The formal component of Antion Olaio’s art imbues painting with another dimension altogether for there are figurative paintings with overlaid text, accompanied by a music video sing-along. These multi-media constructions function as story telling devices with built-in soundtracks, revealing visual tales from deep in the artist’s subconscious. To look further into the work, it is helpful to speak about the person behind the making, as he is inserted, literally and/or figuratively into each and every piece by way of his starring role in a bespoke musical accompaniment for your added visual and aural satisfaction. Olaio’s songs are reductive affairs with usually no more than a simple, monotonous tune, while his paintings are like graphic, single-frame films, despite the artist’s protestations to the contrary.
Physically, Antonio Olaio is a cross between Kevin Spacey, Elvis Costello, and a dollop of Pee Wee Herman. The Pee Wee bit is manifested in his absurdist, Dadaist musings on everything, nothing and the plain weird. He’s twee and sometimes the effect is creepy, but at the same time affecting, touching and charming. The monotone singing can be a distraction, but also it hooks you and remains stuck in your mind’s eye. For Olaio, painting is not enough; perhaps he needed more DNA in the work than pigment on canvas alone could satisfy. The result is Antonio himself as the quirky pop performer, injected into each short film. It could be said to be rather exhibitionist and self-aggrandizing, but in the hands of the artist, it is equally pathetic and comic. Unlike Cindy Sherman constantly gazing into her own navel as her performative fantasies run amok, Olaio’s explorations are inextricably tied to his sense of self-identity.
In his art, Antonio Olaio is confident yet with low self-esteem, cartoonish and somber, haunting and goofy all simultaneously. He doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously, as reflected in this quote describing one of his works: “This song sounds quite serious, almost pompous, but fortunately it's quite silly in its pretentiousness.” The sense of insecurity is palpable as the self-deprecating nature of the person that lies beneath the work is evident, but Olaio fearlessly faces failure by positing himself front and center in his compositions time and again.
As much as the significance of the images, both moving and still, the bizarre word groupings always arrest us. Maybe the language is as confusing to him as it is to me, maybe it’s lost in translation; scarily maybe it’s not and this world of societal absurd-ism is completely normal, knowable and understandable to Antonio. But I don't really care about Olaio’s intended meanings, his verbal cocktails are so rich and flavorful they elicit all manner of existential associations. "Brrrrrain" the title of the exhibition brings to mind a brain freeze, also known as an ice-cream headache, a momentary seizure-like ache due to excessive cold or god knows what. The wonderful works of Antonio Olaio, consumed too fast like a child attacking a delectable treat, will bring on joy and confusion, pain and pleasure! The artist calls it punk, which is not something I admit to seeing, unless of a variety so sublime it is beyond me. What I see is cute, harmless, a tad annoying, with flourishes of slapstick, though most definitely eerily unsettling.
The paintings are of a school I call Good Bad Painting, not a photorealist variety of figuration, but colorful, alluring, gripping and graphic, in the vein of the Chicago
Imagists, a group of surreal representational painters like Jim Nutt, Roger Brown and Ed Paschke. The genre of this painting style grabs you by the throat with acidic colors and completes the assault with grotesque imagery.
Olaio adds to this mix by incorporating word play and songs into his art: it’s music and lyrics as sculpture, turning a tune into an object as weighty as bronze. Sound and vibration take on the characteristics of paint and brush. In the videos, there is not much happening visually but there is always the distinctive, frog-y moan to catch and hold your attention. The videos have crude production values, as the funerary, atmospheric melodies fill the background. And the songs…often they have the droll drone of Serge Gainsborough, Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed with some of the kooky-ness of John Cage. Yes, it can be Irritating but then it sticks in your craw like all good music and art. Ultimately, though, the music works; it stands out as an accomplishment in and of itself.
Only Antonio Olaio can find the “nasty” side of butterflies, and here are some reflections on his titles and wordplay…
“My dreams are small and sad.” Sad maybe, but the work of Olaio is far from tragic. Melancholic and filled with a sense of longing and dejection, the art carries with it a component of built-in failure. Is Olaio a misfit? I’d say most definitely not, rather in the manner of both the writer Samuel Beckett, and the singer Beck, he’s an existential troubadour, a combination of the two. Antonio seems to say: I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me.
“My hand is a readymade.” It’s as if the act of making art for Olaio is independent of his will, an action beyond volition. There is a sense of pre-determinism, of nature having the upper hand in the perennial nature vs. nurture debate in sociology. This notion of an art practice operating outside of personal choice is also evident in the title: “If I wasn’t an artist what would I be.” For Olaio, art making is preordained and outside the realm and luxury of choice.
“I think differently now that I can paint.” Though for Olaio the capacity for art is something you are inextricably born with, nevertheless, honing those skills is akin to a blue-collar job and entails a diligent, puritanical work ethic. It takes tenacity, perseverance and doggedness, and even then success is not assured, far from it, especially in trying times. The process of art, in whatever form it takes, often involves (despite perceptions otherwise) routine, task making and administration that does not exactly live up to the romantic idea of an artist in the throes of the act of creation. Art making for Olaio also equals intellectual enlightenment.
“Broadcasting my songs.” Here we have signs of another vain, megalomaniac artist insisting on speaking to the world at large, yet in the same-titled painting, besides the declarative text beneath the image of a microphone, there is also the depiction of knotted and impossible to function wiring. So there is self-love, but it is coupled with a vanity that is at times also self-negating.
“Pictures are not movies.” Hah! I hate to be the one to break the news to Mr. Olaio, but if ever a picture was indeed a movie, it is here. These are one film-cell films. Anyway, regardless of what Olaio insists, often; as is the case here, artists are sometimes the least capable of analyzing their own work. So please forgive me for taking the liberty of looking elsewhere for interpretations and meanings in this art.
“Bambi is in jail.” A stranger juxtaposition of words does not exist: an unpredictable statement that is equal measure demonic and whimsical but simultaneously deliciously cruel.
“Sit on my soul.” In this painting, we are faced with a pinup, nude and voluptuous, striking a provocative pose. The title expresses the yearning not for a quick sexual fix but rather a solicitation to quench Olaio’s intellectual and spiritual curiosity. This work has also got a taste of Olaio looking inside some impenetrable room at others having more love, fun and success then he will seemingly ever enjoy. This is as close as Olio will get to frontal sex in his paintings and videos, but it is a distracted and abstract longing rather than any consummation. Love, but more likely lost love, a denial of love. “Three pounds of wine and she loves you.” If that doesn’t say it all I don’t know what does.
“Potatoes are sweaty.” With such disjointed evocations, sometimes Olaio can be plain gross and disgusting, like a certain genre of teenage movies. I guess that is where Antonio wants to take us, on a journey as absurd and surreal as Willy Wonka (the original version) with as much perverted, misguided fun. In any event, it is hard to look at potatoes the same again.
“Wicked teachers.” This is Olaio’s questioning of authority both in art and otherwise, but always with the perspective of an insatiable, curious, though naughty child. That for me is the essence of the work: it is the product of a jaded, twisted but always humorous existentialist take on life, and you can feel the sense of joy and release he seems to enjoy in the process.
The videos, songs and paintings of Antonio Olaio taken as a whole seem a poor excuse to stand on a soapbox shouting at all who will listen to convey an utterly unique voice that is nothing less than enchanting and fantastical. It’s an all-encompassing philosophy of life seen through a multi-faceted language of whimsical imaginings. In the end, Olaio has sung, written and painted his way deep into our heads, hearts and souls.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
BBC One: Art in Troubled Times
In times like these, what is art worth? And what is art for?
The big moment for publicly funded art in Britain was the Second World War. "Something absolutely remarkable happened during the war", says actor Simon Callow. "The theatre suddenly was right at the heart of society."
After the war, the idea of "art for all" led to the founding of the Arts Council - "very much a response to the distress, the fear, the uncertainty of war." Alan Yentob asks if culture can play that role again today.
