Some glimpses:

Norman Bluhm, although present in the offering of numerous galleries at the moment, possessing a Bluhm is always a thrill and why not this one. Detail (24×19.75 in):

Alexander Liberman, An interesting work by someone most known for his sculptures. A bargain for this quality. Detail from Red Tangents (11×11 in):

Robert Motherwell, Collage monotype. Detail (26×19.75 in):

Click on the image to be transferred to Artnet

Because the commercial value of a work became the primary way of evaluating its value, work became good because it was expensive rather than expensive because it was deemed to be good.

Such astonishing naïve comments are thus given in this late month of March 2009 by an exercising art fair director and former auction-house specialist, and this in the solid framework of a Newsweek article on the current art market situation.

Not only is this ‘revelation’ a pure banality; it’s fundamentally false in its assumption that in ‘normal’ circumstances good work is paid more than bad work – as in these sober times when the artificially created buying frenzy has exhausted itself. The commercial value of art has always been and will always be manipulated. If not artificially pushed, art does not sell well, whatever its qualities. The exceptional Hirst and Yves Saint-Laurent sales were both brought to the limit in this respect and the results were comparable, regardless of all quality criteria and notwithstanding the absence or presence of a recession.

Any plain screenprint by Warhol will sell at a higher price than a Velasquez oil painting if the controlling market forces want it to. You can collect monetary value or you can collect art. If you are in fact collecting money, the amount of art that you’ll get with your purchases is always relative. In this respect it’s extremely instructive to browse through the catalogue of any major artist’s life’s work. Without exception, only a fraction of the whole is worth our appreciation. The rest should be looked upon as exercises, failures, studies, and preparations. The overwhelming majority of the pieces on the market by Van Gogh, Manet, Monet etc. any average mediocre artist could have executed, in fact so badly accomplished are they. It’s the comparatively small output of masterpieces that make great artists stand out. And these pieces museum curators have long acquired. Commercially, however, the story is quite another. Commercial success is a question of marketing, and marketing is make-believe. And collectors of monetary value, in great difference to collectors of art, are abundantly present and for the most part conveniently stupid or, why not, clever, all depends on how you look at it.

Fine Art Auctions puts it this way:

The value of a work of art is determined by various factors. In rare cases, new testing methods or publications can lead to scientific insights that could not even have been anticipated at the time of purchase – in the worst case, the work is worth less than was thought. One of the most famous cases of a fall in value is probably Rembrandt’s ‘Man in a Gold Helmet’, which in 1986 was attributed to one of his students.

Fine-art-auctions.com is exemplary when it comes to reassuring the potential customer. Of course, if you don’t have the accumulated weight of Christie’s, you need to be reassuring and fine-art-auctions goes more than just out of its way to alleviate any unease:

Only reputable auctioneers and art galleries may qualify as partners of Fine Art Auctions. The basic requirement is for them to have been working on the fine art market for at least 10 years. If this preliminary condition is met, Art Directory Service GmbH meticulously checks the applicant’s references, its qualifications and other issues, for instance whether it is a member of an auctioneers’ association. Specific criteria have to be met for acceptance.

So what’s the result of all this effort? Well, a particularly agreeable site with much dynamic and perhaps the best platform available today for finding quality art at normal market prices. Don’t yet hope to find major works but expect drawings, prints, photography and the odd oil by some minor name. The present sobriety will undoubtedly change in the future as we get more and more used to the virtual platform.

Evening sale 4 February:

Lot 9 Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Les couturières, oil on canvas, estimate £4,500,000 – £6,500,000

(detail)

Lot 10 Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) Les deux filles oil on canvas, estimate £3,500,000 – £5,500,000
(detail)

Lot 15 Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) Pot bleu oil on canvas, estimate £500,000 – £800,000
(detail)

Lot 18 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) L’abandon (Les deux amies) oil on board, estimate £5,000,000 – £7,000,000
(detail)

Lot 24 Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) Clovis oil on canvas, estimate £550,000 – £850,000
(detail)

Lot 41 Joan Miró (1893-1983) Femme entendant chanter le coq aux éclats violets oil on canvas , estimate £500,000 – £700,000
(detail)

Lot 42 Paul Delvaux (1897-1994) Jeux de mains, oil on panel, estimate £400,000 – £600,000
(detail)

Lot 46 Francis Picabia (1879-1953) Les acrobates (Gymnastique banale), oil, gouache, watercolour and pencil on board laid down on panel, estimate £400,000 – £600,000
(detail)

This rings a bell when looking at a plain and insignificant 1913 drawing by Egon Schiele featured in one of Christie’s February sales. Here’s a detail of the drawing and part (!) of the profuse commentary:

Stehende Frau mit Schuen und Strümpfen is notable for its use of electrifying ultramarine pigment that animates the figure and accentuates the textural variation between hair, clothing and delicately tinted flesh. By contrasting the soft, fluid contours of the model’s pale body against the gesturally painted and richly coloured garment she is presumably removing, Schiele not only anchors the figure in the expanse of space that is otherwise devoid of environmental markers but also draws attention to her pelvic region, which he further emphasizes with a sharp blue chevron. In doing so, Schiele purposefully heightens the sexual significance of the image, thereby signalling his belief that all humans are at the mercy of their primal urges.

It is clear that after having forced ourselves to read the entire accompanying text, while focusing our attention on the pelvic region, the trivial sketch presented to our eye seems to take on quite another dimension…

Let’s once again remember what we were taught about the market being cyclic and that sense is only made on the longer term. There is absolutely no way to predict what will happen in the months to come and those depending on the art market for their living will have to use all their cunning to survive in a climate where price volatility and uncertainty rule.

