Justin Caguiat, the young painter-poet enjoying stellar success with his otherworldly canvases
2 min read · 16 Jun 2023
Justin Caguiat Step to Enchantment (2020). Copyright the artist. Courtesy of Modern Art
Justin Caguiat is on the HENI News radar as the young artist’s romantic, semi-abstract paintings on unstretched canvas are in demand among leading collectors.
Justin Caguiat's HENI Score—a unique artist sentiment—saw an impressive increase of 135%, a reflection of how fast the Filipino American artist’s star is rising.
Born in Tokyo in 1989, the now New York- and Oakland, California-based artist’s works have soared at auction recently. Sales have totaled an impressive $1.29m over the past two years.
In May 2023, his painting to the approach of beauty its body is fungible (2020) sold at Sotheby's for $787,400, more than three and a half times the high estimate. In 2022, Doll 3 Eros, sold for $504,000 at Phillips, above its high estimate.
These recent auction sales have propelled Caguiat into a select group of mainly younger artists making waves in the market for so-called ultra contemporary works. Until three years ago, his works were on offer for $30,000 to $50,000.
Caguiat is an artist whose meteoric rise has happened ahead of a major museum solo show. He has had solo shows with his dealers internationally, however. In 2022, Greene Naftali presented his works in New York. In 2021, he had a solo show at Taka Ishii, Tokyo while in London Modern Art organised a Caguiat show in 2020. In 2018, he had a breakout solo show at 15 Orient, Brooklyn.
His works have been presented at major art fairs, including editions of Art Basel.
The former Guggenheim and Brooklyn Museum curator Nancy Spector is a fan. She described the artist’s show at Green Naftalia as “stellar”.
Justin Caguiat The Snail (2021) at The Warehouse, Dallas. Copyright the artist. Courtesy of Modern Art and Greene Naftali
The influential Dallas-based collectors Cindy and Howard Rachofsky are also admirers. In 2022, they presented a solo show of Caguiat’s latest paintings in their space, The Warehouse, which was organised by the art advisor Allan Schwartzman, who is also the director of the Rachofsky Collection.
Caguiat’s large-scale paintings, typically on pinned, unstretched canvases, have been described as poetic and ethereal because of the way he combines pools of opulent color with symbolic shapes and hazy, figurative touches.
To get a deeper understanding of Justin Caguiat’s career visit his HENI Dashboard; a unique graphical data tool illustrating an artist’s auction sales, shows, profiles, mentions and their HENI Score. You can search for any one of the 100,000 Artist Dashboards to quickly appreciate their trajectory as well as sharing via email, text and WhatsApp.