PARIS, Oct. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the past twenty
years the exchange of Contemporary art works has developed into a
dynamic global market. In its upcoming publication, Artprice traces
and analyzes this evolution, from its rapid acceleration
culminating in Damien Hirst's
incredible sale at Sotheby's in September
2008 the day Lehmann Brothers
collapsed, then its vigorous recovery with the boom in Chinese
Contemporary art driving the market until 2014, followed by a
period of relatively measured growth… and suddenly interrupted in
March 2020, by the unprecedented
global health crisis we are now experiencing.
According to thierry Ehrmann, President and Founder of
Artmarket.com and its Artprice Department. "Contemporary Art
began this century as a 'niche market' but is now the motor of the
entire art market. Our latest report deciphers this radical
transformation over the twenty-year period since 2000".
To side-step the problem of an 'incomparable' year (our
Contemporary Art Market Reports usually cover the previous 12-month
period...) our next publication will provide an overview of the
Contemporary art secondary market between 2000 and 2020. A few days
ahead of the scheduled publication of this historical overview,
Artprice looks at three specific 'moments' in this 20-year period
which punctuated the Contemporary art market's rapid development at
the beginning of the 21st century.
2008-2009
The months that preceded the 2008 financial crisis were among
the most profitable in Contemporary art market history – no doubt a
little too profitable – with astounding results for controversial
works and controversial sales.
In the spring of 2008, New York
art auctions hammered $15.2 million
for Takashi Murakami's My
Lonesome Cowboy (1998), a larger than life sculpture of a boy
proudly ejaculating. Then in June, Jeff
Koons' Balloon Flower (1995/2000) sold for
$25.8 million. And then later in
September, just a few hours after news broke of Lehman Brothers'
collapse in New York, Damien Hirst and Sotheby's hosted a London sale titled Beautiful Inside My Head
Forever. Despite the financial context, Hirst managed to sell
animal corpses immersed in formalin, The Golden Calf (2008)
and The Kingdom (2008), for $18.6
million and $17.2 million
respectively.
The following year, 2009, global sales turnover from
Contemporary art dropped nearly 60%.
2013-2014
Five years later… The major stars of Chinese Contemporary art,
which had already gained momentum before the financial crisis of
2008, finally began to assert themselves on the global art market.
Artists like Luo Zhongli, He Jiaying and Ai
Xuan all posted their best annual auction performances in
2013. Zeng Fanzhi was even the second-most successful Contemporary
artist at auction after Jean-Michel
Basquiat with his turnover exceeding $100 million (incl.fees), notably thanks to a
historic record of $23.3 million for
his The Last Supper (2001). Since then, no work by Zeng
Fanzhi has fetched such a high price.
The period was also marked by another phenomenon, quite
different, that the journalist Scott
Reyburn described in the New York
Times in September 2015: "In 2014, recently made
works by young abstract painters like Oscar Murillo, Lucien
Smith, Alex Israel,
Mark Flood and Christian Rosa were being "flipped" at
auction for eye-watering multiples of the artists' original gallery
prices. But in the last six months or so, this very volatile sector
of the market […] has undergone a correction ".
In the years that followed, the market for artists under 35
became much more stable. While some of the young superstars of 2014
remained relatively strong in the secondary market, there have been
many changes in the auction turnover rankings of artists of this
generation.
2018-2019
Between 2015 and 2019, the Contemporary art market experienced
five years of continuous volume growth (number of lots sold). After
a historic auction record of more than $110
million for a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat in 2017, the market
recorded two very solid years, without any headline-grabbing
results, but maintaining a steady and reassuring level of
growth.
In 2008, when the Contemporary art market was hit by the
financial crisis, it was already in very feverish state, with
numerous controversial results. Fortunately, the Covid crisis has
interrupted a much wiser and more stable market. Lots of sales have
had to be canceled or postponed since March
2020, but artists' price levels (and the prices of their
works) could well, in general, traverse this crisis without taking
too much of hit.
The current 'interruption' is an opportunity for the market to
take a step back from certain enthusiasms that were beginning to
boil over, notably those for Kaws and Liu
Ye. It is certainly preferable that the sharp shock to the
Contemporary art market occurred in March
2020 when it was in full confidence and when most artists'
price indices were climbing gradually, than in a period of major
volatility.
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