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Micro-Markets: Mid-Season Contemporary

September 14, 2008 by Marion Maneker

What Do the Numbers Say About the Contemporary Market?

At first glance, the aggregated numbers for the Mid-Season Contemporary/First Open sales don’t paint a promising picture for the Contemporary art market. The totals for both houses were down. And the number of lots was reduced: both how many were offered, and, even moreso, how many were sold.

But a closer look at the comparison chart to the left shows that the average lot value was only down 5.47% suggesting that while buyers purchased fewer pieces, the price level has not dropped significantly. This would suggest collectors are still in the market for Contemporary art, often buying works that are considered increasingly desirable or fresh to the market, but they are becoming much more selective in what they will buy.

An historical analysis of the the Mid-Season/First Open sales should be available next week.

Micro-Markets: Marlene Dumas

June 16, 2008 by Marion Maneker

The New York Times Profiles Marlene Dumas as living female painter who fetched the highest price at auction.

Strange timing to be profiling Dumas who had her moment on the auction market some three years ago. But the story serves as a solid reminder in the run-up to the London sales that we live in an age of micro-markets where a painter will see their work have a two-year rise in value.

Here is how author Deborah Solomon describes Dumas’s own spin on the secondary market:

For all their moral gravity, Dumas’s paintings have led a separate, rather flashy existence in the more commercial precincts of the art world. In February 2005, at Christie’s in London, “The Teacher (sub a)” (1987) — a large, horizontal group portrait that turns a sentiment-laden class picture from her own childhood into a bruising reflection on authority — sold for $3.34 million. Virtually overnight, Dumas became “the world’s most expensive living female artist,” as the blogs reported, Continue Reading

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