Dealer Kenny Schachter explains how, in a perverse way, he feels this recession is the best thing that has happened to the art world in ten years.
Aired on Tuesday, 28 July at 22:35 on BBC One.
Click here to watch Art in Troubled Times Part 1 "A New Deal for Art"
Click here to watch Art in Troubled Times Part 2 "The Home Front"
The big moment for publicly funded art in Britain was the Second World War. "Something absolutely remarkable happened during the war", says actor Simon Callow. "The theatre suddenly was right at the heart of society."
After the war, the idea of "art for all" led to the founding of the Arts Council - "very much a response to the distress, the fear, the uncertainty of war." Alan Yentob asks if culture can play that role again today.
Dealer Kenny Schachter explains how, in a perverse way, he feels this recession is the best thing that has happened to the art world in ten years.
Aired on Tuesday, 28 July at 22:35 on BBC One.
Click here to watch Art in Troubled Times Part 1 "A New Deal for Art"
Click here to watch Art in Troubled Times Part 2 "The Home Front"
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Written for The Daily Mail's Mail on Sunday, July 09
London art dealer Kenny Schachter has traded in millions as the art market has boomed in recent years. But now the recession is here, he couldn't be happier - because the most lauded works might actually be ones the rest of us like . . .
By Kenny Schachter
I have published books on art and design, lectured at universities from Columbia in New York to Manchester, sold a painting last year for £15 million and have even exhibited my own art internationally. Not bad for someone with no formal art education.
But that puts me in good company, as many people in the art world look at very little art, and read even less about it.
That's because, over the past ten years, the art world has been taken over by economics. The business of art grew more in the past ten years than the previous 100. The art world became truly interconnected, with Russia, the Middle East, China, India and Africa all playing increasingly important roles.
When I started out in the art world in the 1980s, no one dreamt of a single art piece selling for more than £100 million (more than a few have), and the people at private views resembled a law school class. Now they look resemble an Academy Awards party.
Though there has always been an element of status associated with a particularly desired work of art, these days such works have been been transformed into nothing more than bags of money pretentiously nailed to the walls of hedge funders.
During the 'noughties', a financial tsunami built in the art world, the crescendo of which exploded in the creation of the obscene diamond skull by Damien Hirst, which finally exalted money above all else in art, including taste. The diamond dog certainly spoke of its own time, which you can’t take away from it, and only just before the violent death of the consumer revolution.
And the bond between art and wealth has meant that pieces have been traded like commodities rather than works of beauty. Recently, when art has been bought and sold, it has often been done by images transmitted over the Internet (that end up spreading like swine flu virus). And art has been traded like corn, moving in unopened crates between storage facilities, on its way to auction houses.
That's why, strange as it may sound, as an art lover I actually welcome the recession. At least because it could spell the end of economics-ism, the movement in which new art costs a fortune and has fortune as its subject. So what will happen?
I think that this economic climate will bring us back into the arms of appreciation for traditional ideals of craft and beauty at the high end of the market. I predict we'll be in touch with a more humanistic level of art that will be about life, not just an excuse for a new Bentley in the garage of certain collectors and artists. Art will become more relevant to our lives in that it will reflect the times we live in and how we relate to each other in trying times.
And this won't just apply to the most expensive pieces. In some ways, art is like fashion in that what you see in a fashion show eventually trickles down to the high street. Artists latch on to trends happening at the top of the market. For example, Banksy is currently still fairly holding up in the market (although he started at the bottom as a graffiti artist) and so there are now an unhealthy number of wannabe Banksies.
But what people will see more and more in the galleries that manage to survive is more conservative, safe and cautious fare. Nowadays, it’s going be more bowls of fruit and flowers rather than schlock meant to shock. Which is why I say a depression is not so depressing in the art world.
As art becomes more relevant, so the limited edition prints and drawings by artists that are more in the price range of those on modest incomes will become morre attractive to purchasers.
We are entering a golden age of cheap(er) art due to a backlash, a resentment to the hyper-inflated contemporary art prices of the recent past. What the big boys of art are going to be forced to copy from the up-and-coming kids is that there is an overwhelming price sensitivity today never before seen in the market. The main thing that will transform the market of expensive art is that there are fewer and fewer people today that actually want to own it. So if formerly successful artists still feel like selling art and eating they damn well better lower their prices!
So I welcome the collapse of the art market with open arms, even if it means an 85 per cent reduction in my turnover from last year. I admit that sounds a bit Mother Teresa-ish, but so be it!
Recently, for the first time in years, I have been motivated to see art again. Seeing, learning and connoisseurship are again valued after being absent for years. Recession art is more engaging than art made during a time of easy money. A down market is the great societal equaliser - the democracy of a depression.
I spell out some of these thoughts in a two-part Imagine special on BBC ONE. The reason I participated in it is that so few people in the art world are prepared to shed light on the least transparent world there is. I hope that I can show the top end of the art market for what it had become - a world obsessed by money and status.
At the moment I am trading in another love of mine - classic cars - nearly as much as art. The two fields share a lot in common: they are both easy places for the unsuspecting to be duped; and the snake pit of art dealers resemble used-car salesmen more than they care to admit.
Only a short time ago you needed to be considered 'important' (the most misused art-world word), and in good graces with art dealers, to buy the work of hot young artists. Imagine Dolce & Gabbana restricting the sale of their dresses to women they thought pretty enough.
In other instances you would have to buy art from other artists in a dealer’s stable to be offered the stuff you actually wanted.What a difference a bad economy makes - nowadays gallery owners will sell to the homeless.
Unscrupulous art dealers, and they are legion, usually operate without contracts with artists, take 50 per cent of the cut from sales, and rarely pay in a timely fashion. Not me of course. Evidence of the hard times that have befallen the art world is the fact I don't know a single dealer today not selling expensive inventory at losses to keep above water.
The £15 million sale I had last year was followed by a succession of collapsed deals, including an $80 million transaction that was a day away from closing. Thankfully, cost is now not the most over-riding thing in the art world. Art used to be about beauty and rising above the everyday.
Maybe, with the recession, works of quality will be once again exalted.
Kenny Schachter will be featured in BBC ONE's Imagine . . . Art In Troubled Times Part 2, on Tuesday at 10:35pm
By Kenny Schachter
I have published books on art and design, lectured at universities from Columbia in New York to Manchester, sold a painting last year for £15 million and have even exhibited my own art internationally. Not bad for someone with no formal art education.
But that puts me in good company, as many people in the art world look at very little art, and read even less about it.
That's because, over the past ten years, the art world has been taken over by economics. The business of art grew more in the past ten years than the previous 100. The art world became truly interconnected, with Russia, the Middle East, China, India and Africa all playing increasingly important roles.
When I started out in the art world in the 1980s, no one dreamt of a single art piece selling for more than £100 million (more than a few have), and the people at private views resembled a law school class. Now they look resemble an Academy Awards party.
Though there has always been an element of status associated with a particularly desired work of art, these days such works have been been transformed into nothing more than bags of money pretentiously nailed to the walls of hedge funders.
During the 'noughties', a financial tsunami built in the art world, the crescendo of which exploded in the creation of the obscene diamond skull by Damien Hirst, which finally exalted money above all else in art, including taste. The diamond dog certainly spoke of its own time, which you can’t take away from it, and only just before the violent death of the consumer revolution.
And the bond between art and wealth has meant that pieces have been traded like commodities rather than works of beauty. Recently, when art has been bought and sold, it has often been done by images transmitted over the Internet (that end up spreading like swine flu virus). And art has been traded like corn, moving in unopened crates between storage facilities, on its way to auction houses.
That's why, strange as it may sound, as an art lover I actually welcome the recession. At least because it could spell the end of economics-ism, the movement in which new art costs a fortune and has fortune as its subject. So what will happen?
