to buy your Artini tickets!
Don’t forget that Fall Fete tickets sold out last year creating a black market …
Did you know that in SE Asia (most notably Thailand & Burma) due to censorship and isolation paint, canvases and other art supplies must be bought on the black market … one would argue that this is probably a good indicator that these “emerging markets” aren’t quite ready to open up
That’s an oxymoron.
I was reading Hoogrrl and below that awesome picture of the Dissident Display boys and me on a fried egg, is a comment:
John D. said…
There is not a secondary market for emerging artists. Galleries and dealers try their hardest to prevent this from happening; it can ruin the career of a young artist. Most invoices include a clause that entitles the gallery first right of refusal if the collector decides to resell the object. Some people, who are not serious collectors and think they’re being a clever specullector, will buy and then try to quickly flip the work in an auction or other public domain. Doing this will get you blacklisted and the gallery, dealer and artist will never sell to you again (and trust me, we find out).
It takes time to develop a young artist’s career and committed galleries do this by developing different structures; for example, the price structure is dependent on published reviews in respected media (Art in America, Art Forum), the right curator including them in a group or museum show, a taste-maker collecting the work, etc. So by exposing the artists early on in their career to a secondary market makes all of the above difficult to achieve. Look at what Saatchi did to Sandro Chia … (obviously there is a huge scale difference in that comparison but it’s an interview everyone should have read if they haven’t already).
Back down to our scale, nobody wants to see a young artist they collect, their newest acquisition, in some random regional auction in New Jersey.
My suggestion, buy what you like and enjoy it. Spend time getting to know the artists you collect. By buying their work, you are providing them with a paycheck and supporting their career (1). Begin a relationship with the gallery who represents the artist, they in turn will develop a relationship with you and offer perks such as a price courtesy or a private viewing of new work (3). Soon you will meet others who also share your passion for work by that artist and they won’t sell too early in NJ either (10).
These are all benefits of collecting emerging art and there are at least 14 new friends to be made in the above interactions!
But if you need to resell before “it’s time” (mid-career or established, think years) go to the gallery you bought the work from. They will either buy it back or use one of their many outlets to sell it for you – it’s the best way to keep your respect and all those friends I promised you.
On January 28th, Artprice.com, a pretty reliable, yet clunky price database primarily used for European artists, has devised a way to measure the art “Players’ confidence” with their new Art Market Confidence Index (AMCI), live.
What’s become one of my favorite things is when a group or individual attempts to use an assessment created for financial services to gauge the art market. There are characteristics intrinsic to the art market which make this impossible (quickly: information asymmetry, absence of mark-to-market prices, no price standardization or transparency, costs, conflicts of interest, the fact that the art market is the largest unregulated money market, etc…).
So back to AMCI. All you have to do is go to their website and answer these 4 simple questions:
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According to you, would now be the appropriate time to buy art works? |
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YES |
NO |
INDIFFERENT |
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Is your financial situation better or worse than it was 3 months ago? |
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BETTER |
WORSE |
STABLE |
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In the next 3 months, will you expect the economic climate to be: |
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FAVORABLE |
UNFAVORABLE |
IDENTICAL |
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What do you expect art prices will be in the next 3 months: |
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RISE |
FALL |
STABLE |
You are then taken to this screen (link takes you into my account so you don’t have to share your info with ArtPrice or use LAUREN@IRVINECONTEMPORARY.COM and password – LAUREN) to see the live graph.
Looks like the Consumer Confidence Index doesn’t it? Generalized, and vague – self-fulling rather than foretelling. This indicator is not revealing. I just hope it will not influence behavior.
(confidence has decreased from -5.8 to -8.6 in the time it took me to write this)
Immediately after the death/sucide of Jeremy Blake was announced there was a spike in readers brought to the blog by search terms such as “buy jeremy blake”, “buy blake prints”, “jeremy blake prices” etc.
At cocktail parties I’ve heard from amateur specullectors that an artists’ death is the easiest way for their art collections to appreciate. While basic Keynesian theory supports that, it’s not always the case. Thus, the following information may be disappointing to some, but I promise it is true and common practice:
Jeremy Blake, whose suicide last summer was all but incomprehensible to the career-obsessed art world, has had his beautifully mounted retrospective homage at Kinz, Tillou and Feigen Gallery [his dealers] … Fans may be slightly daunted however by the fact Blake did not often sign his digital prints, they have no edition number and, choicest of all, there are no actual, vulgar prices given for any works. Instead you have to leave your name and contacts and wait to see if you are deemed suitable. It’s an elegant system that keeps collectors on tenterhooks.
Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You by Adrian Dannatt – The Art Newspaper, Jan 08, p. 36
Luckily there is still a way to enjoy Blake’s work where right of entry does not rely on pedigree or contacts. Check out Wild Choir: Cinematic Portraits by Jeremy Blake at the Corcoran Gallery of Art through March 2nd.
Jeremy Blake, Working still from Glitterbest, 2006, digital video and sound (Courtesy Kinz, Tillou + Feigen, New York)
A new record for a living artist at auction was set when Jeff Koons’ stainless steel Hanging Heart brought $23.6 million yesterday at Sotheby’s evening sale of Contemporary Art in New York. Sold to Gagosian Gallery to applause, Hanging Heart, 1994-2006 is considered one of the most important works by Koons ever offered at auction. The sculpture was offered for sale by a private American collector and had a pre-sale estimate of $15 million to $20 million.
