Are We Approaching Peak Art? It wasn’t so long ago that you first started hearing the term art fair fatigue to capture the numbing of interest caused by a full global calendar of art fairs. Now, The New York Times quotes a dealer to suggest the art world is becoming apathetic about auctions:

• “It’s difficult to find fresh material,” said Anthony Brown, partner in the art dealership Connaught Brown, based in London. “The collectors get phoned up all the time about works, and there are so many sales that it stops them getting excited and concentrating on one. There’s auction fatigue.”

Then, again, this might be just another data point in the on-going shift away from public sales to private arrangements. …

Don’t Rely on a Handshake in the Art Market, You’ll Regret It: Grossman LLP won a ruling in NY’s appellate courts this week upholding an earlier judgment that confirms there is no such thing as a handshake deal in the art market. Given the prevalence of these sorts of arrangements, it is worth taking note of this case involving Peter Beard and collector Bernard Chase who also owns an art gallery:

• [T]he defendants in the case, led by art collector Bernie Chase, argued that Chase had bought the works through a series of oral “handshake” deals, while Grossman LLP argued, on behalf of Mr. Beard, that there was no enforceable contract that met the standards of New York law.  The trial court judge, New York Supreme Court Judge Charles Ramos, sided with Mr. Beard, ruling on summary judgment that “Defendants’ ownership claims to the Works fail as a matter of law.” The Chase defendants appealed to a higher court—the state’s Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department—which held oral arguments on the appeal in January.  And this week, the appellate court again handed an important victory to Mr. Beard. …

Who Made Adrian Ghenie’s Market? Judd Tully takes a look in The Art Newspaper at the conditions surrounding Adrian Ghenie’s rise on the art market not only as an evening sale phenom but also to be represented by Pace and Thaddaeus Ropac. It started with the support of influencers like Rodica Seward and François Pinault who bought a work early in 2009 before Ghenie had a work enter SFMoMA’s collection and sold it in October of 2016 for £7.1m. With collectors like Pinault, the support of dealers like Pace and Ropac it wasn’t hard for auctioneers like Alex Branczik to maintain a steady flow of strong results: ““The people who are bidding and buying are some of the world’s top collectors; that’s what sustained it. …

“She looks right at you, as if perhaps you’re a painting or video installation to be politely scrutinized”:  The Los Angeles Times profiles Ann Philbin, the director of the Hammer Museum which was founded by Armand Hammer but eventually subsumed into UCLA.

• Philbin is fierce about the duties of citizenship and the cachet of brand, turning a university museum into a world-class institution, one that has received two recent donations totaling $50 million to underpin a $180-million campaign for renovations, endowment, exhibitions and gallery expansion. “We’re going for big game,” she said. “Our exhibition partners are MOMA, the MET, the Tate, the Whitney.” …

Kornfeld Bern Auctions = CHF 33 million: The top lot of the auction series was the CHF 3 million early iron sculpture “Elogio del aire“ by Eduardo Chillida. Other million-franc sales were “Stillleben: Kaffee“ by Albert Anker (CHF 1.6 million) and the “Walliser Landschaft – Blick von Crans Montana talaufwärts“ by Ferdinand Hodler (CHF 1.05 million). Other results were “Natura morta“ by Giorgio Morandi (CHF 850‘000), the oil
painting “Kleines Gartenbild mit schwarzen Blüten“ by Paul Klee (CHF 740‘000) or the drawing “Oude Retering“ by Vincent van Gogh (CHF 700‘000). Rudolf Koller’s “Gotthardpost,“ sold to a collector who had placed an absentee bid of CHF 550‘000. The painting “Disques/Disks“ by Robert Delaunay from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York sold for CHF 500‘000 to an absentee bidder. Günther Uecker’s “Weisses Feld“ (CHF 620‘000), Antoni Tàpies’ “Monochrome gris au signe noir supérieur“ (CHF 550‘000) or François Morellet’s early painting “Trames alléatoires“ of 1964 (CHF 460‘000), a new international auction record for the artist.