I think that this economic climate will bring us back into the arms of appreciation for traditional ideals of craft and beauty at the high end of the market. I predict we'll be in touch with a more humanistic level of art that will be about life, not just an excuse for a new Bentley in the garage of certain collectors and artists. Art will become more relevant to our lives in that it will reflect the times we live in and how we relate to each other in trying times.
And this won't just apply to the most expensive pieces. In some ways, art is like fashion in that what you see in a fashion show eventually trickles down to the high street. Artists latch on to trends happening at the top of the market. For example, Banksy is currently still fairly holding up in the market (although he started at the bottom as a graffiti artist) and so there are now an unhealthy number of wannabe Banksies.
But what people will see more and more in the galleries that manage to survive is more conservative, safe and cautious fare. Nowadays, it’s going be more bowls of fruit and flowers rather than schlock meant to shock. Which is why I say a depression is not so depressing in the art world.
As art becomes more relevant, so the limited edition prints and drawings by artists that are more in the price range of those on modest incomes will become morre attractive to purchasers.
We are entering a golden age of cheap(er) art due to a backlash, a resentment to the hyper-inflated contemporary art prices of the recent past. What the big boys of art are going to be forced to copy from the up-and-coming kids is that there is an overwhelming price sensitivity today never before seen in the market. The main thing that will transform the market of expensive art is that there are fewer and fewer people today that actually want to own it. So if formerly successful artists still feel like selling art and eating they damn well better lower their prices!
So I welcome the collapse of the art market with open arms, even if it means an 85 per cent reduction in my turnover from last year. I admit that sounds a bit Mother Teresa-ish, but so be it!
Recently, for the first time in years, I have been motivated to see art again. Seeing, learning and connoisseurship are again valued after being absent for years. Recession art is more engaging than art made during a time of easy money. A down market is the great societal equaliser - the democracy of a depression.
I spell out some of these thoughts in a two-part Imagine special on BBC ONE. The reason I participated in it is that so few people in the art world are prepared to shed light on the least transparent world there is. I hope that I can show the top end of the art market for what it had become - a world obsessed by money and status.
At the moment I am trading in another love of mine - classic cars - nearly as much as art. The two fields share a lot in common: they are both easy places for the unsuspecting to be duped; and the snake pit of art dealers resemble used-car salesmen more than they care to admit.
Only a short time ago you needed to be considered 'important' (the most misused art-world word), and in good graces with art dealers, to buy the work of hot young artists. Imagine Dolce & Gabbana restricting the sale of their dresses to women they thought pretty enough.
In other instances you would have to buy art from other artists in a dealer’s stable to be offered the stuff you actually wanted.What a difference a bad economy makes - nowadays gallery owners will sell to the homeless.
Unscrupulous art dealers, and they are legion, usually operate without contracts with artists, take 50 per cent of the cut from sales, and rarely pay in a timely fashion. Not me of course. Evidence of the hard times that have befallen the art world is the fact I don't know a single dealer today not selling expensive inventory at losses to keep above water.
The £15 million sale I had last year was followed by a succession of collapsed deals, including an $80 million transaction that was a day away from closing. Thankfully, cost is now not the most over-riding thing in the art world. Art used to be about beauty and rising above the everyday.
Maybe, with the recession, works of quality will be once again exalted.
Kenny Schachter will be featured in BBC ONE's Imagine . . . Art In Troubled Times Part 2, on Tuesday at 10:35pm
Saturday, July 4, 2009
PUSS 'N BOOTS, DICK 'N HAND (Marc Faber's Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, Summer 09)
At the most glamorous of the many fab parties leading up to the 2009 Basel Art Fair, the granddaddy of them all, a museum director related the story of a day trip to Venice to see the Biennial after which she went for a massage and was awoken by the sensation of something odd in her hand which ended up to be the penis of the masseuse. The only reaction it elicited was laughter. But afterwards, she passed a famous dealer friend in the hallway with more adventurous sexual proclivities that was unknowingly on the way to the surprise of her art season. A day later at the opening of the fair a design dealer recounted how when a famous industrial designer took delivery of a classic 60’s Aston Martin, he took his penis into hand and rubbed it across the length of the automobile. These separate but related art world incidents are illustrative of the childishness, sleaze and dicking around so prevalent in the art world of today. Overheard at the same party by the lake in Zurich was the comment: “if you wiped out the crowd here, there’d be no art world left”. Which goes to prove that there is nothing like art world’s strong sense of self-satisfied smugness.
First in from Zurich to Basel I was confronted with a Cameroonian taxi driver in who tried to sell me an African mask, “a replica of which was currently on view at the Beyeler Museum” and then offered to scout young talent for me in Africa. There is no mistaking when it is art fair time of year. For a change I was able to enjoy not having participated in one of ancillary fairs, as the main fairs are usually far too political for someone of my ilk to be admitted; I felt a newfound freedom to roam, to see and enjoy the peripatetic existence, living outside the Willy Lowman-esque ball and shackle of gallery-dom. In the process, I ended up with more business cards and less beholden.
Within the very fair itself, there is more of a social hierarchy than at the outside parties and restaurants. Within the buzzing VIP Lounge, there are VIP-VIP lounges, the most exclusive of which was fittingly sponsored by private jet company Netjets. After managing to get smuggled in like so much excess baggage, it was so hot and uncomfortable inside that it was like being stuck on an airless plane. But still, they stayed; content in the knowledge of how many flight hours it took to be invited. Throughout, art is being consumed this way and that, right under your nose, and after getting caught in the whirlwind, sometimes by you. It’s an elating experience to behold. Sure it’s rather gross in a depression, but art excites, and someone told me, has a measurable neurological effect that prolongs your life. Viva la credit crunch, the hiatus is over, I’m starting to collect again—though I must admit, after my return to reality and the collapse of my past 5 deals, I hope it didn’t amount to premature ejaculation.
A participant in the fair was quoted on Bloomberg confessing to a dirty little secret those in the art business are nowadays all too familiar with: the practice of dealer selling at substantial losses to maintain liquidity in order to keep things moving. It’s reassuring to know I’m not alone. Though many dealers seemed to be selling, I heard stories of just as many who were not. But it’s the age-old lie, the art world’s version of original sin—to publicly state that they sold like hotcakes when in reality they lost a fortune. Are my peers becoming the model of a new aphorism of the YUPPIE variety, namely MUDs: Middle-aged, Urban and Downwardly mobile? Spending money used to be a profession; now finding any is a chore.
As I was actually sitting with a client, a specialist from a major auction house called him to tell how I had burnt the works in the collection by shopping them around too aggressively. Art is the only field where you are contacted to try and sell something only to be accused of diluting its value and ostracized for doing the very thing you were asked to undertake in the first instance. As my client hung up from the auction house, my phone rang with the very same auction house expert asking me to lunch the following week, knowing only I had full access to the work. Talk about a zero sum mentality, for which the art world is famous. One dealer sells, it is perceived, only at the expense of another. A few days later another gallerist (who might be from Canada) called my client to state he had seen the very paintings we were offering for sale on the Internet that would be the death knell to a discrete transference. Nothing could be further from the truth but that was beside the point; the front and backstabbing in the art world defies belief.
Emblematic of the degree of gossip, innuendo, and disinformation swirling around the art world in the attempt to undermine business are the following: one dealer “friend” called to relay he heard a painting I was selling through a dealer participating at the fair was being sold for more than I was let on to believe to a Russian with a famous girlfriend. Although the pricing story turned out to be false, the identity of the collector was entirely correct. The reconnaissance of the art world is worthy of the CIA and MI5 combined. In the end the show of public consumption for the sake of the girlfriend was followed by a swift cancellation only after the fair and invoice were complete. A few deals later I was contacted by the same deep throat dealer who again knew the precise details of a multi million dollar deal I was in the midst of. The only upside is that I was relived to know I wasn’t suffering from extreme paranoia due the accuracy of the third party information I am constantly bombarded with. Can someone explain why art world insiders have such big mouths?
