A revival in the contemporary art market?

[20.05.2003]

 

Excellent results from the contemporary art auctions in New York on 13-14 May 2003. After a worthy but slow start as Sotheby’s turned over USD27.4 million the first evening, Christie’s hosted a hectic sale the next day that brought in USD68.8 million.

Sotheby’s opened proceedings with a modest 14% no-sale ratio on 46 lots put up on 13 May. But there was little in the way of competitive bidding and only two minor records. Bradley Walker TOMLIN’s Number 15 went for USD800,000 and Vija CELMINS Ocean for USD480,000. The highest hammer price of the evening was for one of Jackson POLLOCK’s drip paintings, Number 17 (1949) which went for USD4.7 million. The small format work had been optimistically estimated at USD5-7 million, perhaps because this was the first Pollock canvas to come up for auction since May 2001. In the end, the painting was one of 14 lots knocked down for less than their low estimate.

The story was wholly different the next night at Christie’s where a string of auction records were set, the biggest being the USD14.6 million paid for No. 9 (White and Black on Wine), a very large format work from 1958 byMark ROTHKO. The piece, estimated at USD8-12 million, triggered a furious battle between two New York dealers, Robert Mnuchin and Douglas Baxter. The previous record paid for a Rothko was the USD13 million for Yellow over Purple, at Sotheby’s New York on 17 May 2000. Other records set included Chuck CLOSE (USD1.3 million), Piero MANZONI (USD900,000), Takashi MURAKAMI (USD500,000), Duane HANSON (USD300,000) and Philip TAAFFE (USD150,000). Admittedly 17 of 60 lots were bought in. But 16 went for more than a million dollars. These included R E2, a very fine monochrome sponge relief painting by Yves KLEIN, for USD5 million.

These results seem to confirm the uptrend in the Artprice index of contemporary painting which has gained 5.2% since January 2003. But we need to tread carefully here. The same index rose sharply in the first auction season of 2002, only to peak in the summer and fall away continuously for the rest of the year. Like most segments of the market, the contemporary art index suffered a bad slump, but unlike the Artprice Global Index which bounced swiftly back to its June level, it has taken the contemporary art market nearly 6 months to start rising again and overall prices in this segment are still below their levels of 2000 and 2001.