Damien Hirst knows how to roll with the times. Commenting on the failure of very large painting of skulls from 2007 that failed to sell at Phillips de Pury in New York, he said this to the Independent:

“It was bought from me less than a year ago at half the price. In a way it’s good. We are looking at more realistic prices. People who bought things are not going to sell them that day. That is what an artist wants, for people to hang the works on their wall. As an artist, you don’t stop making art because people are not buying it”.

No doubt most will find Hirst’s breezy about face maddening. Though, on the face of it, he hasn’t changed his tune all that much. He said that he was willing to live with the consequences of the September auction. And there’s no reason to doubt that even now:

“If I want to sell new work, I’ll price it lower. If people have got less money, you can either just shut your door and say, ‘Screw everybody’, or I can wait until everyone can afford my work or price it cheaper.”

(The idea that a consignor and an auction house wanted to piggy-back on that sale seems cavalier now–a sure sign of speculative over-reaching [see below for our own maddening self-contradiction.])

Art’s Too Expensive, Says Hirst (The Independent)

Godfrey Barker on the Hirst Sale Results

Newsweek has a brief item on the Hirst results:

But is Hirst’s work really recession proof—especially given the susceptibility of his pieces to decomposition? “This sale has proved that Hirst is a safe return,” says art-market expert Godfrey Barker. “The superrich need somewhere to put their money, and they’re pouring it into art. We are entering a world where art is trusted above real estate and General Motors.” Along those lines, Hirst plans to invest his new millions in modern masters like Francis Bacon—though it might not hurt to hang on to a few of his own commodity-encrusted creations, too.

The Scotsman Goes to the Hirst Auction with Sarah Thornton

The subhed on this Scotsman story about attending the Hirst sale with art market author, Sarah Thorton, gives you fair warning: “Sarah Thornton cut her academic teeth in Glasgow and sank them deep into the booming contemporary art market. She bares her fangs for Jackie McGlone.” Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World comes out in November. Until then:

In the end, the most talked about art auction of recent times doesn’t quite live up to the hype, but Thornton is very good company. “Who’s bidding on the phone with that Sotheby’s employee who I happen to know speaks Russian?” she whispers as we sit among the hack pack observing proceedings. [ . . . ] Roman Abramovich perhaps? “That was exactly my thought,” responds Thornton. “But I know Molly Dent-Brocklehurst, who used to work for the Gagosian Galleries, always bids for him. It’s definitely another Russian oligarch. I’ve a few ideas who it is – I’ll find out his name eventually.” Read the rest of this entry »

Victor Pinchuk’s Museum Moves Closer to Becoming Reality

John Varoli reports in Bloomberg on the Ukrainian art magnate, Victor Pinchuk, and his announcement of the hiring of a new director for his museum with this Hirst-related tease:

“Over the past year, I’ve acquired works by my favorite artists,” said Pinchuk in his downtown Kiev home. “I bought Gursky, Koons, Murakami, Hirst, and Kiefer. Yes, I bought at the recent Hirst auction, but I won’t name works. You must wait until spring when I’ll display new acquisitions.” [ . . . ]

Pinchuk spoke in an interview as he named Eckhard Schneider director of his Kiev art center. The Ukrainian’s collection includes some of the most expensive living artists: Hirst, Jeff Koons and German photographer Andreas Gursky.

“Victor Pinchuk is having a great impact on the market,” said Simon de Pury, chairman of the auction house Phillips de Pury & Co., at the opening of a Gursky show at the center. “Ever since he opened the center, others in Ukraine and Russia have emulated him and taken an interest in contemporary art.” [ . . . ] “The contemporary art market in both Ukraine and Russia has really taken off in the past two years, and I expect this growth to continue,” De Pury of Phillips said.

London’s Evening Standard blog, This is London, cranks up the hype with its own version of this same story, complete with identical quotes.

Billionaire Pinchuk Buys Hirst Works; Names New Museum Director (Bloomberg)

Secret Hirst Buyer is Ukrainian Steel Tycoon (This is London)

The Frieze Art Fair Auctions Are Bigger Than Ever

Scott Reyburn has a preview of the Frieze auctions, at least, Christie’s Frieze auction which features a Fontana Fine di Dio, this one in black, estimated at £12 million. A Pepto-pink Fine di Dio failed to sell for £8 million in London in June. But a gold one went for a record £10.3 million in February.

