ArtMarket® Insight - News vom Kunstmarkt

Art market barometer [25.08.2009]

After five consecutive quarters of contraction, the art market is at last producing some positive signals. Artprice’s index (the Art Price Global Index) progressed 4.97% in the second quarter of 2009 after a fall of more than 30% since the beginning of 2008.Gradual economic recovery during 2009 (very modest economic growth in Germany and France for example) has boosted the morale of art market players and has added 20 points to our AMCI since the end of the first quarter.

The Durand-Ruel Impressionists [17.08.2009]

As the art market slumbers during the summer months, preparations are underway for the major autumn sales, the dates of which have already been announced. The first big events are located in New York during September with sales of Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean art on the 16th at Christie’s and the 17th at Sotheby’s, and then Contemporary Art sales on the 23rd at Christie’s and the 24th at Sotheby’s.

Focus on the photography market [10.08.2009]

The list of this summer’s photography exhibitions has three big names: Diane ARBUS at the National Museum in Cardiff until 31 August, Richard AVEDON with a retrospective at the International Center of Photography in New York until 6 September and Henri CARTIER-BRESSON, (who was born 100 years ago) at the European House of Photography in Paris (Henri Cartier-Bresson à vue d’œil) until 30 August.

Old Masters: a stable and reliable market [03.08.2009]

Old Masters overtaking Contemporary Art sales? That’s how it looks after Sotheby’s and Christie’s London sales of combined Old Masters & 19th century art on 7 & 8 July. The total revenue from the two houses’ Old Masters works amounted to nearly £39m, i.e. a million more than they both earned from Contemporary Art sales the previous month.

Marc Newson confirms his star designer status [27.07.2009]

At just 46, Marc NEWSON already has pieces in prestigious public collections such as the Vitra Design Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburg and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Among the 30 or so awards he has received since the 1980s, he won the famous Compasso d’oro in 2000, and over the last decade his price index has literally exploded making him the most expensive living designer on the international auction circuit.

AMCI – Art market confidence at the end of the first half of 2009 [17.07.2009]

At the start of 2008 Artprice launched a powerful new tool, the Art Market Confidence Index (AMCI) in order to give clients a “real time” appreciation of trends and sentiment on the art market.

Paris resists crisis [13.07.2009]

Although the global art is in the midst of a crisis, Paris appears to be showing remarkable resistance: the number of auction sales and the volume of lots proposed has remained stable compared with 2008. Moreover, for the first quarter of 2009, the French capital posted a better overall revenue figure than either London or New York on the back of the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint-Laurent sale at the Grand Palais in February.

Contemporary Art in convalescence [06.07.2009]

While London’s auctioneers congratulate themselves on the healthy sold rates at their June Contemporary Art sales (92.5% at Sotheby’s, 88% at Christie’s and 75% at Phillips de Pury & Company), bidders are continuing on a path of caution and sobriety.

No surprise in London [29.06.2009]

The results of the Impressionist & Modern sales in London last week were without surprise (except for the withdrawal of Camille PISSARRO’s, Le Quai Malaquais) and made the era of 8-figure auction results an even more distant memory. Both auction houses generated eight sales above the $1m line. The bought-in rate was not identical however: 15% at Sotheby’s (out of 27 lots presented) and 32% at Christie’s (out of 45 lots offered).

London sales: second round [22.06.2009]

On 23 June, Christie’s will be offering 45 Impressionist & Modern works in London and the following day Sotheby’s will present just 27 pieces. The catalogues feature works by Picasso, Claude Monet and Giacometti. On 25 and 30 June, the two auctioneers will open their Contemporary Art sales

Niki de Saint Phalle braves the crisis [15.06.2009]

After the sale of three Niki de Saint-Phalle’s giant Nanas in Germany in December 2008 for €750,000, the Paris sale last month of her Le Banc produced another excellent result. The French-American artist – whose works are collected all over the world – is generating good sales performances in spite of the crisis.

Venice Biennial Art Fair: the Golden Lion prize [08.06.2009]

The 53rd Venice Biennial Art Fair opens to the public on 7 June 2009. For six months it presents a panorama of global contemporary art in pavilions representing the artists and countries invited. Launched in 1895, the Venice biennial has a long tradition of selecting a handful of artists to receive its prestigious prizes. Do the Golden Lions – awarded parsimoniously over the years – constitute an accelerator for the price indices of the artists that receive them?

Contemporary art sales in Paris: place of honour for Lalanne [01.06.2009]

While New York’s auction houses hosted sales of South American art, the Paris offices of Sotheby’s and Christie’s were selling Contemporary Art during May. The results are better than expected for Christie’s primarily due to the sale of a collection of works by François-Xavier & Claude LALANNE.

Mixed results in New York [26.05.2009]

At the end of the first quarter of 2009, the global art market price index showed a 10% contraction. But in New York City, host to some of the world’s most prestigious art sales, the crisis is being felt particularly hard: the same index shows a 35% local contraction since January 2008.

Affordable art: a diversified market [18.05.2009]

For 10 years now a special “roaming” art fair has been dedicated to affordable art contributing to dispelling the notion that art is elitist and beyond the budgets of the masses.From 4 to 7 June 2009, the Affordable Art Fair is returning to Paris, at the Espace Champerret, having already visited London, Sydney, Amsterdam, New York and Brussels. Young collectors and informed non-professionals seeking new talents can discover more than 600 artists at prices ranging from 100 to 5,000 euros.

