Museum depressingly closed During a period that’s been turbulent on all fronts, where numerous museums around the world remain depressingly closed while some, notably in the United States, have been forced to sell pieces from their collections...
Balthus: 144 drawings and paintings by the great and controversial painter to be auctioned in Paris
Woman and muse The French politician Talleyrand is attributed with the saying: “Behind every great man there’s a woman.” In observing art history, we might add that behind numerous great artists there are many women. Sublime source of...
Levy-Gorvy, Massimo de Carlo, Per Skarstedt, Marguo…The art dealers descending on Paris
Secondary first It is a little known fact that the majority of galleries representing living artists manage to maintain their business through sales on what is described as the “secondary market”. This involves the resale of older artworks...
In Paris: there may be no Fiac but there are the young artists from Paris Internationale
https://youtu.be/-Gp0p5XRMyI Cancellation On 15 October 2020 Paris’s contemporary art week was meant to have kicked off, which would ordinarily have accompanied the great French Fiac fair, with its plethora of all kinds of events,...
Frieze Viewing Room: the pros and cons of an emerging virtual market for contemporary art
Saturation of events It’s a radical digital revolution. As the coronavirus crisis settles in for the long term across the globe, the virtual initiatives staged by major art-market players are multiplying. Whereas in France the FIAC – which was...
Paris: The former Biennale des Antiquaires is hosted by Christie’s
The end of the operating rules Nothing in the art market works as it used to. The great operating rules which once governed it have all been thrown into disarray by the Covid-19 crisis. Competition between dealers and auction houses The art...
Charles Stewart CEO of Sotheby’s: “reinventing the auctions model”
https://youtu.be/e94QGzpYduU Patrick Drahi It’s been 12 months since Sotheby’s was bought by the French businessman Patrick Drahi. It’s been 9 months since he appointed a new head of the auction house, former investment banker at...
Murakami’s bankruptcy: the first art market corona shock
Heartbreaking story “This is Takashi Murakami. I’m a contemporary artist. Today’s story is my very heartbreaking story.” At the end of June Takashi Murakami uploaded a 15-minute video to Instagram that had been filmed at his studio on 23...
Art Basel online: artworks in the millions of dollars flood the internet
Online: the new norm In barely three months the online contemporary art market has become the new norm. Nothing can ever replace seeing artworks “in the flesh”, but while we await more favourable times once travelling restrictions are lifted,...
The Old Masters market: why would artworks that have stood the test of time be affected by the coronavirus?
Established for many centuries When talking about the art market there’s a tendency to immediately think of 20th-century art, which attracts the most fans and the highest figures. However, at a time when values are being called into question,...
Sotheby’s: the great revolution in the art market
Patrick Drahi It hit the art market like a bolt from the blue. On 17 June 2019, the French Moroccan-born businessman Patrick Drahi, who specializes in media and telecommunications, announced he had bought one of the world’s two leading auction...
Waiting for the art market’s “corona prices”
Silence It’s exceedingly difficult to get insiders to talk about the current evolution of the art market. A number of them refuse to make any statement, others tend to stick to abstract analyses, while a third group prefers to remain...