Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

Was Aboriginal Art a Bubble?

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The numbers coming out of Australia in reaction to the proposed ban on using art and other collectibles as investment vehicles for private pensions–the so-called super funds–are truly startling. The Sydney Morning Herald now estimates that the majority of the Aboriginal art market is consumed by art investors:

Up to 60 per cent of Aboriginal art is bought through self-managed super funds, according to managing director of Melbourne-based Moss Green Auctions Paul Sumner. Banning art investments from super would be a ”massive disincentive” to buyers, he said. ”The removal of [art] as an investment asset class will devastate, in particular, Aboriginal art, because 60 per cent of the people who collect Aboriginal art invest through their super fund.” Aboriginal art was particularly attractive to self-managed super funds because there was a global market for it.

If these numbers are correct, they suggest the Australian art market is dangerously built upon the idea of art as an investment. If the majority of the works were bought and sold for other reasons, investing in art could have merits but when the bulk of sales are based upon expectations of asset appreciation, you pretty much have the definition of a vulnerable bubble.

Super Proposal ‘Could Devastate’ Aboriginal Art (Sydney Morning Herald)

Revolutionaries for Aborigines

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Australia is sending some of its best Aboriginal art to Beijing, says the Sydney Morning Herald, for a cultural exchange that might yield a show of Chinese revolutionary art in Australia some time soon:

The exhibition, Papunya Painting: Out of the Australian Desert , will be the biggest collection of Aboriginal art to show in the Chinese capital. ”They were quite hungry for knowledge about Aboriginal culture,” the curator Michael Pickering said.

The temporary export was initiated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. China will reciprocate by sending an exhibition of its own. Initial talks between the two institutions may lead to the arrival of a recent exhibition of Chinese revolutionary art.Continue Reading

Aboriginal Art Goes to the Gulf

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In the National, Alana Rosenbaum discusses the passion fot Aboriginal art among the Gulf States buyers and the French:

The strongest markets are in Europe, especially, France, which is home to a significant public collection of Aboriginal art at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. Major private collections include Thomas Vroom’s in Amsterdam. And in the US, there’s the Kluge-Ruhe collection, at the University of Virginia, and John and Barbara Wilkerson’s collection in New York.

But her focus is a remote station in the outback:

[Samuel] Namunjdja usually shows up at Maningrida Arts and Culture without warning to drop off new pieces and pick up his cheques. Sometimes he visits every few weeks; during ceremonial periods, he stays away for months at a time. Continue Reading

Four Phases of Aboriginal Art

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Arthur Lubow writes about Aboriginal art and its origins as a collecting category for Smithsonian Magazine. Lubow points out that Aboriginal art generates $200 million a year (presumably Australian dollars but the story doesn’t say) in sales. And prices have risen dramatically in recent years:

A mural-size 1977 painting on canvas by the Papunya artist Clifford Possum established a record price for the genre when it sold in 2007 for $1.1 million.

Still, a special aura attaches to the first, small paintings, done on masonite boards usually less than 2 by 3 feet. Created before there was commercial interest, they benefit from the perception that they are more “authentic” than the stretched-canvas works that came later. It is hard to deny the energy and inventiveness of the early boards; artists used unfamiliar tools and materials to cover two-dimensional surfaces with designs they’d employed in ritualistic body painting or sand mosaics. They improvised, applying paint with a twig or the tip of a paintbrush’s wooden handle. “The early period—you’re never going to find anyplace where there’s so much experimentation,” says Fred Myers, a New York University anthropologist. “They had to figure everything out. There’s an energy that the early paintings have, because there’s so much excess to compress.” […]

Though the Aboriginal art movement launched in Papunya is just four decades old, it’s possible to discern four periods. In the first, which lasted barely a year, sacred practices and ritual objects were often depicted in a representational style. That was dangerous: certain rituals, songs and religious objects are strictly off limits to women and uninitiated boys.Continue Reading

Is Aboriginal Art Just a Style?

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The Australian catches an art dealer in the act of passing works off as Aboriginal art when they were fabricated by someone who is not an Aboriginal Australian:

Adelaide dealer Tony Antoniou and his company, Australian Dreamtime Creations, were yesterday found by the Federal Court to have breached the Trade Practices Act by selling artworks by a non-Aboriginal man under the name of Ubanoo Brown.

Australian Indigenous Art Trade Association president Ian Plunkett was perplexed as to why an art dealer would use a non-indigenous person to create Aboriginal art.

“Either something’s done by an Aboriginal artist or it’s not,” said Mr Plunkett, who is also a director of Fremantle’s Japingka indigenous fine art gallery. “It’s bitterly disappointing. I can’t see the point. There are a lot of Aboriginal artists looking for work as well and are willing to paint.”

Dealer Guilty of Artwork Deceit (The Australian)

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