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 first semester for the art market is about to come to an end and before its conclusion Christie’s auction house is going to try itself out with an auction completely dedicated to author prints. Indeed, on 31st July Christie’s New York is going to propose a very interesting sale that will attract many neo-collectors, thanks to the very low estimates that vary from 300 to 18 thousand dollars. “Prints & Multiples” will auction 357 lots, including 29 works by Pablo Picasso, 23 by Joan Mirò and 5 by Marc Chagall. If we look through the catalogue we will see many interesting works that could give an excellent result to this sale dedicated to prints and multiples, a sector considered as one the minor sectors of the art market.

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.

Article translated by Amritee Mahabir

The “Prints” exhibition held on 29th and 30th April 2008, at Christie’s auction house New York, totalled 12,392,750 dollars, with 88% of sales. It was an excellent result for a sale dedicated to prints, an artistic sector that is considered to be of less importance in the art market.

 

Article translated by Amritee Mahabir

Last October, the death of Ileana Sonnabend launched an upset in the art world. A woman of refined taste, for decades she was the point of reference for contemporary art, defined by the critic Achille Bonito Olivia as “the greatest gallerist of the second half of the XX century”.