Museums and auction houses are cutting more and more positions after Spring/Summer 2009 sales declined by three-quarters to 80%; while Sotheby’s debt is in the process of getting downgraded from junk that would make it…really junky. Last year at Christie’s in London, a Monet Water Lilly painting sold for more than $80 million, only a year later the entire Impressionist and Modern sale was estimated at $62 million to $84.7 million and achieved $61m. Two major Picasso’s both recently bought in 2005 for £2.7m and in 2000 for £4m sold for £5.75m, and £7m respectively. Which translates into the fact you can sell Picassos in a post-nuclear apocalypse. All in all contemporary sales are down nearly 80% in volume from only a year ago and Modern and Impressionist didn’t fare much better at a level 75% less than last year. On the contemporary side, a Richard Prince Nurse painting was valued at $3m and sold for just shy of that versus last year’s result of $8m for the same size nurse; though Prince inflation is still nothing to sneeze at considering they initially sold only 5 years ago for less than $100k, after depreciation like that you’ll need a nurse. But amazingly that was the only work in the sale with a third-party guarantee. For the most part though, the favorite artists in today’s market are dead ones. Mine too—they are a hell of a lot easier to deal with. Even so, just when it appeared the auctions stopped making records like the music industry, 18 were set at Phillips for primarily younger artists.
Only a short time ago, in my London neighborhood, I witnessed two Ferrari test-drives in one morning, if that’s not a ray of hope what is? And, I only just heard reference to the present state of the economy as: a “post crisis environment”. That's enough of a reason in itself to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Even more evidence of good times ahead, there is a group of hip, young New York artists I avoided assiduously until one became a recent auction highflier at a tender young age. I decided if you can’t beat them, join them so I bought one and was able to resell it for twice what I paid before I paid for it, which was still only fair market value, thus the glory of the inefficiencies of the market—probably the last largely unregulated multi-billion dollar one at that. Fittingly the subject matter of the work was an abstract depiction of animal shit.
First in from Zurich to Basel I was confronted with a Cameroonian taxi driver in who tried to sell me an African mask, “a replica of which was currently on view at the Beyeler Museum” and then offered to scout young talent for me in Africa. There is no mistaking when it is art fair time of year. For a change I was able to enjoy not having participated in one of ancillary fairs, as the main fairs are usually far too political for someone of my ilk to be admitted; I felt a newfound freedom to roam, to see and enjoy the peripatetic existence, living outside the Willy Lowman-esque ball and shackle of gallery-dom. In the process, I ended up with more business cards and less beholden.
Within the very fair itself, there is more of a social hierarchy than at the outside parties and restaurants. Within the buzzing VIP Lounge, there are VIP-VIP lounges, the most exclusive of which was fittingly sponsored by private jet company Netjets. After managing to get smuggled in like so much excess baggage, it was so hot and uncomfortable inside that it was like being stuck on an airless plane. But still, they stayed; content in the knowledge of how many flight hours it took to be invited. Throughout, art is being consumed this way and that, right under your nose, and after getting caught in the whirlwind, sometimes by you. It’s an elating experience to behold. Sure it’s rather gross in a depression, but art excites, and someone told me, has a measurable neurological effect that prolongs your life. Viva la credit crunch, the hiatus is over, I’m starting to collect again—though I must admit, after my return to reality and the collapse of my past 5 deals, I hope it didn’t amount to premature ejaculation.
A participant in the fair was quoted on Bloomberg confessing to a dirty little secret those in the art business are nowadays all too familiar with: the practice of dealer selling at substantial losses to maintain liquidity in order to keep things moving. It’s reassuring to know I’m not alone. Though many dealers seemed to be selling, I heard stories of just as many who were not. But it’s the age-old lie, the art world’s version of original sin—to publicly state that they sold like hotcakes when in reality they lost a fortune. Are my peers becoming the model of a new aphorism of the YUPPIE variety, namely MUDs: Middle-aged, Urban and Downwardly mobile? Spending money used to be a profession; now finding any is a chore.
As I was actually sitting with a client, a specialist from a major auction house called him to tell how I had burnt the works in the collection by shopping them around too aggressively. Art is the only field where you are contacted to try and sell something only to be accused of diluting its value and ostracized for doing the very thing you were asked to undertake in the first instance. As my client hung up from the auction house, my phone rang with the very same auction house expert asking me to lunch the following week, knowing only I had full access to the work. Talk about a zero sum mentality, for which the art world is famous. One dealer sells, it is perceived, only at the expense of another. A few days later another gallerist (who might be from Canada) called my client to state he had seen the very paintings we were offering for sale on the Internet that would be the death knell to a discrete transference. Nothing could be further from the truth but that was beside the point; the front and backstabbing in the art world defies belief.
Emblematic of the degree of gossip, innuendo, and disinformation swirling around the art world in the attempt to undermine business are the following: one dealer “friend” called to relay he heard a painting I was selling through a dealer participating at the fair was being sold for more than I was let on to believe to a Russian with a famous girlfriend. Although the pricing story turned out to be false, the identity of the collector was entirely correct. The reconnaissance of the art world is worthy of the CIA and MI5 combined. In the end the show of public consumption for the sake of the girlfriend was followed by a swift cancellation only after the fair and invoice were complete. A few deals later I was contacted by the same deep throat dealer who again knew the precise details of a multi million dollar deal I was in the midst of. The only upside is that I was relived to know I wasn’t suffering from extreme paranoia due the accuracy of the third party information I am constantly bombarded with. Can someone explain why art world insiders have such big mouths?
Museums and auction houses are cutting more and more positions after Spring/Summer 2009 sales declined by three-quarters to 80%; while Sotheby’s debt is in the process of getting downgraded from junk that would make it…really junky. Last year at Christie’s in London, a Monet Water Lilly painting sold for more than $80 million, only a year later the entire Impressionist and Modern sale was estimated at $62 million to $84.7 million and achieved $61m. Two major Picasso’s both recently bought in 2005 for £2.7m and in 2000 for £4m sold for £5.75m, and £7m respectively. Which translates into the fact you can sell Picassos in a post-nuclear apocalypse. All in all contemporary sales are down nearly 80% in volume from only a year ago and Modern and Impressionist didn’t fare much better at a level 75% less than last year. On the contemporary side, a Richard Prince Nurse painting was valued at $3m and sold for just shy of that versus last year’s result of $8m for the same size nurse; though Prince inflation is still nothing to sneeze at considering they initially sold only 5 years ago for less than $100k, after depreciation like that you’ll need a nurse. But amazingly that was the only work in the sale with a third-party guarantee. For the most part though, the favorite artists in today’s market are dead ones. Mine too—they are a hell of a lot easier to deal with. Even so, just when it appeared the auctions stopped making records like the music industry, 18 were set at Phillips for primarily younger artists.
Only a short time ago, in my London neighborhood, I witnessed two Ferrari test-drives in one morning, if that’s not a ray of hope what is? And, I only just heard reference to the present state of the economy as: a “post crisis environment”. That's enough of a reason in itself to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Even more evidence of good times ahead, there is a group of hip, young New York artists I avoided assiduously until one became a recent auction highflier at a tender young age. I decided if you can’t beat them, join them so I bought one and was able to resell it for twice what I paid before I paid for it, which was still only fair market value, thus the glory of the inefficiencies of the market—probably the last largely unregulated multi-billion dollar one at that. Fittingly the subject matter of the work was an abstract depiction of animal shit.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
PRICE-LESS (Marc Faber's Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, Late Spring 09)
A Banksy graffiti was recently sprayed with graffiti itself: the tagline was: Price-Less. And true it is as the graffiti genre has been swiftly and broadly hit by the onset of recession. Yet, even something priceless has a price less today than a year ago. We have seen the pace of globalization subside as people travel less, spend less and nest more. Such are ideal times to forge closer familial relations. We are experiencing a widespread realignment after a tectonic shift in world economic and social systems. And the massive aftershocks from this earthquake/tsunami have far from subsided. For the time being, we are becoming more provincial in outlook regardless of how far afield we hail from. In the condition of entropy things have a tendency to resort to a state of disorder and disarray, falling to bits and pieces like the peeling paint and decomposition of an old house—not unlike the international economy.
