On 18th October the auction house Phillips de Pury & Co. in London is opening two sessions dedicated to contemporary art, that will end the same day with the last round. A sale that will present author’s pieces, differing from the auctions of contemporary proposed by the other auction houses. Let’s consider Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

Sotheby’s said it borrowed $250 million and cut guarantees it will offer sellers for the rest of the year by one-third as global economic turmoil threatens the bull market for trophy art.
In a filing late yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Sotheby’s said it sought the money from Bank of America Corp. “as a defensive step to ensure additional liquidity in response to the recent turbulence in the global financial markets.”
Its cash on hand of $290 million “was more than adequate to meet our needs,” Sotheby’s spokeswoman Diana Phillips said in an e-mail. The additional money “puts us in a very strong position” during the current crisis.
The largest publicly traded auction house said it reduced guarantees to $306.1 million on Oct. 10 from $458.5 million a year ago. Sotheby’s didn’t put up all the money itself. It increased guarantees from undisclosed third parties by almost 10-fold to $63.3 million this month from $6.8 million a year ago, according to filings.
Sotheby’s described those guarantees in yesterday’s filing as “risk-sharing arrangements with unaffiliated partners.”
At its Impressionist sale in New York next month, Kazimir Malevich’s 1916 “Suprematist Composition” is expected to fetch more than $60 million. The Malevich will carry a new “irrevocable bid” symbol in the catalog. That indicates a third-party guarantee, in which an external guarantor provides the first bid on a lot at auction.
“If there’s only one bid, then the guarantor buys the work at a price that includes premium,” said Matthew Weigman, a London-based Sotheby’s spokesman. “If the work sells for more, the guarantor gets a cut of the upside.”
Sotheby’s shares have plunged 78 percent in the past year, compared with a 36 percent drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. (Bloomberg)

Auction houses are guaranteeing prices of some top works in this week’s London art sales, which coincide with the worst financial crisis since the Depression.
The sales, which take place at the same time as the Frieze Art Fair, have a total minimum price tag of 107 million pounds ($187 million). Sotheby’s has more than half of its total lot value guaranteed; Christie’s International guarantees 38 percent, meaning both promise fixed prices to vendors whether the art sells or not.
“I’m concerned about the level of guarantees at these auctions,” said London dealer Gerard Faggionato. “I just can’t see people wanting to spend 12 million pounds on a work of art at the moment.”
The auctions starting Oct. 17 pose additional risks to auction houses as banks are bailed out and economic gloom prevails. A survey of U.K. valuers said the Damien Hirst sale last month might have marked the top of the art market.
“Everything appears to be on hold at the moment,” said the London-based art adviser Tania Buckrell Pos, who represents high- net-worth clients in both the developed and emerging economies. “Everyone has a budget, even if they’re a billionaire. These people know when to be prudent. At this time, some of my clients are balancing the decision to buy art against other assets.”
In June, Buckrell Pos paid a record 40.9 million pounds with fees at Christie’s in London for Monet’s 1919 painting “Le Bassin aux Nympheas.” (Bloomberg)

Contemporary Fine Arts, a Berlin gallery that represents artists such as Peter Doig and Georg Baselitz, has made profit at every art fair the past five years.
The winning streak may end this week at Frieze, London’s largest art fair, which is taking place during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
“I don’t expect it to go really well,” said Nicole Hackert, a Contemporary Fine Arts partner. “We are not separate from the rest of the economic world.”
Frieze this week coincides with evening contemporary-art sales in London that auction houses estimate will make at least 107 million pounds ($183 million). Last week, Sotheby’s five-day series of auctions in Hong Kong tallied $142 million, about half the presale estimate. Sellers at New York’s auctions in November are watching to see if bank bailouts and economic gloom reduce demand, especially by Russian buyers who have propped up sales.
On Oct. 15, VIP guests will be admitted to Frieze’s 200,000 square-foot temporary structure in Regent’s Park. Now in its sixth year, the event is considered one of the world’s three most- important art fairs, with Art Basel in June and Art Basel Miami Beach in December.
This year’s edition will feature 152 galleries from 27 countries, offering new work by more than 1,000 contemporary artists, said Frieze in an e-mailed statement.
Beginning on Oct. 17, on the Friday of the Frieze fair, Sotheby’s, Phillips de Pury and Christie’s International will hold a series of evening sales. (Bloomberg)

Fans of Jacques Brel battled to buy the singer’s possessions, including guitars, photos and manuscripts, at a Sotheby’s auction last night in Paris.
Admirers of the Belgian-born star of French chanson spent a combined 1.03 million euros ($1.4 million), beating a presale estimate of as much as 470,000 euros. Only one lot was unsold at the sale, which coincided with the 30th anniversary of Brel’s death and faced opposition from some of his family.
Other recent sales at Sotheby’s, the world’s largest publicly traded auction house, have missed estimates because of the global financial meltdown. The Brel memorabilia sold well because the buyers consisted of fans, national institutions and specialist collectors, said Alain Renner, vice-president of Sotheby’s France, in an interview after the sale.
“It wasn’t just a typical auction”, said Renner, 63, who also was the auctioneer. “It was a sale very much based on emotions, with people buying objects they had some form of attachment to”.
Highlights of the collection were a squared-paper notebook Brel used for a draft of “Amsterdam”, one of his most well-known songs, which fetched 108,750 euros; the manuscript of his 1967 musical “L’Homme de la Mancha”, which went for 23,550 euros and his pilot’s license, which raised 34,350 euros.
“It’s breaking my heart to see these items sold” said Jean-Brice Wallon, 45, who said he is a distant cousin of Brel. “They represent the memory, the history of my family. I am sad I couldn’t buy anything. The prices went up too much.” (Bloomberg)

Ferraris and Lamborghinis lined up on Oct. 3 in the car park of a luxury condominium in Singapore. Their owners weren’t there to buy property, they came for a private view of Asian art that Larasati Auctioneers will offer.
Three days later, as Indonesia’s stock market fell 10 percent, a painting by the country’s top-priced living artist broke the $1 million mark at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong. I Nyoman Masriadi’s “The Man From Bantul (The Final Round)” sold for HK$7.8 million ($1 million), beating his own record for Southeast Asian contemporary art for the second time in two days.
Paintings and sculptures by emerging artists from Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries have defied slowing auction demand for top Chinese and Western works as global financial markets tumble and the prospect of a U.S. recession increase. Sellers at three art events this weekend in Singapore - a fair and two auctions - are hoping that sentiment will hold.  (Bloomberg)