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Art Basel Sales Report 2018

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This comprehensive Art Basel sales report is available to AMMpro subscribers. Subscribers get the first month free on monthly subscriptions. Feel free to cancel at any time before the month is up. Sign up for AMMpro here.

New and interesting takes on the sales at Art Basel keep coming even though the fair is now over.

Here's Sam Orlofsky on Twitter talking about a major shift in demand:

Artsy wraps up the fair with some more PR work by Marc Spiegel trying to deflect the issue of whether Art Basel is responsible for the pressures on independent galleries, including the first mentions of the fair's editorial initiatives which have added cost to the firm with dozens of new hires but yet to really leverage the fair's massive social media footprint.

Here are the sales Artsy gathered:

Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects

  • one new collector had seen a painting by Sadie Benning featured on Art Basel’s website, then came and bought it
  • sold four other Sadie Benning paintings
  • three Charles Gaines tree works
  • a painting by Nicole Eisenman
  • three paintings by Samuel Levi Jones
  • a large selection of over a dozen photographs by Pope.L that all went to a single collector in Vancouver.
  • Prices in the booth started at around $10,000 and went up to around $200,000

Kate McGarry Gallery

  • three sets of Samson Kambalu’s Mboya Series (2016) for £15,000 each
  • some of B. Wurtz’s pan paintings for £4,000 to £7,500
  • Francis Upritchard’s Octopus with Fish (2017), which had appeared in last year’s Venice Biennale, for £30,000, as well as several works not on the booth

Pilar Corrias

  • a corner painting by Madani
  • a glass mosaic work, Zarina, from a new series by Sikander for $90,000
  • a set of Ian Cheng drawings; a painting by Self
  • another painting by Quarles, with prices in the booth from $20,000 to €250,000

Melanie Gerlis had these sales in the Financial Times:

Maureen Paley

  • Rebecca Warren’s painted bronze “Aurelius” (2017) to a foundation in Spain (£380,000)

Paula Cooper

  • Christian Marclay’s “80 East 11th Street” (1990-91), a painted wooden door and sound recording, which went to a US collector ($500,000)

A confusing mix of impressions continue to come out from Art Basel as dealers plump for this year's fair. Observers inside the fair like Josh Baer have remarked upon high asking prices which, he concludes, may have offset diminishing sales, especially for second-tier or ancillary objects like drawings or preparatory works.

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Ropac Brings Rauschenberg Combine to Art Basel

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Robert Rauschenberg, Slug, 1961

Thaddaeus Ropac has what he believes to be the only Robert Rauschenberg combine work available on the art market priced at $8.5m, the assemblage was on loan to a major German museum for many years prior to this. In addition, Ropac will bring a Georg Baselitz work, A Fractured Dog, Upwards, with an asking price of $3.5m, as well as, Robert Longo’s Death Star II priced at $1.5m. Here are Ropac’s descriptions of the works:

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is proud to present at this year’s Art Basel a rare work from Robert Rauschenberg’sradically inventive and much sought-after Combine series (1954-64), in which his compositions are a synthesis of sculpture and painting. ‘Slug’ of 1961, from this celebrated series, was previously on loan for four decades at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Germany.

Alongside new works by Georg Baselitz, a historic painting from the artist’s seminal Fracture series will feature. Ein zerrissener Hund, aufwärts [A Fractured Dog, Upwards], painted in the revolutionary year 1968, exemplifies the series that heralded the artist’s typical inversion of the motif.

Marking a rare appearance for works by Joseph Beuys at Art Basel, the artist’s early sculpture Junges Pferdchen [Young Horse](1955/86) comes directly from the artist’s estate and has only recently been exhibited for the first time as part of our London gallery’s current show Joseph Beuys: Utopia at The Stag Monuments. The wax figure of a horse in one half of an opened plaster cast was completed by Beuys shortly before his death.

From a news series of works by American artist Elizabeth Peyton, her painting Hanyu (Yuzuru Hanyu) will debut at Art Basel. Her portrait of the Japanese figure skater captures the perceptible intimacy with which she depicts individuals to whom she is particularly drawn, whether friends and acquaintances, individuals she finds interesting, or historical figures who have made a strong impression on her.