A major auction house recently sold an artwork for under £50,000—when the bidder evaporated as payment was due, they went as far as physically paying a visit to the residence to demand payment. I suppose it wasn’t Bill Ruprecht or Pinault doing the bidding in this instance, but in light of today’s stunning setbacks in every sector of the art and auction market, it well could have been. That’s proactive debt collection. From Sotheby’s dramatic stock slide to the 75% Tiffany & Co. is down (unless people have soured to marriage), everyone is desperately solicitous for business. Formerly aloof restaurant staff the world over are now mimicking the lyrics of the theme song from Cheers: “where everyone knows your name”. It’s as though we are all acting without a script, working harder than ever and never making less. One possible upside is that there seem to be more people losing weight, maybe because its cheaper to be thin, and there is more time to spend (if not money) on fitness. On top of everything, it may appear too indulgent to be overweight these days.
Charles Dickens began A Tale of Two Cities with the line: “It was the best of times it was the worst of times”, a fitting description of the present predicament. People say how can anyone contemplate buying art in such historic trying times, but if you really like art, try trying not to. The urge to collect art is as primal as the facility to make it. From the first cave drawing came the first ravenous collector. Even in the recession-corrected times we are in, yes, things are less, but not all reassessments are created equal. Talk about an about face—but if you can’t contradict yourself, who can you? There were pockets of surging performances in the Spring 2009 auctions, and many records set in the process, though the trend is substantially lower volume and much the same with values. Overall, that collectors are still confident enough to continue to plow millions into pigment on canvas proves the notion that art really is an acknowledged asset class in the best sense of the term, despite the dire and relentless prognostications of the media. This only goes to prove we will get through this malaise with the market if not thriving as it once was, nevertheless intact. And a note to all the persistent naysayers, you can’t take away the sun (unless you are an avowed Gore-ian, global warm-ist).
A well known hedge funder expressed the opinion that art would come to have no value; funny how the art market continues to trudge along at quite an astonishing rate all things considered, while his fund, down 75% last year, will continue to drown deep under his high water mark. In art and design, signs of hope are beginning to abound. There was a recent strong Asian art sale, nearly all sold and more importantly, to all Chinese buyers (albeit more traditional works than speculative contemporary). A lucrative design sale where 45 year-old Australian designer Marc Newson’s dresser/bureau more than doubled the low estimate to sell at $517,000 was followed a few weeks later by $1,613,000 achieved for his Lockhead lounge, the highest price ever fetched for a living designer. Take note it’s an edition of 10 (Ten!) with 5 (Five!) “artist’s proofs”. It is now indisputable that design has reached parity with contemporary art as a recognized and established collecting category. The Yves St Laruent sale of the Eileen Gray $30m chair phenomenon was apparently no fluke: there’s a new benchmark for…the bench.
In the latest spate of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary sales in New York there were nasty casualties such as an over estimated Picasso and Giacometti—no one and nothing is sacred from improbably high estimates. The art business today is characterized by the equation less art for less money equals more (solid results). Weak were recent high flyers like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, but there was still plenty of support even for such over-inflated artists by the likes of Larry Gagosian and other market preservers, and protectors. These players have vested interests too all-encompassing to permit collapse, or even the appearance of failure. In the past dealers colluded to keep prices artificially low to steal things on the cheap versus today where dealers and mega professional collectors frequently step in to provide a temporary fix to maintain and support the illusion of health and wealth in the system. Whether this propping will last is anyone’s guess.
Modern and Impressionism and Contemporary sales are two wildly different animals when it comes to market performance but hand it to Christies where the Contemporary results nearly mirrored the levels of Mod and Impressionist. When collectors are now flocking in droves to safer, historically established works, that’s as bullish an indicator as can be for recent art in particular and the market in general. As an addendum to the story of wealth barometers in the recessionary economy, a classic Ferrari just made over $12m, a record for a public sale, which was considered by the media a disappointment (the house was hoping for $15m it was stated). It’s enough to make tears well up when you consider the shortfall in expectations—could things really be so dismal that a car can’t achieve the price of a plane? I remember the days when a nice car could be had for a cool million.
Another Tale of Two Cities was the latest tale in the ongoing war of Sotheby’s vs. Christies. Sotheby’s held their May sales for Impressionist/Modern and Contemporary on consecutive Mondays while Christies followed on successive Tuesdays. This scheduling bifurcation of sales dates ended in very divergent results. In both Sotheby’s Monday auctions the buyers seemed to be only interested in testing the waters, looking for assurances that there was to be no Chicken Little moment, while such hesitations nearly caused the sky to fall on the market. The anemic and tepid bidding was disastrous, only to be followed on both occasions by firm and decidedly successful performances at Christies. That both early sales by Sotheby’s failed the first day of the week was no coincidence. In the bigger picture, what a difference a year makes for Contemporary as both houses are down in volume about 85% from a year ago.
I’d like to share a poem I wrote on the way to the bank to deposit the proceeds from the sale of two watches (hard times demand tough actions):
A Bad Date
A bad date it was for Sotheby’s!
A lucky date, a hot date
A date with fate
Better late
For Christies
A major auction house recently sold an artwork for under £50,000—when the bidder evaporated as payment was due, they went as far as physically paying a visit to the residence to demand payment. I suppose it wasn’t Bill Ruprecht or Pinault doing the bidding in this instance, but in light of today’s stunning setbacks in every sector of the art and auction market, it well could have been. That’s proactive debt collection. From Sotheby’s dramatic stock slide to the 75% Tiffany & Co. is down (unless people have soured to marriage), everyone is desperately solicitous for business. Formerly aloof restaurant staff the world over are now mimicking the lyrics of the theme song from Cheers: “where everyone knows your name”. It’s as though we are all acting without a script, working harder than ever and never making less. One possible upside is that there seem to be more people losing weight, maybe because its cheaper to be thin, and there is more time to spend (if not money) on fitness. On top of everything, it may appear too indulgent to be overweight these days.
Charles Dickens began A Tale of Two Cities with the line: “It was the best of times it was the worst of times”, a fitting description of the present predicament. People say how can anyone contemplate buying art in such historic trying times, but if you really like art, try trying not to. The urge to collect art is as primal as the facility to make it. From the first cave drawing came the first ravenous collector. Even in the recession-corrected times we are in, yes, things are less, but not all reassessments are created equal. Talk about an about face—but if you can’t contradict yourself, who can you? There were pockets of surging performances in the Spring 2009 auctions, and many records set in the process, though the trend is substantially lower volume and much the same with values. Overall, that collectors are still confident enough to continue to plow millions into pigment on canvas proves the notion that art really is an acknowledged asset class in the best sense of the term, despite the dire and relentless prognostications of the media. This only goes to prove we will get through this malaise with the market if not thriving as it once was, nevertheless intact. And a note to all the persistent naysayers, you can’t take away the sun (unless you are an avowed Gore-ian, global warm-ist).
A well known hedge funder expressed the opinion that art would come to have no value; funny how the art market continues to trudge along at quite an astonishing rate all things considered, while his fund, down 75% last year, will continue to drown deep under his high water mark. In art and design, signs of hope are beginning to abound. There was a recent strong Asian art sale, nearly all sold and more importantly, to all Chinese buyers (albeit more traditional works than speculative contemporary). A lucrative design sale where 45 year-old Australian designer Marc Newson’s dresser/bureau more than doubled the low estimate to sell at $517,000 was followed a few weeks later by $1,613,000 achieved for his Lockhead lounge, the highest price ever fetched for a living designer. Take note it’s an edition of 10 (Ten!) with 5 (Five!) “artist’s proofs”. It is now indisputable that design has reached parity with contemporary art as a recognized and established collecting category. The Yves St Laruent sale of the Eileen Gray $30m chair phenomenon was apparently no fluke: there’s a new benchmark for…the bench.
