors . . .
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.tangled skeins on canvas . . .
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.Basquiat on the screen . . .
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.a giant dome of oleagineous red wax . . .
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.and a target in green encaustic?
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They were made by the seven richest artists in the world, a testicular club that consists of Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Brice Marden, Julian Schnabel, Anish Kapoor and Jasper Johns.
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Not surprisingly--and this may make you feel better, or maybe not--it takes money to make money. Hirst has a business manager, Koons was a commodities broker on Wall Street, Marden made his fortune in real estate. And of course early in their careers, several of them were championed by powerful dealers. You can read the report by Amber Vilas in Artinfo.

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My images top and bottom (Hirst, top; Johns, bottom); Anish Kapoor's red wax dome courtesy of the ICA, Boston; the others from the Internet