Sotheby’s Melbourne sale brings in A$5.77 million against a pre-sale estimate of A$9 to A$12 million with 49% of the lots sold. The Australian says its the economy:

Georgina Pemberton, Sotheby’s head of paintings, described last night’s result as “a reflection of our economic climate and we are now going through a correction in the art market”.

But the sale was significant for the A$1.89 million Russell Drysdale portrait (left) that was the star lot of the sale according to  ABC News. There were also good prices for works in the A$50,000 range. Though the Grace Cossington Smith work that a Dallas couple bought for $25 and was estimated in the $35,000 range failed to find a buyer.

Roberta Smith gives public art a big thumbs up in the New York Times, remarking that it has gone from an embarrassing backwater to a vibrant leader:

At the time many of the most talented emerging sculptors were making anything but sculpture. Ephemeral installations, earthworks and permanent site-specific works were in vogue, and soon the very phrase “public sculpture” had been replaced by public art, an amorphous new category in which art could be almost anything: LED signs, billboards, slide or video projections, guerrilla actions, suites of waterfalls.

But over the past 15 years public sculpture — that is, static, often figurative objects of varying sizes in outdoor public spaces — has become one of contemporary art’s more exciting areas of endeavor and certainly its most dramatically improved one.

Public Art: Eye Sore to Eye Candy (New York Times)

The 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)

Do you remember when Bill Gates bought the Codex Hammer not long after he became the richest man in the world? Well, there’s a dearth of da Vincis out there for billionaires to buy. Which may explain the excitement around this picture that was previously attributed as a 19th Century German marriage portrait. According to the New York Times, various scientific tests and art historical opinions suggest it may be the master’s work. But the $50 million supposedly already offered by a Russian buyer also points to the motives that would make many eager to believe.

“The market is a fairly efficient place,” said Hugh Chapman, assistant keeper at the department of prints and drawings at the British Museum in London. “This would be an amazing miss.”

Art Crime is the New Hot Topic

Spiegel Online tells the story behind a complicated claim against the Guggenheim and MoMA for the return of some disputed Picassos. The Independent in London has picked it up too. Meanwhile, the Boston Globe wraps up the case of the stolen Cezanne. Robert Mardirosian, who was the lawyer to an art thief who was shot to death tried to swap one valuable Cezanne for six less valuable paintings. But the whole thing blew up in his face and he was just found guilty: “Mardirosian, who was allegedly told . . . that the paintings were stolen, did not try to return them, but instead stored them in Switzerland. In 1999, using a shell company and lawyers, Mardirosian returned the Cezanne . . . in exchange for title to the six other paintings, which are much less valuable, according to records and testimony. Mardirosian’s lawyers have contended that their client wanted only to collect a finder’s fee for recovering the valuable Cezanne. After recovering the Cezanne, [it was] auctioned . . . off at Sotheby’s for $29.3 million.”

And if all of that weren’t enough, The Wall Street Journal runs an excellent story by Kelly Crow on the FBI’s art-crime efforts centering around Robert Wittman, who goes undercover to play assorted shady art world roles.

Despite the public attention that follows major art thefts and any subsequent recoveries, the FBI has historically treated art crime like a tweedy backwater compared with offenses like terrorism, racketeering and drug smuggling. Cases involving looted artifacts were hardly a priority five years ago. Even now, New York’s art cases are handled by a major-theft agent, James Wynne, who doesn’t go undercover. But after the massive looting of Baghdad’s National Museum five years ago sparked public outrage, Mr. Wittman realized the bureau might be persuaded to invest more in protecting U.S. museums.

( . . . )

It helped Mr. Wittman’s lobbying efforts to point out that far smaller countries already had art squads, even if some have lately suffered under recent budget cuts. Scotland Yard in London has four art detectives, down from 14 during their squad’s heyday two decades ago. France has 30, and Italy boasts 300 art-hunting carabinieri, including investigators who use helicopters to patrol the country’s myriad archaeological dig sites.

( . . . )

After a lifetime in pursuit, Mr. Wittman knows his job is more gritty than glamorous. He doesn’t mind. In fact, he delights in revealing the real face of art crime. In April, he spoke to a few major donors at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the condition that they wouldn’t take his photograph. At one point he held up a few images of Hollywood’s gentlemen thieves like Cary Grant in “To Catch a Thief” and Pierce Brosnan in “The Thomas Crown Affair,” followed by a real-life rogue’s gallery of arrested art thieves, their hair sloppy and faces sour. Grinning, he said, “Sorry, ladies.”

These days you’re not a serious emerging market unless you have a serious emerging art market star. Indonesia nominates I Nyoman Masriadi. Here’s Bloomberg on his prospects in the upcoming Asian contemporary sales in Hong Kong and his first solo show in Singapore:

In the past two years, Masriadi, 35, has become a poster boy for Indonesian contemporary art. Christie’s International sold his painting “Used to Being Stripped,” depicting one of his trademark stocky black figures, for HK$4.2 million ($538,000) in May in Hong Kong, an auction record for Southeast Asian art. In an Indonesian sale in 2006, his “Angels” was offered for 10 million rupiah ($1,088) with no takers.