In the latest spate of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary sales in New York there were nasty casualties such as an over estimated Picasso and Giacometti—no one and nothing is sacred from improbably high estimates. The art business today is characterized by the equation less art for less money equals more (solid results). Weak were recent high flyers like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, but there was still plenty of support even for such over-inflated artists by the likes of Larry Gagosian and other market preservers, and protectors. These players have vested interests too all-encompassing to permit collapse, or even the appearance of failure. In the past dealers colluded to keep prices artificially low to steal things on the cheap versus today where dealers and mega professional collectors frequently step in to provide a temporary fix to maintain and support the illusion of health and wealth in the system. Whether this propping will last is anyone’s guess.
Modern and Impressionism and Contemporary sales are two wildly different animals when it comes to market performance but hand it to Christies where the Contemporary results nearly mirrored the levels of Mod and Impressionist. When collectors are now flocking in droves to safer, historically established works, that’s as bullish an indicator as can be for recent art in particular and the market in general. As an addendum to the story of wealth barometers in the recessionary economy, a classic Ferrari just made over $12m, a record for a public sale, which was considered by the media a disappointment (the house was hoping for $15m it was stated). It’s enough to make tears well up when you consider the shortfall in expectations—could things really be so dismal that a car can’t achieve the price of a plane? I remember the days when a nice car could be had for a cool million.
Another Tale of Two Cities was the latest tale in the ongoing war of Sotheby’s vs. Christies. Sotheby’s held their May sales for Impressionist/Modern and Contemporary on consecutive Mondays while Christies followed on successive Tuesdays. This scheduling bifurcation of sales dates ended in very divergent results. In both Sotheby’s Monday auctions the buyers seemed to be only interested in testing the waters, looking for assurances that there was to be no Chicken Little moment, while such hesitations nearly caused the sky to fall on the market. The anemic and tepid bidding was disastrous, only to be followed on both occasions by firm and decidedly successful performances at Christies. That both early sales by Sotheby’s failed the first day of the week was no coincidence. In the bigger picture, what a difference a year makes for Contemporary as both houses are down in volume about 85% from a year ago.
I’d like to share a poem I wrote on the way to the bank to deposit the proceeds from the sale of two watches (hard times demand tough actions):
A Bad Date
A bad date it was for Sotheby’s!
A lucky date, a hot date
A date with fate
Better late
For Christies
Friday, March 20, 2009
TIME ISN'T MONEY (ANYMORE), Canvas Magazine, Art and Culture from the Middle East and Arab World, Spring 2009
I have made art for years for little or no audience—what better activity could there be in the face of such economic uncertainty? If ever there was an occasion for the mantra: Just Do It (Yourself), its now. Remember how time used to equal money; guess what? It no longer does. Procrastination may be an excuse but lack of time surely no longer is. Today is for taking stock; examining and considering what preceded the economic crisis and summing up how to positively move forward. In the midst of it all there will be a return to art about life in all its unadorned rawness, as content will revert to the social, political and spiritual, rather than the exclusively economic.
This is a propitious moment to establish new paradigms in how to patronize art. Not only should one negotiate with pomp and certitude but also try creative collecting, be as industrious as the artists you covet rather than strictly haggling. You can now have cake and pie: good art that is relatively cheap. Forget the last days of Christ, the last days of the art fair, or exhibit, or fill in the blank, is (a bargain hunters) paradise. But also, conjure new structures, new relationships with art and artists, what an ideal time for collaborations. Better still, shun art fairs altogether in protest, enough is enough, draw a line in the sand! Get into or back to the practice of visiting art galleries, local or remote, and ask to speak to the proprietor. Gone are the days when beyond the impossibly high reception desks gallery owners were harder to find than major CEO’s, only settle for an audience with the boss.
The British Arts Council has created a program of subsidized loans of up to £2,000 to purchase individual artworks (there is no limit to how many pieces a collector can accumulate) from a list of participating galleries and fairs. The Swiss government has started supporting local galleries to participate in fairs as well. So now your favorite gallery and art will be as government propped as your bank and car.
Or work directly with artists or galleries to find ways to help foster the production of art, take an interest in a particular artist or body of work or find ways to help disseminate artworks. A new era is upon us, akin to the American WPA (Work Projects Administration) that was the massive government aid effort to create jobs and foster arts during the Great Depression (will ours be the Greater Depression?). We are at the point where in some instances certain staples may soon be free, like food and shelter, as the alternative to families that can’t be fed or housed is not pretty. The newspapers report of plans being drawn to train British police to combat civil unrest. We have to go back to (get to) the future, but life will go on.
Contrary to popular belief, cash is not king, to be replaced by knowledge and experience. Old is the new new, the new young. We must reassess and value established but underappreciated and undervalued artists with a track record. No more historic prices for artists with no history. Why buy now what you can buy cheaper 6 months from now which mentality is paralyzing business. And there is no bottom in sight—at this point, even a plateau would be a blessing. Forget leapfrogging over one another in the scramble to buy art and other nonessentials. Some people are still searching for the next big thing, a home run when they should be concentrating on baby steps, relearning how to walk. The entire art experience had turned into a giant premature ejaculation, an encounter without much forethought or enjoyment. Those days are gone.
There is a new caveat emptor, so speculators beware, art is no longer for roulette spinners and dice rollers, for the odds have just gotten considerably worse. There is still possibly gold in the hills, but it’s closer to coal that might grow into diamonds over the long, long term (the diamond market is another recently decimated). We are at a new turtle’s pace, and not the one that beat the hare. Art will return to being viewed with deliberation and contemplation.
This is a post-economy economy in which losses replaced earnings. I don’t know a dealer that wouldn’t sell something at a loss to keep the continuity of cash flow. Banks have suffered total defeat, as the only solution to the near demise of the financial system has been to pour money on it like water on a raging fire. Sooner or later there will be accountability, expressed as inflation, mega bankruptcies or both and more. At which time a nicely rounded collection could be a boon. Stoking the art depression is the dying breed of collectors fighting the bonus onus: the burden of trying to get away with a seven-figure bonus (once earmarked for art) borne of taxpayer bailout money. For better not worse, buying stuff is no longer an acknowledged world pastime. The impulsive point of purchase transaction is finished as every penny is now measured with newfound urgency.
A Martian may as well have landed things have changed so radically from the recent past, namely, the demise of world’s economy and consumerism as we knew it. Is the economic calamity a coordinated Al Qaeda attack? Or have they been wiped out in bank stocks too? I am prepared to work for nothing today. Trying to make money is like flogging a dead horse, unless you are John Paulson shorting every bank across the land on a daily basis and single-handedly taking home a large portion of the world’s money supply in the process. Nowadays, three minutes can stretch into an eternity, thank god for the Internet to partially fill the void. Physiological manifestations like rashes and bodily pains are emerging among the population like weeds on a fertile field. Where every day is Friday the 13th, when the market goes up for an hour it’s considered a significant rally.
Stocks and other investments are beginning to sell at or below their net asset value. Citicorp has been trading for less than a dollar a share, about the price of a pack of chewing gum. That is unless things are sold in the context of the estate of some deceased fashionista’s over-decorated, lavish apartment, from Saint Laurent to Versace. Forget the Saint Laurent sale’s $11 million appropriated bottle of Marcel Duchamp perfume—a $30m chair is what was truly exciting (the amount fetched by an Eileen Gray unique piece from 1917-19—I hope it took her that long to make for that price). Imagine giving new meaning to kids, dogs and crumbs. As good as the Yves Saint Laurnent auction extravaganza was, it was no saint. These are still dark times getting darker, with the economy resembling a silent war being waged by a mysterious, unknown enemy that only makes it more perplexing and depressing. It feels like boot camp in preparation for an unforeseeable time when there will be a return to remuneration for one’s efforts. I have never worked harder for less.