Remember, the burst of the latest bubble was essentially about contemporary art and about living artists, having never before attained such monetary results. It was also about people knowing very little about art being lured into buying products of smart marketing. The array of new galleries that followed suit, the shoals of private dealers riding the currant, are now quickly dwindling away; also because of the impertinent habit of a new breed of artists to dispense of their services.

In times of uncertainty people turn to traditional values. It’s normal and healthy. Classicism will keep on being the rock on which to lean, and classicism takes us today already well into the mid-20th century. Let’s say that there are two generations needed to establish a work’s stature. Contemporary creation may be more interesting, rewarding, fun or whatever, but in terms of value it can’t be but ephemeral or conjectural. The art market investor, who is not a speculator, knows where to put his savings.

And this is the final line. Investing in art is in normal circumstances not more, nor less rewarding than investing in stocks, bonds or commodities. It is part of a healthy approach to diversification and as such helps to attenuate risk. And of course it’s much nicer to spend your time enjoying your art than following indices… Speculation, on the other hand, is common to all monetary instruments, with inevitable rises and falls in fortune.

It’s clear that the financial depression eclipsed the contemporary art boom and that the latter’s demise is affecting the art market in general. But if the disease is endemic to the affected patient, the collateral contagion is but temporary. Old masters, impressionists, modern masters etc. will quickly go clear.

So for 2009, this is my bet: vested values will suffer little, contemporary creation will be shunned. This till the end of the cycle…

Lot 28 Georges Michel (French 1763-1843) Saint Denis in a stormy landscape oil on canvas, estimate £ 10-15.000

Exquisite sky rendering by this well-known and proficient landscape painter (detail)

Lot 35 Anselm Friedrich Feuerbach (German, 1829-1880) Studienkopf einer Römerin in Profil nach rechts oil on canvas, estimate £ 20.000 – 30.000

Superb capture of light… (detail)

Lot 45 Alexej Alexejewitsch Harlamoff (Russian, 1840-1925) The dark haired beauty oil on canvas, estimate £120.000-160.000

Minutely elaborate technique… (detail)

Lot 49 Gyula Tornai (Hungarian, 1861-1928) The awakening oil on canvas, estimate £10.000-15.000

Kaleidoscopic… sublime (detail)

Lot 62 Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish, 1863-1923) Dando Cuerda: Winding the clock oil on canvas laid down on board, estimate £ 60.000-80.000

Bright and gay colouring, announcing the Fauves…

After the disorderly panic that ensued after the spectacular fall of the economy – the latter in more than one sense fictional and rather worthy that of the house of Usher – we have come far towards sobering up over art’s true value. Sadly, the only winner seems to be Damien Hirst, having conned the world at the ultimate moment.

Now, as a speculative fool having let yourself go in the cunningly orchestrated folly, what do you do now with your silly stuffed shark? Well, according to the Economist:

Edward Dolman, Christie’s chief executive told The Economist on December 18th. “We’ve seen confidence dwindle away. People are not certain where prices are. Buyers all round are being very circumspect.” Death, divorce and debt will continue to provide artworks for the auction market. But discretionary sellers, who don’t have to sell, are likely to want to sit it out until things improve. “We’re not predicting much discretionary selling at all next year,” Mr Dolman said.

Well, the incredibly brainless Hirst collectors are in for a long wait if they want to sit it out!

It is with great pleasure that one sees crap once again treated as crap and Hirst’s creations losing appeal. He will go down in history though, for all that incredible money that so astutely changed pockets for so little return … In my opinion, in a couple of years Hirst’s art will value two times zero.

If you bought something by Hirst, sell as quickly as you can ;)

However, in order to perceive and appreciate at all, you need to be receptive to the specific affective or intellectual stimulus of the particular art form. Two-dimensional visual art will not necessarily appeal to the same sensibility as does music or literature. Essentially it’s a question of a favourable physiological constitution, a naturally developed mental or emotive penchant and the presence or lack of an appropriate initiation/education. Once favourably equipped, the question of whether “art” is present or not in a proposed work is quickly settled.

In the drab human everyday reality of factual subsistence, social organisation and material preoccupancy, art helps us to stay in line and to get along. More desirable than the real world, more beautiful, more righteous, the world of art forms a barrier against sordidness.

Art is essential to human existence, the market isn’t. The art market may go bust; art keeps its pre-eminent place in the human adventure. The market is justly based on value and any value can be monetized. Short of discrimination, the art market, as any market, follows the eternal laws of offer and demand. What is monetary successful will be purported as art and marketed regardless of the actual intrinsic quality. This is the world we live in.

Ebay Live fed confusion because it had no policy on quality. On the one hand it was a supplementary sales channel for traditional auction houses having goods consigned in brick-and-mortar sales rooms (among those some very respectable ones); and as such it was an altogether interesting alternative to the telephone bidding facility; on the other hand eBay Live featured auctions by auctioneers who were not only but engaged in virtual trading but who moreover didn’t have any of the goods auctioned in consignment or under control, but who simply let unscreened paying members propose their ware through their channel at their own responsibility. There were examples where just anyone worldwide paying their fee could act as a seller. Evidently this didn’t create the climate necessary for serene transactions.

Ebay Live also had an exasperating interface that couldn’t bring up any real auction life excitement (see previous post). However, at this moment, with the notable exception of Christie’s Live, no other actor on the market seems capable of bringing an alternative or improved live-auction platform forward. There’s lots of talk but very little substance emerging.

As for traditional sales room support it seems that Artfact Live is taking up the challenge of providing a supplementary Internet sales channel to reputable auction houses. And for pure Internet auctions with fixed end time, Artnet Online Auctions recently launched their platform. As for eBay, by pulling out of the live activity and by introducing more severe rules, there is evident improvement in regard to their core activity.

The general trend is set for more security. We may be confident that Internet will find ways to affirm and develop its ever growing market presence.