Call this the year of the egg:

[Philippe] Segalot said that black was not necessarily an uncommercial color for a “Fine di Dio” canvas. “There are no rules when it comes to Fontana’s colors, at least as far as I’m concerned. Composition is equally important,” he said. “Black and white are the ultimate colors for the `Fine di Dio,”’ said Ordovas. “The canvas isn’t just black, it’s glittery which gives an incredible spatial quality to it.”

Over at Sotheby’s the emphasis is on Gerhard Richter. Two Richters, two Warhols, a Basquiat and Hirst medicine cabinet are the top lots at Sotheby’s. Jerusalem is a Richter landscape that’s estimated at £5 to £7 million. This red Abstraktes Bild–a hot run of these paintings has been taking place this year too. The Warhols are a set of skulls estimated at £5 to £7 million and Gold double Mona Lisa estimated at £1 to £1.5 million.

Beneath the Fontana in price at Christie’s is couple of Richters too. Claudius, estimated at £6 million.Reyburn has Rachofsky evaluating it as, `fabulous painting at a fair price.” Kerzenschein, the other Richter, is estimated in the £2 ot £3 million range. Christie’s has a Warhol Double Marilyn, at  £4.5 to £6.5 million, and Richard Prince’s  Dude Ranch Nurse #2, estimated at between £2.8 and £3.2 million. Aside from the Bacon and several Freuds, there’s a de Kooning and a Doig. The de Kooning, estimated at between £2.5 to £3.5 million, is from 1986 and follows the £3.5 million sale of a 1986 canvas at Phillips de Pury in June.

For an overview of the Contemporary art sales in London over the last few years, see This Is London.

“October will become just as important, if not even more important, than February and June in London,” said Pilar Ordovas, Christie’s head of contemporary art in London. “There are more international collectors in London during Frieze week than at any other time of year.” Ordovas called the selection “the most comprehensive and valuable” autumn sale to date.

“The sellers don’t have to be concerned, it’s the buyers who have to be,” Dallas collector Howard Rachofsky said in a telephone interview. “Collectors are looking at these auctions on a piece-by-piece basis. If there’s something rare and exceptional people will step up, but if it’s just another example they’ll pass.”

Rachofsky said that the market for works by less established artists in the 300,000-pound to 1 million-pound range “could get a little soft.”

If the market makes you crazy, there’s still more to be seen and done in London. Kate Taylor’s NY Sun piece focuses on the alternatives.

Fontana Work May Fetch $21.8 Million in Record Christie’s Sale (Bloomberg)

Warming Up for Frieze (NY Sun)

George Michael’s Partner Did?

According to the Dallas Morning News:

Three days before George Michael was arrested (again) in a public toilet (again), things were a bit happier.

The pop star and his Dallas- based partner, Kenny Goss, are enthusiastic collectors of art by Damien Hirst. Kenny made a staggering purchase at last week’s Hirst auction at Sotheby’s in London.

Accompanied by his sister-in- law, Joyce Goss, executive director of Dallas’ Goss Michael Foundation, Kenny paid 313,250 pounds (about $580,000) for the work The Immaculate Heart.

When the auctioneer said, “Sold,” Kenny said quietly, “Very cool.”

Roberta Smith Has the Last Word on Hirst, the Auction and the Market

Offering a post-mortem of the Sotheby’s sale, Roberta Smith says:

But beyond the spectacle that is Mr. Hirst’s art, life and career, none of it means much. The auction’s success doesn’t even say a lot about the non-Hirst part of the art market, although everyone in it was glad the sale didn’t fail.

Read the rest of the story, it’s worth it.

After the Roar of the Crowd, an Auction Post-Mortem (New York Times)

What’s Going On with Art Tactic?

On September 2nd, Art Tactic issued a report on the Sotheby’s Hirst sale declaring the auction a crucial test of art market confidence. The report was clearly designed to garner attention for the firm. And it worked. With the press hungry for any item related to the audacious auction, Art Tactic’s report got widespread pick up. Art Tactic’s Anders Petterson should have been ecstatic. But lurking in much of Art Tactic’s analysis to reach the press of the last year and more has been an almost hopeful expectation that art prices were softening. One presumed Mr. Petterson was merely alive to the potential for a correction–the art market has been on a dramatic run for several years and most likely needs a correction to forward in an orderly way.

To further add to the drama, Petterson is very familiar with Hirst’s market performance. In 2004, he issued a report on the Pharmacy sale that predicted the artist was flooding his own market and would collapse prices. Again, logical analysis but Hirst–ever the iconclast–pulled off quite the opposite by exciting and accelerating his market. This time around, Petterson made a better call, anticipating a successful sale.

