Will The New York Art Market Boom Again?
2008-07-30

Will The New York Art Market Boom Again?

The financial market downturn which started from the beginning of this year is stirring up the rapid tightening fear about the speculative bubble in the art market. After European art prices in this year's first quarter went down by 7.5%, this fear has been a further proof of the matter. And now because of the relatively weakness of the dollar, we all look forward to seeing the response of the New York market, particularly in some pieces of the high prices.

So following the fear, Martha Fleischman, the owner of Kennedy Gallery, summed up the current negative emotions that are spreading in the New York gallery field." The sky is about to collapse. Though the people do not recognize, such sentiments have affected everyone; our economy has entered a new stage." Even she predicted that those who purchased works of art just for investment and wanted to sell them in a short term might suffer a taste that they would never forget in this year.

But as the time goes by, strangely enough we've seen a miracle in the art market of New York. The Impressionist and Modern Art auction held by Christie's and Sotheby's in May 6 and 7, together with a contemporary art auction one week later, both got great concern. And the result of the four auctions got rid of the fear about the health of the high price market.

In two weeks, Christie's and Sotheby's, the two giants of the art market, gained 1.2 billion U.S. dollars from 212 pieces of works. Although this data compared with that in November of 07 was almost 10 million less, it was still the three times of the total income in May of 04; and the benefits from contemporary art for the two auction houses were a 35 percent more than that form impressionist and modern art. This is not just because that Impressionist and modern art works of a master become less and less, but also in this serious period of speculation, contemporary art has always been very attractive.

Among those winners, many were sculptors. One of the big surprises in the evening was Eaves Klein's single gold leaf which was taken by 21 million U.S. dollars. Besides, Murakami-long took an important sculpture for 13.5 million U.S. dollars; these two works of the bid prices were much higher than their previous valuation. Just at Christie's in the previous auction, an excellent works by Lucian Freud sold a new record of 30 million U.S. dollars, which made this Sigmund Freud's grandson into the most valuable painter ever living. In fact, he has replaced the Jiefukunsi who made the highest record in November 2007 with "the hoisting of the Heart" of 21 million U.S. dollars.

Now someone is wondering why after a depression of 4 months, the art market is getting to recovery. The constantly shocks of economy have limited people in speculation and no one want to put their own money into others' pockets. The chance for those who really love art is coming. So Christie's and Sotheby's are trying to attract the world's major collectors to sell their important works. Therefore, except for some increase in the value of the works of artists, the auction house has provided numerous works that were rarely so good. So a huge number of people want to gather here to search for their beloved artworks and take them home.

Remember. Time heals all. Depression is just for a while. More and more artists believe this now. Enthusiasm of paint and sculpture is unprecedented again. And with the depreciation of the dollar, Much less will dare to speculate. So we can count on a purer artistic atmosphere. Also related to the change, artists do not need to worry about their stomachs any more.