Jeff Koons’s work remains at the center of the art market. But with the entire market contracting, it is difficult to gauge where his prices ought to be. Last week, we learned that the auction houses were making much of their private sales as the auction market lay fallow. Among the works mentioned was a violet version Jeff Koons’s Hanging Heart, the sculpture that set the artist’s price record in red. The New York Times told us this one went for $11 million or less than half the record-setting sale of $23 million.
Today, we read about hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb’s sale of the artist’s Baroque Egg which was originally priced at $20 million or 20% below the artist’s increase record of $25.7 million set later for another work. Now for sale at Sotheby’s with an estimate between $6 and $8 million, the work would seem to be well-estimated for a possible sale in the $9 million range which would be around 20% beneath the violet Hanging Heart.
