Art Market Monitor

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Can Kassay Thrive Without Collectors?

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Adam Lindemann has some tart comments for Gerhard Richter and Jacob Kassay in his Observer column. The issue is both artists’ recently expressed disdain for the art market. We’re all familiar with Richter’s view but Kassay is a little more interesting.

Lindemann points out that Kassay has gone out of his way to diminish the importance of the people who brought him to prominence (“It’s really simple,” Kassay told the New Yorker about collectors. “All they have is money.”)

The young artist is even ambivalent about the importance of his own work (“These are things that have been explored in painting since the fifties,” he said of his achromatic paintings. “So I didn’t think I was doing anything new.” And: “I always thought this work was much more boring than people were taking it for.” Though he manages to get prickly when it is suggested he move on from his silver paintings: “I’m not going to drop something I’m proud of and have been doing for six years.”)Continue Reading

Kassay Bids for Museums at ArtBasel Unlimited

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Sarah Douglas reports the latest inflection point in the Jacob Kassay sensation making. After dramatic day sale action last November and a strong first-lot punch up at Phillips de Pury in New York this May, the 26-year-old painter’s silver canvasses are being hawked for $400,000 at ArtBasel Unlimited (an eight-canvas installation that isn’t quite at the Unlimited scale) only to museums:

Mr. Kassay has become quite an art market darling in the past year, but he doesn’t yet figure in museum collections — a key element in building long-term support. So two of his dealers — Art:Concept Gallery of Paris and Xavier Hufkens of Brussels — have come up with a clever solution: the sprawling, brand new eight-panel piece on offer at Art Unlimited will only be sold to a museum. […]

Mr. Hufkens added that a museum, in this case, means “a real museum.” “We won’t sell to a private foundation open to the public.”

Want to Buy Jacob Kassay’s Piece at Art Basel? If You’re Not a Museum, Fuggedaboutit (Observer)

 

Kassay: Then and Now

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Sarah Douglas does an anatomy of the market for silver paintings by Jacob Kassay, the young artist whose work exploded last Fall during a Phillips day sale. Phillips was quick to capitalize on the demand for the work and sold three different canvasses for around $80,000 each in the weeks following the sale.

Always interested in seeing how far a market can go–and obviously having access to a number of the silver paintings–PdP put another silver work as the first lot in its sale.

In November, the rumor was that Pace Gallery was moving in on representing the painter. Marc Glimcher of the gallery denied that vehemently. Sarah Douglas picks up the action:

And yet, last night, Mr. Glimcher was spotted bidding vigorously on the Kassay, from a seat in the third row at Phillips. He dropped out at $180,000. […] So, you didn’t buy it, the Transom needled. “No,” said Mr. Glimcher. “I would have bought it for $180,000.”

Outbidding Mr. Glimcher, or so he said, was a tall fellow seated next to him, whom he claimed not to recognize. […] According to one dealer familiar with Mr. Kassay’s market, last night’s result was unexpected. Mr. Kassay’s market, said this dealer, froze up after in the wake of the November Phillips sale, after his silver paintings began trading briskly on the resale market for over $100,000.

Wunderkind Kassay Takes Phillips, Again (Observer)

Kassay Prices Explained

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In a victory of reporting over speculation, Sarah Douglas offers a detailed anaysis of Jacob Kassay’s explosive emergence on the secondary market at Phillips de Pury’s day sale. Rather than being the product of an art dealer’s plot to boost the artist’s price, the sales seem to be little more than a rush of demand meeting a very limited supply with the artist already having a waiting list 80 names long.

Instead of relying on hearsay, Douglas spoke to all the relevant players from Pace Galleries Marc Glimcher to Kassay’s dealer, Oliver Antoine:

Antoine says he was surprised by the $86,500 price at Phillips. “I thought it would go to $30,000 or $40,000,” he says. “This was a lot. We then understood that people were excited about the work and would pay this amount.” In the immediate aftermath of the sale, Antoine first received, then placed, a series of phone calls. “Just after the hammer went down, I got calls and emails from people I had never heard of,” he says. “They were asking for work, and I had to tell them that our priority is on museums, and people who are on the boards of museums.” He then called all of the clients who had purchased pieces from the show in May, and asked if they had any intention of selling their paintings. “They are all very good collectors,” he says. “None of them wanted to sell.” […]

One dealer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed that that no fewer than seven Kassays — three large paintings going for prices around $120,000, and smaller pieces for around $20,000 — had passed through his hands after the two sales. At least one collector is known to have been offered $80,000 for a Kassay he purchased in the low five figures.

Through the Looking Glass: Behind Jacob Kassay’s Meteoric Auction Rise (ArtInfo.com)

Pollock: Jacob Kassay's Prices Unreal

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It’s been a big weekend for art market innuendo. Following the Economist’s suggestion that Phillips de Pury’s Carte Blanche auction wasn’t entirely pure, Lindsay Pollock suggests that Pace Gallery is behind the sudden run-up in prices for newcomer Jacob Kassay

At his rather startling auction debut at a Phillips de Pury Nov. 9 day sale,  a 2009 acrylic and silver deposit canvas, tagged to sell for up to $8,000 went bananas, selling for $86,500.

Last week, at a Kitchen benefit auction, a silvered 2010 work zoomed above the $12,000 “retail value,” selling for $94,000 according to two sources who attended the sale. Continue Reading

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