FROM JOHNS TO HIRST AND KOONS AND FINALLY FREUD

translated by Giorgina Arcuri

It is indeed true that the art market is a rather mutable sector, given that within one year lovers of contemporary art have been astonished by the continual passages of witness for the title of “most highly quoted living artist in the world”. In the time lapse between May 2007 and today, four celebrities of contemporary art have “passed over” each other at auctions to achieve this goal.
The first to achieve this excellent result was the American artist Jasper Johns, who with “Figure 4” surprised the sector experts. Indeed this mixed-technique work dated from 1959, dominated by a certain abstract creativity, on 16th May 2007 was bought by the renowned art gallery manager Larry Gagosian at Christie’s New York for 17.4 million dollars.
If the hammer price set by Jasper Johns had stunned the economic sector of art, about a month later the sale of a Damien Hirst left everyone flabbergasted. It was the 21st June 2007 when Sotheby’s London sold “Lullaby Spring” to an anonymous collector for 19.1 million dollars. The piece became immediately the world’s most expensive work executed by a living artist. It was a 3-metre-high cabinet containing 6,136 small sculptures of hand-made painted pills. A great satisfaction for the Bad Boy of YBA (Young British Artist), considered one of the most famous, derided, praised and paid contemporary artists of the last years, known at international level for his poetics founded on black humour: animals selected and caged in a formaldehyde, pills, chemist-like showcases, sacred representations with cow heads and blood.
But even Damien Hirst’s podium was soon stolen. On 14th November 2007, during the “Contemporary Art Evening Sale” at Sotheby’s New York, “Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold)” by Jeff Koons thrashed all records, selling for the extraordinary amount of 23.6 million dollars, against an initial estimate of 15-20 million dollars. Naturally, behind the sale there was the powerful art gallery manager Larry Gagosian, who the day before had already bought Koon’s sculpture “Diamond (Blue)”, for 11.8 million dollars.
An extremely fascinating, ironic and sensual piece, all curves and sparkling colours, which has five versions executed in Germany, in five different colours (one belonging to François Pinault). Within the art market, these great hearts have triggered an actual race between billionaires willing to get hold of all five of them. Rumour has it that the one sold in New York belonged to Adam Lindemann, whose wife Amalia Dayan was part of Gagosian’s staff. Its artistic quality is indisputable, but the same cannot be said for its price. Apparently  “Hanging Heart” was bought the year before by the person who then sold it in November for “only” 4 million dollars.
Unfortunately even Jeff Koons in the last days has had to accept losing the title of the world’s most paid living artist. The saleroom public of the “Post War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale”, held on 13th May at Christie’s New York, was astonished by an oil painting done by the English artist of German origins Lucian Freud. It is “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” dated from 1995, a canvas that has set the new world record for any living artist. Indeed Freud’s painting was estimated by Christie’s experts between 25 and 35 million dollars, but it achieved 33,641,000 dollars.
“Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” is one of Lucian Freud’s most sought-after paintings, as it is part of the first work belonging to a series painted in the nineties and, furthermore, it is considered by many experts the painter’s highest artistic expression. A work of extraordinary beauty that represents a corpulent woman, lying asleep on a worn and shabby sofa; her heavy and graceless anatomic figure is mercilessly presented to the spectator in all its crudeness.
The spring season dedicated to contemporary art ended on 15th May with the auction organized by Phillips de Pury & Co. New York, but experts are raring for the arrival of the great contemporary sales next autumn, which may give art lovers new sensational records, that is if the market of contemporary art will be able to keep up its positive trend of the last year.