The month of September brought along with it the financial collapse of uncle Sam. Since Lehman Brother Holdings Inc., historical company active in financial services at a global level, announced its intention to file for Chapter 11, the procedure of “piloted failure” provided for by US law, a burdensome situation has been perceived and economists have seriously started questioning the future of the luxury industry. While ex employees were leaving the Lehman Brothers offices with their boxes, experts of the art market wondered what would happen in the future.
The main international economists are now claiming that the crisis of the financial markets, and the one of real estate markets, are definitely starting to affect also the art market. The economy is changing. Nobody can establish with precision which direction it will take. According to analysts next year will be comparable to the early Nineties, when prices fell by 44% in two years.
After a period in which auction houses registered a series of records, especially for contemporary art, which saw its prices multiplied in 2007, the wind has suddenly changed.
A similar situation to the one in 1989, a crisis that was overcome only in the mid-Nineties, with a fall back in 2001 when the Twin Towers collapsed, blocking for days the US financial system. Sotheby’s postponed to an unscheduled date its auctions in New York and the magnate of luxury Arnault supported Phillips. 

The Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Christie’s New York  had already been anticipated as one of the most important sales of this period. So it was and even more than expected. The evening totalled 33,641,000 dollars, the second highest total ever realized in auction history for the category with 95% of the lots sold.