ArtMarket® Insight - what's trending on the art market

Damien Hirst, star of the September sales! [24 Aug 2008]

Discovered by the advertising magnate and collector Charles Saatchi, the leading icon of the British scene knows the market rules off by heart. He is a strategist in art marketing and is getting himself talked about again by organising an exclusive sale at Sotheby’s.

Art market shift – London ahead of New York [17 Aug 2008]

The growing interest shown by emerging markets (China, the United Arab Emirates, India…) and good performances from traditional markets resulted in spectacular figures for the first half of 2008. This has silenced the sceptics who were still expecting economic woes to have a knock-on effect on auctions.The first Half of 2008 at auctions has so far countered gloomy and alarmist prophecies of a recession with sales of EUR 3.8bn (more or less equivalent to the EUR 3.7bn for the same period of 2007) and 504 bids over a million euros compared to 517 as of July 1st 2007. The art market has repeated the record performance reached in 2007 without beating it.

Richard Avedon – The eye without lashes [10 Aug 2008]

He was one of the most sought-after 20th century photographers: he worked for Harper’s Bazaar for twenty years, spent twenty-five designing cover pages for Vogue, and twelve for The New Yorker and captured the reality of events and people of his time without a trace of sentimentality. From the glamorous world of fashion to the austerity of the struggling, lower middle classes of the American West, he devoted his talent to capturing flashes of truth.He was a photographer who embodied renunciation, working from No, replacing colour with black and white and sharpening the focus on his models with neutral backgrounds.

Iranian art boom – 2006-2008: “progress report” [04 Aug 2008]

In two years, Dubai has clearly affirmed itself on the global art market with the first edition of Art Dubai in 2007 – inviting some 30 galleries from around the globe – and with the establishment of both Christie’s (2006) and Bonhams (2008) in the city. Since their arrival, the two action houses have been selling works by modern and contemporary artists from Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon and Iran and they have succeeded in fostering growing demand as well as significant price inflation. The Dubai prices represented his record.

London sales of Old Master paintings – Good results [28 Jul 2008]

As 7-figure bids become commonplace in the speculative and volatile contemporary segment of the art market, bidding for less publicised older works is still buoyant. The Christie’s and Sotheby’s sales of Old Master Paintings on 8 and 9 July 2008 generated new records with rare masterpieces from private collections.

The New Realists – Six records in six months [14 Jul 2008]

During their lifetimes, several New Realists gained considerable recognition in the United States. Their participation in the artistic maelstrom of New York during the 1960-80s partly explains their success at American and British auctions. Pierre Restany, a travelling art critic and polyglot involved in the emergence of the movement, worked towards their promotion in the USA; artist Niki de Saint Phalle, a French-Americain, frequently crossed the Atlantic; Jean Tinguely gained notoriety with his Homage to New-York, a cacaphonic happening at the MOMA in 1960 whose apotheosis was its intended self-destruction. The following year, Arman exposed for the first time in New-York, while Leo Castelli, a dealer of Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg, opened his gallery to Yves Klein.

Jan Fabre – Artist and entomologist [13 Jul 2008]

Originally from in Anvers in Belgium, Jan Fabre developed a French connection via his fascination for the work of his namesake Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915) a 19th century entomologist and poet who described with tremendous accuracy and passion the life of insects, particularly beetles. Indeed, the iridescent carapace of beetles is a key material in the Jan Fabre’s work. Since 2002, the magnificent changing reflections of 1.4 million beetle shells decorate the ceiling of mirrors of the Royal Palace Brussels as part of his most impressive official order.

Art Market Confidence Index: a reversal in trend [11 Jul 2008]

The confidence indicator for players in the art market has been falling for nearly a month. Having peaked at +31 points at the end of May following the excellent results from the May New York sales, this indicator has gradually turned down…haunted by the ghost of an unprecedented global economic recession.

Joseph Mallord William TURNER (1775-1851) [10 Jul 2008]

Starting on 1st July 2008, the Metropolitan Museum of New-York is hosting the largest ever American retrospective exhibition of the work of William Turner (1775-1851) for 40 years (J. M. W. Turner, 1 July – 21 September 2008). Seascapes, landscapes, historic scenes – all the subjects the artist liked to paint – will be presented. The exhibition is organised in association with the Tate Britain Gallery which has lent a large number of its exhibited works. In fact the London museum is also the administrator of the Turner Fund which essentially manages the legacy inherited by the British Crown after the artist’s death.

The New York School [26 Jun 2008]

The European artists who sought refuge in New York during the Second World War helped stoke up a simmering US art scene. A resurgence in US painting was in the making. A resurgence that would be abstract and manifest in two key movements: Action painting, consisting of gestural painting that emphasised the physical act of painting, and Color Field painting, characterised by large, flat areas of vibrant colour conducive to meditation.