We are faced with a mass mood of ascetics, where the creed has changed from How to Spend It (the weekend supplement of the Financial Times) to How to Keep It. in the article, How Art Killed Our Culture, by Jonathan Jones in the Guardian: “…art has become the enemy of truth, the murderer of decency. The modern world has screwed itself and art led the way.” Art has become the new boogey man, a scapegoat for the deep problems at hand. Through it all, when businesses are dropping like flies, if you are not gossiped about as being overexposed, bordering on insolvent, or even better, threatened by the Russian mafia or the target of a large lawsuit, you are nobody. Crating and shipping for international art exhibitions and fairs is as expensive as large designer handbags and now being doled out as carefully as caviar. What was formerly de rigueur is viewed as an indulgence. But even at today’s reduced valuations, there are inherent levels at which people will still pay.
We have to muster the strength to collectively will healthier times. For better or worse, people are like cockroaches, it will take far more than economic mayhem to bring us down.
This is a propitious moment to establish new paradigms in how to patronize art. Not only should one negotiate with pomp and certitude but also try creative collecting, be as industrious as the artists you covet rather than strictly haggling. You can now have cake and pie: good art that is relatively cheap. Forget the last days of Christ, the last days of the art fair, or exhibit, or fill in the blank, is (a bargain hunters) paradise. But also, conjure new structures, new relationships with art and artists, what an ideal time for collaborations. Better still, shun art fairs altogether in protest, enough is enough, draw a line in the sand! Get into or back to the practice of visiting art galleries, local or remote, and ask to speak to the proprietor. Gone are the days when beyond the impossibly high reception desks gallery owners were harder to find than major CEO’s, only settle for an audience with the boss.
The British Arts Council has created a program of subsidized loans of up to £2,000 to purchase individual artworks (there is no limit to how many pieces a collector can accumulate) from a list of participating galleries and fairs. The Swiss government has started supporting local galleries to participate in fairs as well. So now your favorite gallery and art will be as government propped as your bank and car.
Or work directly with artists or galleries to find ways to help foster the production of art, take an interest in a particular artist or body of work or find ways to help disseminate artworks. A new era is upon us, akin to the American WPA (Work Projects Administration) that was the massive government aid effort to create jobs and foster arts during the Great Depression (will ours be the Greater Depression?). We are at the point where in some instances certain staples may soon be free, like food and shelter, as the alternative to families that can’t be fed or housed is not pretty. The newspapers report of plans being drawn to train British police to combat civil unrest. We have to go back to (get to) the future, but life will go on.
Contrary to popular belief, cash is not king, to be replaced by knowledge and experience. Old is the new new, the new young. We must reassess and value established but underappreciated and undervalued artists with a track record. No more historic prices for artists with no history. Why buy now what you can buy cheaper 6 months from now which mentality is paralyzing business. And there is no bottom in sight—at this point, even a plateau would be a blessing. Forget leapfrogging over one another in the scramble to buy art and other nonessentials. Some people are still searching for the next big thing, a home run when they should be concentrating on baby steps, relearning how to walk. The entire art experience had turned into a giant premature ejaculation, an encounter without much forethought or enjoyment. Those days are gone.
There is a new caveat emptor, so speculators beware, art is no longer for roulette spinners and dice rollers, for the odds have just gotten considerably worse. There is still possibly gold in the hills, but it’s closer to coal that might grow into diamonds over the long, long term (the diamond market is another recently decimated). We are at a new turtle’s pace, and not the one that beat the hare. Art will return to being viewed with deliberation and contemplation.
This is a post-economy economy in which losses replaced earnings. I don’t know a dealer that wouldn’t sell something at a loss to keep the continuity of cash flow. Banks have suffered total defeat, as the only solution to the near demise of the financial system has been to pour money on it like water on a raging fire. Sooner or later there will be accountability, expressed as inflation, mega bankruptcies or both and more. At which time a nicely rounded collection could be a boon. Stoking the art depression is the dying breed of collectors fighting the bonus onus: the burden of trying to get away with a seven-figure bonus (once earmarked for art) borne of taxpayer bailout money. For better not worse, buying stuff is no longer an acknowledged world pastime. The impulsive point of purchase transaction is finished as every penny is now measured with newfound urgency.
A Martian may as well have landed things have changed so radically from the recent past, namely, the demise of world’s economy and consumerism as we knew it. Is the economic calamity a coordinated Al Qaeda attack? Or have they been wiped out in bank stocks too? I am prepared to work for nothing today. Trying to make money is like flogging a dead horse, unless you are John Paulson shorting every bank across the land on a daily basis and single-handedly taking home a large portion of the world’s money supply in the process. Nowadays, three minutes can stretch into an eternity, thank god for the Internet to partially fill the void. Physiological manifestations like rashes and bodily pains are emerging among the population like weeds on a fertile field. Where every day is Friday the 13th, when the market goes up for an hour it’s considered a significant rally.
Stocks and other investments are beginning to sell at or below their net asset value. Citicorp has been trading for less than a dollar a share, about the price of a pack of chewing gum. That is unless things are sold in the context of the estate of some deceased fashionista’s over-decorated, lavish apartment, from Saint Laurent to Versace. Forget the Saint Laurent sale’s $11 million appropriated bottle of Marcel Duchamp perfume—a $30m chair is what was truly exciting (the amount fetched by an Eileen Gray unique piece from 1917-19—I hope it took her that long to make for that price). Imagine giving new meaning to kids, dogs and crumbs. As good as the Yves Saint Laurnent auction extravaganza was, it was no saint. These are still dark times getting darker, with the economy resembling a silent war being waged by a mysterious, unknown enemy that only makes it more perplexing and depressing. It feels like boot camp in preparation for an unforeseeable time when there will be a return to remuneration for one’s efforts. I have never worked harder for less.
We are faced with a mass mood of ascetics, where the creed has changed from How to Spend It (the weekend supplement of the Financial Times) to How to Keep It. in the article, How Art Killed Our Culture, by Jonathan Jones in the Guardian: “…art has become the enemy of truth, the murderer of decency. The modern world has screwed itself and art led the way.” Art has become the new boogey man, a scapegoat for the deep problems at hand. Through it all, when businesses are dropping like flies, if you are not gossiped about as being overexposed, bordering on insolvent, or even better, threatened by the Russian mafia or the target of a large lawsuit, you are nobody. Crating and shipping for international art exhibitions and fairs is as expensive as large designer handbags and now being doled out as carefully as caviar. What was formerly de rigueur is viewed as an indulgence. But even at today’s reduced valuations, there are inherent levels at which people will still pay.
We have to muster the strength to collectively will healthier times. For better or worse, people are like cockroaches, it will take far more than economic mayhem to bring us down.
Friday, February 13, 2009
CARS AND COUTURE (Marc Faber's Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, Spring 09)
There is a new meaning of art appreciation today that has nothing to do with rising investment value. Consider it a reversion to a quaint time in the recent past, say, pre-2004. The era of big, flashy, overproduced art is a thing of the past. Now I understand the etymology of an economic depression: it’s damn depressing, but at the same time perversely exciting. The new economic order we collectively reside in is emasculating, but reading the business pages reveals I am in good company. In days when government money is the only way the Dow can get it up, the art market is as dead as Detroit. GM and Ford have been forced to sell their private planes, will the same fate befall artists’ Damien Hirst and Richard Prince? The only status symbol left, surely not art, is to lose more money than your peers.