The Guennol Lioness is a 5000-year-old Mesopotamian statue found near Baghdad, Iraq. Depicting a well-muscled anthropomorphic lioness, it sold for $57.2 million at Sotheby’s auction house on December 5, 2007. The price was the highest ever paid for a sculpture in history.
6 more days until… the Sale of the Magna Carta from Ross Perot’s private collection previously housed 5 blocks away
So the results from the London auctions are in, discussions with my associates who visited Frieze were had, Richard Polsky published his official (and kinda cheesy) buy, sell, hold “art market guide 2007” and then a handsome financial advisor from Chicago sent me this article from yesterday’s WSJ.
After processing all of this – these are my thoughts:
The most important info from the WSJ article is at the bottom when Rubell, the alpha collector, claims that its not the credit crunch affecting him, its the exchange rate. That was the same thing I heard from those with dollars at Frieze.
Then the article went on to say that only 19% of the buyers at Sotheby’s Contemporary auction in London were American. That is low (12% Asian, Middle Eastern & 42% European), really low and very telling of the future. So is the fact that the Chinese Contemporary sales did so well.
I missed the art market’s passing from Paris to New York, but I think I will live to see its move to London.
As for Polsky’s art market guide published on ArtNet News, his advice resonated well with WSJ and the auction results. He stamped Doig, Hirst, Yuskavage with a SELL in his guide. But re: his Yuskavage commment, I didn’t get it, I thought the opposite was true.
Overall, I thought his advice was very conservative and was surprised that Warhol was a BUY – but maybe he is doomed to claim that forever (if you don’t get it, you should be ashamed, please click here)
So, are the young contemporary Western artists going to suffer from this financial uncertainty? We will have to wait until December for the next round of auctions and fairs to see.
Rob Cox from the Dow Market Watch presents a new way to look at the skull
The skull cost $24m to create (in raw materials) – that was probably split with his dealer and assembled with the help of Bond Street jewellers Bentley & Skinner. Thus, the price paid represents just four times the cost of production.
Assume that Hirst split the $100 million with the White Cube Gallery or his dealer, Jay Jopling (who financed 1/2 the cost of the materials)
That leaves Hirst with $13 million after deducting his original investment.
“But if the art market is really turning, perhaps Hirst should go back to the sharks. The up-front investment is a lot lower” (Rob Cox).
and randomly MSN reports on it: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20517869/?GT1=10252
An investment group? Couldn’t be Philip Hoffman of The Fine Art Fund in London – they know better. Maybe it’s that British trader Chris Carlson who has become known for his cheeky quotes, “I love the fact that the art market is unregulated – it’s a nice change from the other markets I’ve worked in” (The Art Newspaper, July/Aug. p. 48).
(I mean we all think this in the private sector, but who actually goes on record with that, he even has worse ones – - – “unregulation” means our clients are “unprotected”)
But Carlson’s self-proclaimed “first hedge fund for art”, The Art Trading Fund, is only worth $50 million, so they couldn’t even afford it.
The Art Newspaper also reports that the £50m ($100m) price was dropped to £38m ($76m), which of course Hirst’s agent denies…
And there is also huge speculation that Americans bought it !?
In addition to my first commentary on Charlie Finch’s article Liquid Skies, another point I found interesting was his reference to the use of an art inventory’s value as collateral for a gallery. This practice is in fact new and is due to a new generation of lenders who don’t understand how to evaluate levels of risk and can be directly related to the shaky subprime market I spoke in an earlier post. As for the galleries who engage in this borrowing activity, it’s foolish unless they are sure they can repay the loan.
Those of you who read the article, Liquid Skies, written by Charlie Finch published this week on Artnet News may feel a little anxious about your recent and future purchases.
Readers – Stay calm. The world isn’t going to end, not even the contemporary art world, but Charlie Finch is right – the art market has been over-inflated by players who aren’t realizing the distortions they are creating by their high volume manipulations, I mean transactions… but, those dealing in the alpha market (think Warhol and Hirst) are the most vulnerable.
In the beginning of the piece, Finch compares the characteristics of hedge funds to the art market and investing in fine art – high fees, information opacity, low regulation, long hold periods, and difficult/slow turnover – basically high risk, and possible high reward.
In response to Finch’s comments regarding German and British banks – Yes, the subprime market (the subprime market serves borrowers who have poor or no credit histories or limited incomes and can’t meet the credit standards to get loans in the prime market) has destabilized their banks – but according to a British statistician friend of mine who I sent a panicked email to – they’ll survive.
Everyone knows that an increase in leveraging, in any sector, equals a less stable marketplace. So one could argue that, looking back, this is a good example of what happens when risk advisors don’t estimate all the variables involved – a small increase in interest rates was enough to seriously refute their assumptions.
Although I agree with Finch, Collectors – don’t panic Please don’t look with disdain at the contemporary art on your walls, just start learning to appreciate the psychic benefits and enjoyment of owning it… instead of fantasizing about its resale value.
