Back in 2012, I wrote a post with the headline “How Larry Gagosian is like Goldman Sachs”. The general idea was that both of them use their relationships and their balance sheet to make money off and/or with their clients. Since then, as Christian Viveros-Fauné says, the art world has become even more coterminous with the art market: “Business […]
Holland Cotter Looks at Money in Art A new year. A new New York mayor. Old problems with art in New York. I have a collection of complaints and a few (very few) ideas for change. Money — the grotesque amounts spent, the inequitable distribution — has dominated talk about art in the 21st century […]
Christie’s and Sotheby’s Woo Big Sellers With a Cut When Christie’s sold Jeff Koons’s “Balloon Dog (Orange)”for $58.4 million in November, it seemed as if the auction house had just earned a pretty penny. After all, Christie’s, like other auction houses, typically charge commissions to buyers and sellers, which for high-priced works might be an […]
Handicapping 2014, maybe I see up to a 10% gain for the S&P 500 Index, refusing to anticipate the death toll of rapidly escalating interest rates or inflation. The market can sell at a high teens price-earnings ratio, even with earnings rising mid-single digits. Speculation is in the air so good stock pickers can do […]
The international art market is having its time in the sun: auction records keep tumbling, living artists have become superstars, and their punchy paintings and shiny sculptures have become the billionaire’s playthings of choice. Amid all this noise, however, it is time to question the much-touted belief that art is also an investment-grade asset.
Will 2013 go down in art market history as the peak of a boom, or the beginning of a new world order for art sales?
The other day at a Christmas party, an artist told me an art dealer joke. Here’s the short version: Devil goes to an art dealer, promises him wealth, success, everything, in return for his soul. Art dealer says, “What’s the catch?”
The super-rich have grown in number since 2008, adding the feel-good factor to this year’s fair. Millions of dollars have been spent on art, parties and hotel rooms this week as the circus surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach rolled into town. Given such conspicuous consumption, it is, perhaps, hard to remember that the art market […]
Wealthy Chinese collectors are increasingly buying up western art as their tastes move beyond the traditional confines of Chinese ceramics and paintings.
“A bunch of rubbish” was the verdict, offered only half in jest by the predictably dyspeptic English journalist. He was surrounded by huge paintings covered with shards of broken crockery and slathered with crudely painted images. Yes, rubbish, but is that not the quest of the avant-garde, to magically spin art from dross like some […]
A View Inside the Art World: Author Henry Alford attended the record-breaking auctions of modern art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, but to watch, not buy. Henry’s hilarious commentary in the NYT on his experiences at the Christie’s including at the preview auction brunch: “Are you having fun?” he asked me. “I am,” I said. “But […]
The man behind the World’s Most Expensive Painting
Instead of catering to carefully selected museums and collectors, auction houses sell to the highest bidder. They find two people who want the same work and get them to bid as high as possible; often those who buy work will only sell it again in two years.
Art fairs have their dos and don’ts. If you Google “negotiating at art fairs,” few results come up; it may be a taboo subject—and a common pratfall for beginner collectors—but haggling happens, and it’s a veritable part of the art-buying game, for better or worse.
By far the most common topics of discussion and consternation in the art world these days are the four behemoths. Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, and Pace are the bull elephants of the field, galleries that galumph everywhere all the time, Hoovering up artists and money and monopolizing attention. Jerry Saltz on the Trouble […]
The art world has officially joined the rest of the world in a maniacal obsession with celebrity culture. Sure, Warhol did it long ago with his 1960s “screen tests” of Warren Beatty and Dylan, and by hosting the likes of Mick Jagger, Jackie O, her son John John and sister Lee Radziwill in Montauk in […]
An evil gallerist reminds us how art has sadly always been used as an ambitious symbol of power. This gallery girl from Milan has some confessions to make.
Is the Art Market Due for a Correction? Maybe Not. Is the art market experiencing a new boom, or is it all just another bubble destined to burst? With artists seemingly setting benchmarks at auction on a monthly basis and prices at fairs for pedestrian artworks pushing into the millions of dollars, there are fears […]
How many art collectors actually know what they are buying? What’s the best way to smuggle artwork across the Atlantic? This gallery girl has some confessions to make.
Canadian name-brand art reporter, Sarah Thornton, has pulled a Greg Smith, today, penning a screed for TAR Magazine entitled “Top 10 reasons NOT to write about the art market.” In it, the “Seven Days in the Art World” author concludes that the subject is too corrupt to report on and therefore she will shift away from this kind […]