Harrumphs for Hirst
August 24th, 2008The Wall Street Journal has this think piece on the meaning the Hirst auction for the art market. And The Art Newspaper claims to have an inventory of White Cube’s unsold stock totaling £100 million.
Melik Kaylan’s tart views in the WSJ spare no one. Dealers are haughty but also panderers; Hirst is creature of the vulgar new money being made in Russia, China and the Gulf States; and art is for social climbers.
Because Sotheby’s and Christie’s appear to operate a species of global commodities exchange, with dates and prices instantly disclosed on the Internet, it all feels so much more transparent to, say, a new Chinese millionaire. In the first place, there will be a local office near him co-headed by a Chinese speaker who understands the millionaire’s social sensitivities — so much more pleasant than having to kow-tow to a self-important New York or London gallerist. It puts an end to a long era in which superior dealers could treat outsider clients with the snooty hauteur of a French waiter. Above all, though, the auction houses’ relative transparency — the fact that prices are set and transactions occur out in the open, for all to see — will appeal to the international new money crowd that knows plenty about how money and markets work.
Dealers have always offered clients a higher degree of discretion than the public space of an auction ever can. That has traditionally been their great asset. But let’s be candid: Nobody in Dubai or Shanghai wants a pickled cow to gaze at musingly in solitude for the sheer beauty of its hindquarters. When today’s clients buy such wares, privacy is the last thing on their minds.
The important question is whether the Hirst sale is truly driven by new buyers seeking access to his work that can’t be satisfied by his dealers. Sotheby’s is sending the works to New York (well, the Hamptons) and New Delhi but not to Dubai or Shanghai. But The Art Newspaper turns the equation around by suggesting that Hirst’s volume of production has overflowed what his dealers can place:
the scale of his output requires him to find a steady stream of new buyers; the global reach of the auction house will have proved decisive. “Sotheby’s promotion is not directed at existing collectors. They are targeting new buyers, especially in parts of the world which have only recently started collecting contemporary art,” says a trade source
The Times also picks up the Art Newspaper’s claims and wraps up the whole package including the shows in Bridgehampton and New Delhi:
This will be Hirst’s first show in India. “Until now Indian collectors have primarily shown interest in art from their own culture,” said Oliver Barker, senior international specialist at Sotheby’s. “Now they are thinking global.”
Hirst’s Marketing End Run (Wall Street Journal)
Revealed: the Art Damien Hirst Failed to Sell (The Art Newspaper)
200 Unsold Hirst Works Looking for An Owner at Sotheby’s (The Times of London)
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Clearly, there is now another attempt at a media/blogger backlash to give Damien Hirst a comeuppance he so rightly deserves for sucking so much of the money out of the contemporary art market that could go to support other artists, while also bringing the long-anticipated contemporary bubble burst nearer. I think this is good. He has gone from being influential and often pretty artistic to sheer speculative commodity, producing way too much work. Greed pure and simple. Enough is enough. Let some other artists share in the Russian/Chinese/Indian buyer pool.
Your assumption that Hirst is crowding out other artists needs some examination. What evidence do you have that Contemporary artists are not getting good prices because the money is going to Hirst instead?
I should also point out that there is a serious flaw in the Art Newspaper’s thesis that a glut of Hirst’s work is driving the Sotheby’s sale. The auction house should have some sense of the demand that exists for Hirst’s work. If there is unsold inventory at his dealers and Sotheby’s sees demand, that suggests a disconnect between the dealer market and the secondary market that isn’t being addressed.
If the sale does not do well, The Art Newspaper’s thesis will have more validity. If the sale goes well, the Art Newspaper will have to go back to the drawing board.
It’s pretty difficult to have evidence of anything in the contemporary art and auction market, as it is unregulated and often manipulated by the Gagosians and Mugrabis and art investment syndicates of the world. I have no problem with that, as it’s actually quite fun to watch and try and detect, but I do feel that Hirst is bringing too much product to the market and is thus causing so much media hype and backlash, that he could single-handedly bring the market down. I just wish he would lay low for a few years rather than over-produce to capitalize on the emerging market billionaires who are entering the market. For the good of the entire contemporary art world I think all galleries and dealers would just slow down a bit. I know you’ve got to strike when the iron is hot, but by all accounts, the lunacy going on right now in China, India, Indonesia and elsewhere is too much too soon.
I think the far more interesting (and ignored) aspect of this is that Hirst has probably lost the ability to regulate his own production. By producing thousands of works in a given year, he has created a vibrant secondary and third (ebay et al) market for his work. However it is on the production side that I think he has lost the most control. By relying more and more on gifted assistants to fulfill his vision, he has created a legion of production workers who can easily create authentic Hirst works in all but his name. Thus, he can never truly afford to allow these assistants stop working, or to stop paying them ludicrous sums for their work, since if given the opportunity to take their talents elsewhere, many may do just that, and begin to trade on (and indirectly bring down) his name. The myth must be maintained at all costs - and thus production no longer matches demand, and it’s growth in quantity (does it take the same amount of time to do the 180th dot canvas as the 5th?) has probably long outpaced the growth in demand.
In short, he has created a run-away train, that must be kept going or else it will derail. Sotheyby’s next month is just the beginning of what may become a life’s quest for him - how do you sell so much art, without allowing the price to drop. Economists of the world should be taking note - a supply / demand conundrum in real life with tangible and trackable results.
You’ve made a number of assumptions about how Hirst’s studio functions that don’t seem to match the record. As far as we know, from interviews and other reports, Hirst strictly controls what leaves his studio as a Damien Hirst work. He is not known to pay high salaries in the first place; and, yes, it takes just as long to paint another Spot painting as it did the first one. The paintings are not mass-produced and each one is unique.