The outcome of Sotheby’s auction of new works by Damien Hirst is crucial to the overall confidence of the contemporary art market, according to a report published today by the research company ArtTactic.
The research was compiled by the London-based company’s founder Anders Petterson before the “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” sale of material from Hirst’s studio that Sotheby’s expects to fetch at least 65 million pounds ($117 million).
Petterson examined how Hirst’s works have performed at auction over the last four years since Sotheby’s October 2004 “Pharmacy” sale. That auction of the contents of the artist’s defunct Notting Hill restaurant made 11.1 million pounds, more than double the 4.9 million-pound top estimate.
According to ArtTactic report, if Sotheby’s 223-lot sale in London on Sept. 15 and 16 raises $150 million, it will match the total achieved from all of Hirst’s auction sales between 2000 and 2008. If it performs below expectations, it could “signal a wider contemporary art market in decline,” said the report.
“It’s a very important event”, said Petterson in a telephone interview. “It will set the tone for the autumn season of contemporary auctions and potentially further than that”.
ArtTactic predicted that the Hirst sale would perform well. In a poll it conducted among 51 market insiders, 78 percent felt the total would fall within Sotheby’s estimate range, said the report.
“I’d be surprised if Sotheby’s didn’t sell at least 85 percent of the lots”, said the New York-based art adviser Todd Levin, director of the Levin Art Group, in a telephone interview, when asked to comment on the report. “Hirst and (his manager) Frank Dunphy are smart guys. Do you think they’re really going to ask a question they don’t know the answer to?” (Bloomberg)