Raining records in London [25 Jun 2008]

In London, the European capital of the art market, Sotheby’s and Christie’s have once again confirmed the good health of the top end of the market. The Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale of 24 June at Christie’s generated £144 million ($284 million), the largest sales volume ever posted by a European auction. The following day, Sotheby’s took £102 million, exceeding its aggregate high estimates by 7 million.

Contemporary art – New arrivals to the world of public auctions [24 Jun 2008]

Every year, nearly 3,000 artists have their first work(s) sold at auction. This first sale is a significant step because for most people the prices they command represent a sort of benchmark which follows them throughout their career. Galleries find it less easy to support their favourite artists if the latter have not shown the capacity to generate sufficiently strong performances in the public auction arena. Likewise, a strong auction performance is an ideal trampoline for guaranteeing the success of future exhibitions on the primary market.So who got started in 2007? Artprice looks at the top 50 new entrants.

Design Market – Pierre Paulin (1927) [23 Jun 2008]

In 2007, Pierre PAULIN celebrated his 80th birthday and 60 years of collaboration with Artifort. He also had a solo exhibition of about 100 pieces brought together under the title “Pierre Paulin: Superdesigner” (Villa Noailles, France). In 2008, the exhibition went to Belgium while two other events highlighted his work in Paris: he was nominated for the “Creator of the Year” award at the Furniture Fair (January 20) and an exhibition entitled Le design au pouvoir (design at the service of government) focused on his forty year collaboration with the “Mobilier national” (French institution for the interior design) at the Galerie des Gobelins, 2 February 2008 to 27 July 2008.

Contemporary sculpture in excellent shape [15 Jun 2008]

In the contemporary art field, sculpture, and particularly the offshoot known as ‘installations’, is currently enjoying a high level of market interest. At the top end, collectors are now paying tens of millions of dollars for monumental works by the likes of Koons, Hirst and Murakami. Artprice takes a look at this high profile segment of the market occupied by young artists, all born after 1945.In less than a year, the number of 7-figure (sometimes 8 …) auction sales involving three dimensional works has substantially increased. In 2007, 14 works sold for over a million dollars; in the first six months of 2008, we are already at 18…

Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) – Design effervescence [09 Jun 2008]

Ettore Sottsass, guru of counter-current design, died on 31 December 2007. Born 90 years earlier in Austria, Sottsass lived in Turin after 1929 and obtained a diploma from the Ecole Polytechnique in 1939. Following in the footsteps of his father, he chose to study architecture. He opened his own architects’ practice in Milan at the relatively young age of thirty and then left for the United States in 1956 where he began conceiving prefabricated houses working with George Nelson. At the end of the 1950s, he also began to make an impression with his design work and started signing numerous contracts with firms like Poltronova, Alessi and Olivetti. In 1959 he received the prestigious Compasso d’Oro prize for his computer entitled “Elea 9003”.

Contemporary French art is in vogue [02 Jun 2008]

Riding on the back of a sector-wide surge in contemporary art prices, the most attractive works of some French artists are now selling for more than a million Euros.

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) [20 May 2008]

Robert Raushcenberg died on Monday 12 May at the age of 82.Recognised as an heir to Dada and precursor of Pop Art, he glued, assembled and happily combined all sorts of images and materials from his era, playing on their interaction in terms of shape, texture and colour.In 1958, Léo Castelli took him under his wing and organised an exhibition for him. At the time, his technique of Combine-Painting or Combineswas already well developed and he started to explore the transfer technique using solvents in his drawings.

The New York miracle [15 May 2008]

The gloomy financial climate of the beginning of the year fuelled fears of a rapid deflation of the speculative bubble the art market has been enjoying over recent years. These fears seemed all the more justified as European art prices contracted by 7.5% in the first quarter of the year.With the dollar weak, it remained to be seen how the New York art market would react -particularly in the high-price segments. Not surprising therefore that the Impressionist & Modern Art sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s of 6 and 7 May, followed, a week later by the Contemporary Art sales, were observed with much interest, particularly by investors who had watched Sotheby’s stock price reduce to less than 30 dollars at the start of the year.

Design Market – Eero Saarinen [13 May 2008]

– Biography– How to buy or sale Tulip models-The hammer price

Primitive photography – Revisiting old negatives [12 May 2008]

The market for 19th century photography rallies on each new sale of a private collection offering the opportunity to bid for major negatives which have been carefully preserved for the past 100 or 150 years. Other than how well these delicate prints have been preserved, the wide range in prices depends on the subject’s interest and the beauty of the negative. Daguerreotypes, negatives in all genres and old prints tell us as much about the 19th century as they do about the history of the photographic medium.

