Contemporary art: the return of the butterflies…

The second season of 2010 Contemporary art sales kicked off on 16 September at Christies in London. Among the sale’s best results, lot 71, Damien HIRST’s Untitled (Birthday Card Suite) more than doubled its pre-sale price estimate of £50,000 – 70,000 with a final bid of £180,000 ($280,000)… perhaps suggesting that the Contemporary market may already be back on the path towards new auction records. In any case, the emblematic Hirst work – combining the themes of love, death, beauty, fiesta, poverty – was presented by Christie’s in a particularly attractive price range. This “superb” result corresponds more to the prices generated in 2005 rather than in 2010. In fact, the same Untitled (Birthday Card Suite) was offered for between £150,000 – £200,000 five years ago and fetched £170,000 ($316,000) at Sotheby’s in London (10 February 2005).
Damien Hirst’s ButterfIy Paintings vary in price depending on the number of lepidoptera sacrificed. With three more butterflies glued to the canvas, a similar work (created in 2002) fetched twice as much at Phillips de Pury & Company on 13 May 2010: $650,000 (£436,540).
So how much would the largest ButterfIy Painting fetch?
The answer to this question will be known on 14 October 2010 when I am Become Death, Shatterer of Worlds (213.4 x 533.4 cm.) is offered for sale at Christie’s. This hypnotic work, made from thousands of butterfly wings, was acquired by the Gagosian Gallery in London in 2007. Christie’s and the Gagosian clearly wish to project a strong signal of confidence to the market since this is not only Hirst’s largest painting ever offered at auction (after the 10-metre installation entitled Loss of Memory is Worse than Death that failed to sell in October 1998) but also the most expensive work in the sale (estimated at £2.5m – £3.5m).

Of course, over recent months the pace and altitude of auctions of Damien Hirst’s works has considerably diminished compared with the explosive rhythm and exceptional results in the 2006-2007 period. In fact between July 2009 and June 2010, his auction revenue was just 1/14th of the previous year’s total (2008/2009). Moreover, a major work by the artist (from the Lehman Brothers collection and presented on 25 September 2010 at Sotheby’s New York), ended up being bought in. The 1993 installation entitled We’Ve Got Style (The Vessel Collection – Blue/Green) was offered in a price range of $800,000 – $1.2m. In 2000, this type of work changed hands for around $150,000 on the auction market (e.g. We’ve got Style (The Vessel Collection-Yellow) which fetched £100,000 on 27 June 2000, Christie’s London). Then in 2007, a pink version sold for £700,000, equivalent to $1.4m (12 October 2007, Sotheby’s). In conclusion, the most speculative signatures in Contemporary art (and Hirst has clearly been one of them) are not yet ready to return to the euphoric prices at the peak of the market… especially with the economic context in the Western world in its current state.

And yet… the major auction houses – who anticipated a recovery of the Contemporary art market in 2010 (…after a 42.8% contraction between 1 January 2008 and end-2009, the Contemporary art market’s overall price index rose 5.4% in the first half of 2010) – are now posting pre-sale estimates measured against the speculative bubble’s peak prices (in 2007 and 2008). For example, among the star lots in the catalogue of Sotheby’s prestige Contemporary Art sale on 15 October 2010 in London, Andreas GURSKY’s superb cibachrome Pyongyang IV (1 of 7) has been priced at £500,000 – £700,000, a range that Sotheby’s justifies by referring to the $1.25m (£637,750) that another copy of the same work fetched in 2008. Needless to say, at that time, the market was in the midst of a major speculative bubble… and the copy of Pyongyang IV which fetched that lofty sum was presented at a sale organised by none other than Damien Hirst (RED AUCTION ) where it tripled its high estimate, assisted by the particular context of a charity sale in which buyers’ generosity was an undeniable spur to the bidding.