Now that the Beautiful Inside My Head Forever auction has performed in every way, does that mean the art market is on a bullish tear? Whether this is the result of the week’s turmoil in financial firms and markets or an investment in predicting gloom remains unclear, but in this Bloomberg story, Petterson all but recants his declaration that the Hirst sale would be a measure of art market confidence:

“The sale performed as expected, but a little more on the positive side,” said the report’s author, Anders Petterson. “Does this mean the contemporary-art market is saved? The sale was so specific that I’m not so sure now.”

For the record, our contention is that the Hirst sale is not a measure of anything beyond the market for works by Damien Hirst. The sale is too unique to be used as a guage in either direction.

Hirst Art Lures Russians; Crisis Saps US Demand, Dealers Say (Bloomberg)

The Strategy Behind the Hirst Sale Was to Bring In New Buyers;

Did It Work?

Sotheby’s released some statistics about the Hirst sale. The buyer data is only for the Evening sale of the more expensive lots. But 35% of the buyers were new to the Contemporary art department and 18% were new to Sotheby’s entirely. Of the registered bidders, only 16% were new to Sotheby’s which suggests the new bidders were more aggressive.

Sotheby’s says that 25% of the bidders were from “new markets” which one presumes means the so-called Emerging Markets of Russia, Asia and the Gulf States. These numbers do not reflect dealers or art advisors who may have been bidding for “new” clients.

Bloomberg puts an oddly negative spin on the whole thing but trying to connect the lack of American buyers to the financial crisis. But that forgets the stated ambition of both Hirst and Sotheby’s to pitch the show toward new buyers from outside the collecting community. Sothbey’s and Hirst may have said that to give the sale cover but it doesn’t negate the fact that their stated strategy worked very well. Bloomberg quotes a former Sotheby’s employee, Jorg-Michael Bertz, who is now an art adviser:

“There weren’t many major collectors or dealers in the room either,” said Bertz in a telephone interview. “It was a completely different crowd.”

Sotheby’s Ground-Breaking Two-Day Auction of New Works by Damien Hirst (Sotheby’s Press Release)

Hirst Art Lures Russians; Crisis Saps US Demand, Dealers Say (Bloomberg)

Portfolio Tries to Write a Story on the Hirst Auction and the Economy

It’s not clear why Portfolio would expect an auction that was planned, promoted and organized over several months–and took place during the opening hours of financial crisis that is larger than was imagined on monday–would fall apart overnight.

“Sometimes calamitous events can effect auctions, but in this case the worst news was in the U.S. and the sale was in England,” said Kimball Higgs, senior vice president of Gurr Johns, an art appraiser and consultant in New York. “Obviously the buyers were not nervous enough to discourage activity.” [ . . . ]

“This looks like a repeat of 20 years ago, when global markets crashed and the art market kept chugging along for another year and then it crashed,” says Todd Levin, director of the Levin Art Group in New York. “I’ve seen this before—people talk about there being all this global money, that’s there’s so much more wealth now—but I think that’s nonsense. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But the story does precious little to try to understand the connection between the Hirst sale and the world economy. More to the point, it avoids the central question of whether the Hirst sale is representative of the art market itself–it most likely is not–or what the art market might look like in the coming months and years as the evaporation of credit begins to have real consequences. The Russian stock market was closed again today. Does that effect the ability of the Russian buyers to pay for their Hirst sale purchases? (Again, probably not.)

But the least credible [NB: see the comments for Levin's response: he's right that the sale results do vindicate his point of view.] part of the Portfolio story is Todd Levin’s conspiracy quote that ends the piece. Levin is an art advisor who is vocal in his disdain for the market aspect of the art market. There’s nothing wrong with that. And Levin seems to live by his follows those principles as an art adviser–with the emphasis on art. But he gives the organizers of the sale and Hirst too much credit when he posits a seamless sale assembled by a marketing plan with all risk engineered out of the enterprise [NB: Again, see comments]:

“It was an unusual situation, where the artist could sit down with the auction house before the work was even made—with zero transparency and 100 percent control—and orchestrate exactly how many works, of what kinds, and in what price ranges the market could bear,” Levin says. “There is simply no way that Sotheby’s would get themselves involved in such a massively epic opportunity for failure without calculating for every last possibility.”

Art Hangs On (Portfolio)