New York penalised by the crisis [11.05.2009]

Since January 2008, prices in the Impressionist & Modern Art segment have posted a cumulative fall of roughly 30% and they contracted no less than 10% in the first quarter of 2009 alone. So, inevitably, the first day of the Impressionist & Modern Art sales in New York was awaited as a test of the top-end of the market.

Christie’s and Sotheby’s prepare their prestige May sales in New York [04.05.2009]

The market is holding its breath ahead of the critical May sales in New York that will inevitably gauge the health of the Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary segments.As expected, the price tags are substantially lower than a year earlier in all three segments

First quarter of 2009: an ailing art market [27.04.2009]

Since the financial crisis began, the art market has taken a series of severe blows and is now subject to various external and internal pressures. In the United States, for example, the fall in private subsidies to the Arts has led to significant personnel reductions at some of the most prestigious museums (the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles have both cut staff by 20%).

Artprice – Revolutionizing the art market [21.04.2009]

This 23-minute documentary in HD format describes the extraordinary human adventure of the birth in France of the world leader in art market information, Artprice, which grew out of a twenty year search for perfection in a global quest to make an Alexandrian library available to the world on Internet.

Download HD version with English Subtitles (it may takes time to download 601 Mo) Right click then “Save as…” >>> http://video1.artprice.com/artprice.mov

Wassily Kandinsky – Munich, Paris, New-York [20.04.2009]

Painter, music-lover, teacher, art theorist and founder of abstract art, Wassily KANDINSKY succeeded in revealing painting, freeing it from objects in order to achieve an immaterial art.The title of his first conceptual work on abstract art – “Concerning the spiritual in art and painting in particular” – has painting elevated to a metaphysical level by the sheer expressive force of shapes and colours.

Fine art photography market – New York results [13.04.2009]

Between 30 March and 2 April 2009, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Company once again tested the Fine Art Photography market in New York.Over the last decade, Fine Art photography has proved to be one of the most profitable segments of the art market with prices more than doubling between January 1998 and January 2008 according to the price index calculated by Artprice

Market trends in 2008 [03.04.2009]

2008 will be remembered in art market history as a turning point, beginning in a mood of speculative euphoria and ending in violent contraction. Between the multi-million dollar sales of the spring and the extreme wariness of buyers in the autumn, the art market fell victim to the economic and financial crisis as it spread round the globe. At what moment and why did the trend reversal occur?

The year of the AMCI [01.04.2009]

At the start of 2008 Artprice launched a powerful new tool, the Art market confidence Index, whose objective is to provide clients with a “real time” appreciation of trends and sentiment on the art market.

Artprice on iPhone [23.03.2009]

Open your iPhone’s browser and go to http://web.artmarketinsight.com/ to access the world’s latest art market information for free. You can instantly load all of the 20 latest articles published by Artprice’s press agency-ArtMarketInsight.com.

Contemporary drawing prices [22.03.2009]

Demand for contemporary drawings started to accelerate in New York at the beginning of this decade before spreading to other cultural capitals.In 2002, the MOMA put on a show entitled Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, a large exhibition bringing together 300 contemporary drawings by 26 prominent European, Asian and American artists including David THORPE, Paul NOBLE, Toba KHEDOORI, Kara WALKER, Yoshitomo NARA, Elizabeth PEYTON, Ugo RONDINONE and Chris OFILI.

Artprice’s TOP 10 ranking: the art market heavyweights in 2008 [15.03.2009]

Every year Artprice publishes its ranking of artists based on auction revenue. At the end of 2007 the figures were remarkable: the market’s Top 10 had generated a combined total of $1.8bn, up no less than 50% on the previous year’s total. In 2008 the total was $100m lower than for 2007 at $1.7bn, a figure representing 20% of the total global art auction market on 1.5% of its transactions.

AMCI – Market confidence in February 2009. [08.03.2009]

After yet another collapse of the Art market confidence Index (AMCI) at the end of January – falling back to the record low of -20 points already posted after the moribund November sales – Artprice’s confidence barometer managed a timid return into positive territory at the end of February (+1).

Sale of the Bergé – YSL collection: Paris moves up the global art market ladder [01.03.2009]

The Bergé -YSL sale was a historical sale in more than one sense: the €373.5m total for the three-day auction is the world record for a private collection and the European record for an art sale of any sort.

The Middle Eastern market – Sotheby’s arrives in Doha [22.02.2009]

In August 2008, the Art Market Insight published an overview of the boom in Iranian art. The United Arab Emirates, the new eldorado of cultural tourism, is building its Louvre in Abu Dhabi and its Guggenheim in Dubai, the city that has established itself, in two years, as the new capital of the Middle Eastern art market. In 2008, auction revenues in Dubai amounted to USD 34.9 million, a +70% increase on 2007.

Results of the Contemporary art sales: seriously off the boil [15.02.2009]

A week of sales in London Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips de Pury & Co tested the resilience of the contemporary art market which has been the most speculative and volatile compartment of the market over the last few years.