We didn’t save when interest rates were measured in real numbers, now they are .01%, not quite foam-at-the-mouth inducements. Nobody seems to know, pundits and armchair quarterbacks alike, which way the market will go—from recovery in 6-9 months or a deep, dark depression for all of eternity, everyone’s got a theory. A year, two years, ten years, twenty, will somebody please tell me…something? The variance of the prognosis is dizzying. We are paying the piper for recent past hyperinflation, a sour medicine that brings little joy or satisfaction. But maybe shopping or collecting was never really the panacea the world bought into. Printing money cannot be the solution either: Hirst’s painting tactics, the art world equivalent, overfed demand by way of flooding the (spot) market with dot paintings.
The backlash has been immediate and widespread from art to design. Recent London Impressionist and Modern auctions were down substantially by volume and value and Contemporary sales fared even worse. Moribund. One upside is that insurance expenditures will drop substantially reflecting the overall decrease in the value of art collections for purposes of premium calculation. Just call in the feds for another insurance company bailout. Nevertheless, there was some very strong sales activity taking into consideration the goalposts have been moved. Ok, so the posts are now practically together. Areas where there has been white-hot, rampant speculation, i.e. Indian and Chinese art, with a tenfold increase in fewer years, were obvious targets for decimation, and the market did not disappoint.
It’s a novel phenomenon when the shift in currencies, the dollar’s surge at the expense of the pound over the past few months, accounted for a proportionate increase in USA based activity in the London auctions. In the truly global marketplace that art has become, the financial markets serve as automatic leveler where countries step in to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities when they arise, smoothing out currency fluctuations and steadying things in the process. At today’s rates, maybe US should do a reverse takeover of the UK.
Phillips De Pury Auction house was taken over by a Russian luxury goods conglomerate and subsequently moved to appoint a former East German Stasi agent to its top corporate position. And an ex-KGB agent has bought The Evening Standard newspaper in London. Spies running auction houses and newspapers—could these be plants, a twisted plot in a cold war revival to win the minds and eyes of the West in some kind of newfangled economic warfare involving the press and contemporary art? Or is that just a symptom of fiscal paranoia on my part?
Bentley has fully stopped production in the UK, and a three-day workweek has been instituted at Aston Martin. I have a shorter workweek, but that is due more to collectors’ disdain rather than forced attrition. There are a few economic anomalies and bright spots in the marketplace though, namely collectible cars and couture. January 2009 car sales at RM Auctions and Gooding and Co. were more than 80% and 90% sold respectively and at Gooding, at a level of value a third greater than in 2008. And couture sales at some of the major houses have reported record earnings increases of late. Perhaps the rare and classic car market never escalated too far ahead of itself as it did during the last cyclical (cynical) uptick and now cars are considered a covetable, tangible asset and safe haven; as for clothes, what better time to look uniquely your best when others are on the floor, down and out?
The present state of the world economy has breathed new life into the word depression. Its depressing knowing the chance of consummating another giant deal in my lifetime is so slim. There is relief in the notion that splitting a dinner bill is now an acceptable method of settling restaurant tabs. But what is the economic answer to antidepressants? Shall I go out on a radical limb: will this economic climate bring us back into the arms of appreciation for traditional ideals of craft and beauty?
I went to galleries on my own accord for the first time in five years after being largely priced out and the experience has again become interesting, even in it’s reductive, redacted new form. Welcome back seeing, learning and connoisseurship. There has never been a better time to start buying art than today; in fact, this could be a once in a life opportunity. Never has art been so broadly based and global in reach: the array of available works from Africa to the Middle East to every corner of the planet is enormous and of better quality that at any previous point in history. Even more alluring than the art itself is the fact that galleries are hobbled by the recent economic slowdown so much so that collectors, for the first time in nearly 20 years, can call the shots with regard to prices, demanding discounts, substantially greater than in the past, to a degree not seen if ever. And to top it all off, recession art is frequently more engaging than art made during a time of complacency to feed a voracious market. Maybe a depression is not so depressing after all.
We didn’t save when interest rates were measured in real numbers, now they are .01%, not quite foam-at-the-mouth inducements. Nobody seems to know, pundits and armchair quarterbacks alike, which way the market will go—from recovery in 6-9 months or a deep, dark depression for all of eternity, everyone’s got a theory. A year, two years, ten years, twenty, will somebody please tell me…something? The variance of the prognosis is dizzying. We are paying the piper for recent past hyperinflation, a sour medicine that brings little joy or satisfaction. But maybe shopping or collecting was never really the panacea the world bought into. Printing money cannot be the solution either: Hirst’s painting tactics, the art world equivalent, overfed demand by way of flooding the (spot) market with dot paintings.
The backlash has been immediate and widespread from art to design. Recent London Impressionist and Modern auctions were down substantially by volume and value and Contemporary sales fared even worse. Moribund. One upside is that insurance expenditures will drop substantially reflecting the overall decrease in the value of art collections for purposes of premium calculation. Just call in the feds for another insurance company bailout. Nevertheless, there was some very strong sales activity taking into consideration the goalposts have been moved. Ok, so the posts are now practically together. Areas where there has been white-hot, rampant speculation, i.e. Indian and Chinese art, with a tenfold increase in fewer years, were obvious targets for decimation, and the market did not disappoint.
It’s a novel phenomenon when the shift in currencies, the dollar’s surge at the expense of the pound over the past few months, accounted for a proportionate increase in USA based activity in the London auctions. In the truly global marketplace that art has become, the financial markets serve as automatic leveler where countries step in to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities when they arise, smoothing out currency fluctuations and steadying things in the process. At today’s rates, maybe US should do a reverse takeover of the UK.
Phillips De Pury Auction house was taken over by a Russian luxury goods conglomerate and subsequently moved to appoint a former East German Stasi agent to its top corporate position. And an ex-KGB agent has bought The Evening Standard newspaper in London. Spies running auction houses and newspapers—could these be plants, a twisted plot in a cold war revival to win the minds and eyes of the West in some kind of newfangled economic warfare involving the press and contemporary art? Or is that just a symptom of fiscal paranoia on my part?
Bentley has fully stopped production in the UK, and a three-day workweek has been instituted at Aston Martin. I have a shorter workweek, but that is due more to collectors’ disdain rather than forced attrition. There are a few economic anomalies and bright spots in the marketplace though, namely collectible cars and couture. January 2009 car sales at RM Auctions and Gooding and Co. were more than 80% and 90% sold respectively and at Gooding, at a level of value a third greater than in 2008. And couture sales at some of the major houses have reported record earnings increases of late. Perhaps the rare and classic car market never escalated too far ahead of itself as it did during the last cyclical (cynical) uptick and now cars are considered a covetable, tangible asset and safe haven; as for clothes, what better time to look uniquely your best when others are on the floor, down and out?
The present state of the world economy has breathed new life into the word depression. Its depressing knowing the chance of consummating another giant deal in my lifetime is so slim. There is relief in the notion that splitting a dinner bill is now an acceptable method of settling restaurant tabs. But what is the economic answer to antidepressants? Shall I go out on a radical limb: will this economic climate bring us back into the arms of appreciation for traditional ideals of craft and beauty?
I went to galleries on my own accord for the first time in five years after being largely priced out and the experience has again become interesting, even in it’s reductive, redacted new form. Welcome back seeing, learning and connoisseurship. There has never been a better time to start buying art than today; in fact, this could be a once in a life opportunity. Never has art been so broadly based and global in reach: the array of available works from Africa to the Middle East to every corner of the planet is enormous and of better quality that at any previous point in history. Even more alluring than the art itself is the fact that galleries are hobbled by the recent economic slowdown so much so that collectors, for the first time in nearly 20 years, can call the shots with regard to prices, demanding discounts, substantially greater than in the past, to a degree not seen if ever. And to top it all off, recession art is frequently more engaging than art made during a time of complacency to feed a voracious market. Maybe a depression is not so depressing after all.
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