Robert Longo is represented with a powerful new work Death Star II (2017/18), his large-scale planet-like sculpture consisting of 40,000 glinting bullet-cartridge cases – the number of deaths by shooting in the USA over the last year. The statistic assumes a poignant form, addressing the crucial debate about gun violence today. With Death Star II Longo takes a position both as an artist and a citizen, pledging to give 20 per cent of the sales of this work to the movement to end gun violence Everytown for Gun Safety.

German artist Wolfgang Laib presents a site-specific installation of his work. You will go somewhere else (1997/2005). Seven enigmatic wax boat-like forms, perched on wooden battens, almost as out of reach seem to file through the space. Reflecting Laib’s temporal exploration of how the present holds the future, his vessels float in the air and invite the viewer to detach themself from earthly preoccupations and to meditate on the voyage to unknown destinations.

Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert Brings British Pop to Basel

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At Art Basel, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert has a Gerald Laing Ben Day work on offer for £550k. Navy Pilot from 1963 is an image taken from an American magazine of the time. Laing made the work as the first picture he painted on his 1963 trip to the US. Laing was staying in Robert Indiana’s Coenties Slip studio. The This was also the first time Laing combined flat primary color with the half-tone Ben-Day dots.

Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert also has Eduoardo Paolozzi’s Collage (1948) which is on offer for £380k, an important both for its early date and for its scale. It is a finished exhibition piece, intended as a collage, though many of Paolozzi’s collages are smaller in scale and were meant as studies for other works.

Here’s Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert’s press release:

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TEFAF Spring Sales Report

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Galerie Max Hetzler_Rineke Dijkstra_Yusra Mardini

Acquavella Galleries, Inc.

  • sold Le Geomancien (1952) by French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) oil on board

Adrian Sassoon

  • sold several works, including seven by ceramist Kate Malone, among them Large Blackberry (2016) in Crystalline-glazed stoneware, a pair of Icy Magma Pots (2017), in ceramic, Woven Acorn Jar (2018) in Crystalline-glazed stoneware, and Amethyst Flint Lidded Pot (2017) in Crystalline-glazed stoneware.

Applicat-Prazan

  • sold Untitled (1949) by Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002), oil on canvas, previously in the Chrysler Collection, New York

Beck & Eggeling Continue Reading

Art Brussels Sales Report

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PRIME Zeno X

  • strong sales including a major work by Mark Manders
  • works by Dirk Braeckman, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Paulo Monteiro, and several works in the SOLO show by Bart Stolle

Xavier Hufkens

  • works by Nicolas Party won the SOLO prize and sold out within the first hour at price range between €50,000 to €70,000
  • several works by David Altmejd
  • works by Antony Gormley, Thomas Houseago, Tracey Emin, Sherrie Levine, Walter Swennen, Michel François and Katherine Bernhardt

Galerie Templon

  • an Omar Ba for €35,000
  • a work by Ivan Navarro for $125,000
  • Three works by Jan Fabre sold each for €25,000 – €110,000

Prune Nourry

  • six works sold for prices ranging from $20,000 – $38,000

Ceysson Bénétière

  • five Mounir Fatmi, among which one at €80,000
  • two Bernar Venet for €175,000
  • a sculpture installation by Daniel Firman at €75,000
  • mainly to Luxemburg and Belgian collections

Blain|SouthernContinue Reading

Art Cologne Sales Report

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Copyright Notice: © Koelnmesse GmbH, Harald Fleissner

Art Cologne had 55,000 visitors come to see 210 galleries from 33 countries. Here are the sales reported by galleries:

Gagosian Gallery

  • Sculpture "Marsupiale" from Urs Fischer (for a price in the high six figurest according to Artsy's Nate Freeman.)

Galerie Aurel Scheibler

  • Alice Neel, "Grimaldi", higher 6-figure amount
  • Nobert Kricke Spatial Sculpture Blue, 1952, to the Museum Ludwig

Galerie Daniel Buchholz

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Art Basel Hong Kong Sales Report 2018

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Cardi Gallery at ABMB18

This Art Basel Hong Kong 2018 sales report will aggregate all of the reported sales into one comprehensive report for subscribers (the first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.) Regular updates will be available briefly for free, so return to this space often:

An interesting late report comes from an unexpected direction.