“Masriadi is one of the vanguards for Southeast Asian Contemporary,” said Mok Kim Chuan, Sotheby’s head of department for Southeast Asian paintings. “His prices have been skyrocketing.”

( . . . )

“Many regard him as Indonesia’s answer to Chinese contemporary art,” said Michael Koh, chief executive officer of Singapore’s National Heritage Board, which hosts the 8Q show. “He’s hot and never had a solo show, so it’s quite groundbreaking for us.”

The rapid rise of Indonesian artists and the slump in global financial markets have prompted some collectors and critics to suggest that art prices may fall.

That will be tested in October, when Masriadi’s new work and his 4.5-meter-wide triptych “The Man From Bantul — The Final Round” from 2000 go under the hammer at Sotheby’s first evening sale of Asian art in Hong Kong. “Bantul” has a top estimate of HK$1.5 million ($192,000).

But Masriadi is not the only Indonesian artist gaining ground. Newsweek offers its own guide to the boom in South East Asian painters:

The pace of Masriadi’s rise has been unusual but not unique in the region. The Indonesians Rudi Mantofani, Agus Suwage and Handiwirman Saputra have also done very well at recent auctions, though the prices paid for the work of Mantofani, the second highest-paid Indonesian, remain well behind Masriadi’s. Artists in Thailand and Malaysia are also enjoying a boom. Their success reflects collectors’ rising appetite for Southeast Asian work, which still tends to go for a fraction of the price of Chinese art. Now the boom is creating new challenges for museums in the region, which can no longer afford many of the suddenly popular artists.

Indonesia Artist Masriadi Slays Ogres, Cuts Batman Down to Size (Bloomberg)

Turning Black to Cash (Newsweek)

Scotland for the Brave

Jay Akasie features Sotheby’s Scottish paintings sale at the Gleneagles Hotel in the New York Sun. Despite the temptation to move the sales to London, Sotheby’s has kept this quirky sale thriving. Akasie makes a good case for what’s signficicant about Scottish painting:

The Glasgow School was a pioneering group of painters who broke away from their salons and infused their landscapes with hints of Impressionism. They helped lay the groundwork for the Scottish Colorists — men such as Samuel John Peploe, Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, John Duncan Fergusson, and George Leslie Hunter — in the early 20th century. “The colorists spent time in Paris and got to know the techniques of Matisse and Monet. Their paintings have huge appeal to the international set,” Mr. Zlattinger said.

But the real star of these sales is the Contemporary illustrator, Jack Vettriano, the UK’s most popular artist by poster sales. While buyers are in Scotland, they can also think about getting some of the firearms so popular among Wall Street types.

Asset Allocation

CNBC picks up on the “The Mei Moses Fine Art Index, which tracks repeat sales of all art sold at the leading auction houses, gained more than 20 percent in 2007, dramatically outpacing the 5.5 percent gain for the S&P 500. The most recent five- and ten-year compound annual returns for the art index, 16.3 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively, also exceeded the return of the benchmark stock index, 12.7 percent and 5.9 percent during those periods.”

Checkmate

The Telegraph looks at artists who’ve designed chess sets: “Duchamp is not the only artist to have designed a chess set. In 2001, a newly formed art company called RS&A commissioned five prominent artists, including Damien Hirst and the Chapman brothers, to create bespoke sets that were then exhibited at Somerset House in London two years later. Japanese-born Yayoi Kusama adapted an 18th-century design with her trademark painted polka dots. The mischievous Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, best known for his 1999 waxwork mannequin of the Pope being squashed by a meteorite, replaced traditional chess figures with delicate porcelain figurines depicting recognisable people and characters associated in his mind with good and evil. Martin Luther King takes the role of the white king, with Superman as one of his pawns, while his opposite number is Adolf Hitler, standing beside his black queen, Cruella de Vil.”

A Thin-Skinned Government vs. an Overflowing Art Market

The New York Times reported yesterday that the Asia Society had been blind-sided by the Chinese governments slow-playing their hand on a loan of art from the Revolution, 1950-1970. With their spotless control of the Olympics, the Chinese goverment’s actions should come as no surprise even if one has to chuckle at the trick of reneging on a promised loan at the last minute to sabotage the exhibit:

Despite the Chinese government’s decision, Asia Society has decided to proceed with the show by seeking loans from private collectors.

The approach of the Olympics seemed to have been the deal breaker. “Initially, they said, ‘Any loans you want; no problem,’ ” said Vishakha N. Desai, the society’s president. “The closer it got to the Olympics, they changed their policy.” Read the rest of this entry »

How Long Can the Financial Firms Sponsor Art World Events?

Too many financial firms are experiencing exploding balance sheets or facing the threat of extinction. Anthony Haden-Guest looks into the fate of art world sponsorships for Portfolio.com and discovers there’s a good business reason for all of that art world beneficence. So don’t expect it to go away too easily: Read the rest of this entry »

Enthusiastic Australians Flock to the Art Market

The 11th Annual Melbourne Art fair demonstrates that Russian and Gulf States collectors are not the only ones riding the commodities boom toward art.

Bloomberg has this report on the Australian art market which is driven primarily by interest in Australian art: Read the rest of this entry »