Test sales in New York [01 May 2008]

In a few days, Sotheby’s and Christie’s will hold their prestigious New York sales with works by the leading artists in impressionism and modern art up for auction. Tension is running high one week ahead of these major sales since they will effectively test the confidence of collectors in the face of the current economic uncertainty.

Contemporary Indian art – an explosive market [28 Apr 2008]

In the mid 1990s, strong economic growth in India flushed out a new generation of collectors looking to invest in the art of fellow Indians. Today, demand is global and rising, fuelled by a very speculative environment with tempting opportunities for quick in and out trading. The new stars of Indian art are sought after in Hong-Kong and Dubai, London and New York, New Delhi and Paris.Galvanised by specialist auctions, contemporary Indian art has made spectacular gains: in January 2008, the sector’s price index was up by 830% over the decade!

China International Gallery Exhibition: 5th round [21 Apr 2008]

Having usurped France’s third place in global art market figures for 2007 (behind the US and the UK) China is consolidating its global presence by hosting art fairs with a genuinely international reach.

Artprice Global Index: Art prices plunge by 7.5% in the first quarter 2008 [14 Apr 2008]

The art market was bound to be affected by the turbulence seen in international stock markets this first quarter. As the impact of the subprime crisis rippled out through financial systems and the international economy, seven years of soaring gains in the price of artworks were brought to an abrupt halt. For the first time since the twin towers attack of 11 September 2001, the art market has been showing signs of a fall.

Maurice de Vlaminck – at the origin of Fauvism [07 Apr 2008]

Until 20 July 2008, the Museum of Luxemburg is hosting an exhibition dedicated to Maurice de Vlaminck works from the 1900 to 1915, a period during which the research he conducted with Derain in Chatou was essential to the renewal of painting at the start of the 20th century

Art Market Trends 2007 [30 Mar 2008]

Artprice publishes its exclusive art market report that more than 6,300 international media and institutions rely on each year. Based on the 5,4 million auction recorded by 2,900 auction houses, “Art Market Trends 2007” is a 44-pages report of macroeconomics and microeconomics analyses updated to match the auction events and the artworks prices evolutions. This report published by ArtMarketInsight, Artprice’s press agency, in collaboration with Artprice’s econometrics department also includes genuine rankings such as the TOP 500 artists by turnover, the 100 highest auctions of the year.

In 2007, and for the seventh year running, the art market saw an overall rise in prices. Art was already seeing demand from new areas like China, Russia, India and the Emirates but as investing on stock markets or in property appears riskier, new collectors and investment funds are showing interest as they seek out new kinds of alternative investing.[…]

Contemporary drawing [17 Mar 2008]

In France, contemporary drawing is now exhibited widely, having shrugged off its image as a secondary medium. Its new standing is due, in particular, to the establishment of a Drawing Prize by the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Foundation, the creation of the “Paris Capital of Drawing” label by the Contemporary Drawing Fair which is celebrating its tenth anniversary between the 10 and 14 April and the birth of Slick drawing which takes place on the same dates. However, the auction houses are not profiting from the buzz generated by these events to give more space to contemporary drawings in their sales, with no specialist sale being held in France.

The TOP 10 artists [13 Mar 2008]

Every year Artprice compiles a ranking of artists based on the total revenue generated by public sales of each artist’s work, with Pablo Picasso invariably taking the number one position on the market podium. Not so in 2007: after nearly 10 years, the champion of modern art has been dethroned by the guru of Pop art, Andy Warhol. Second in 2006, Warhol became the global market leader in 2007.More than just one name replacing another, this ‘event’ reflects a veritable sea-change in the auction world. While in the 1990s the very pinnacle of the art market belonged to the impressionists, particularly Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, and then, after 2000, to the moderns with Pablo Picasso and Gustave Klimt, today, and possibly for some time to come, the market has hoisted contemporary art to the summit of the pyramid.

Narrative Figuration – The rehabilitation of a French movement [10 Mar 2008]

After the Art Paris contemporary art fair (from 3 to 7 April), the Grand Palais will stage a much-anticipated three-month retrospective on Narrative Figuration (Narrative Figuration, Paris, 1960-1972, from 16 April to 13 July), a French art movement mirroring American Pop Art of the 1960s.

Contemporary art: the affordable art market [02 Mar 2008]

First held in 1999, the ‘Affordable Art Fair’, as its name suggests, believes in art accessible to everyone. The fair focuses on contemporary works priced at under GBP 3,000 (around EUR 4,000) and its growing success has seen the principle extended to Bristol, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Sydney and Melbourne.The forthcoming spring Affordable Art Fair will see 120 galleries exhibit in London’s Battersea Park between 12 March and 16 March. To coincide with this event, Artprice takes a look at this market segment, in which today’s new collectors often take their first steps.