This morning it was reported that the Steve Wynn is selling two Picassos and a Warhol this season at Christie's. This prompted Katya Kazakina to check her sources which revealed an additional sale at Art Basel in Hong Kong:

Wynn, 76, one of the top U.S. collectors of modern and contemporary art, had already parted with Warhol’s 1981 “Superman." The painting was exhibited by Acquavella Galleries at Art Basel Hong Kong. The asking price was $19.5 million and the work sold during the fair, according to the New York gallery, which declined to identify the consignor. “Superman" fetched $14.4 million at Sotheby’s in 2015.

Wynn Is Selling $150 Million of Warhol, Picasso Works  (Bloomberg)

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McAndrew’s Art Basel Report Says Art Fair Sales Up 17% to $15.5bn, 46% of Dealer Sales

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Clare McAndrew’s art market report has been released (click on image above or go here to download) with these highlights. McAndrew says the market continues to concentrate value at the top with sales below $1m contracting while those above $10m are expanding. McAndrew estimates the global art market is $63.7 billion with dealers holding a slight edge over auction houses 53/47 in terms of market share by value. However, galleries are closing at a greater rate than new ones are opening.

McAndrew’s report has suffered in the past from relying upon questionnaires sent to dealers. Working with Art Basel and UBS, there’s some reason to believe she has better access to dealer and collector information. Nonetheless, much of her information comes from private sources and is voluntarily given without verification which should be taken into account when relying upon these numbers.

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

  • Global Sales: Following two years of declining sales, in 2017 the market turned a corner with increasing sales in both the dealer and auction sector. The art market achieved total sales of an estimated $63.7 billion in 2017, an increase of 12% on 2016. The volume of sales (number of transactions) grew more moderately than values, at 8% year-on-year. In 2017, aggregate sales by dealers accounted for a larger share of the market, at 53% by value, with total auction sales accounting for 47%.
  • Dealer Figures: Sales in the dealer sector increased 4% year-on-year to an estimated $33.7 billion, compared to an estimated $32.5 billion in 2016. 
  • Art Fairs: Art fairs continue to be a central part of the global art market, with aggregate sales estimated to reach $15.5 billion in 2017, up 17% year-on-year. Art fairs accounted for estimated 46% of dealer sales in 2017, up 5% year-on-year – with on average five fairs attended in 2017. 
  • Online Sales: The online art market reached an estimated new high of $5.4 billion in 2017. This represents 8% of the value of global sales – a 10% year-on-year increase, and up 72% over the last five years. Online sales have been a key method to access new buyers, with dealers reported that 45% of their online buyers were new to their businesses in 2017. Auction houses also view online sales as key way to generate new buyers, with 41% of those buying online at second tier auction houses were new buyers, while in top-tier houses they averaged over 40%.
  • Gallery Openings and Closures: The ratio of gallery openings to closures in 2007 was over 5:1 and has declined rapidly since then, dropping to 0.9:1 in 2017, that is, more closures than openings. Gallery openings have declined steadily over the last decade, with the number of new galleries established in 2017 around 87% less than in 2007.
  • Auction Figures: Sales at public auction of fine and decorative art and antiques reached $28.5 billion in 2017, up 27% year-on-year. From 2007 to 2017, besides the very lowest end of the market (works sold for less than $1,000), all segments up to $1 million have shown negative annual growth rates and declined in value. In contrast, the market over $1 million has grown, with the biggest increases at the very highest end, with the total value of works sold for over $10 million increasing by 148% over ten years, and by 125% year-on-year in 2017.
  • Auction Figures by Collecting Category: Sales of Post War and Contemporary art reached a total of $6.2 billion in 2017, increasing 12% year-on-year. The Modern art sector increased 39% to reach $3.6 billion. Values in the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist sector rose 71% to $2.3 billion, while sales in the wider Old Master market reached under $1.3 billion. Sales in the European Old Masters sector rose 64% year-on-year to reach $977 million, exceeding their previous peak of ten years ago in 2007 (at $906 million). However, this uplift was due to the sale of the Leonardo da Vinci painting ‘Salvator Mundi’ for $450 million at Christie’s in the United States, without which sales would have actually fallen 11%.
  • Leading Markets: The top three markets – United States, China and United Kingdom – further cemented their position in the market in 2017, accounting for 83% of total sales by value, up 2% from 2016. The United States was again the largest market by value with an estimated market share of 42%. China overtook the United Kingdom in 2017 at 21% of total sales with the United Kingdom falling to 20%.

Download the Report Here

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