Suspended animation A special report on the art market l November 28th 2009 ArtMarketSUR.indd 1 17/11/09 13:27:35 The Economist November 28th 2009 A special report on the art market 1 Suspended animation Also in this section The world’s biggest saleroom Auctions are moving online. Page 3 New or secondhand? The ins and outs of primary and secondary markets. Page 4 How to make art history Validation in the contemporary market. Page 6 The Pop master’s highs and lows Andy Warhol is the bellwether. Page 7 Inatable investments The volatile art of Je Koons. Page 9 Treasures reclaimed The art market has su ered from the recession, but globalisation China is bringing home its works of art. should help it recover, say Fiammetta Rocco and Sarah Thornton Page 10 HE longest bull run in a century of art• world’s two biggest auction houses, Soth• Tmarket history ended on a dramatic eby’s and Christie’s, had to pay out nearly A whole new world note with a sale of 56 works by Damien $200m in guarantees to clients who had Art is becoming increasingly globalised. Hirst, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, placed works for sale with them. Page 13 at Sotheby’s in London on September 15th The current downturn in the art market 2008 (see picture). All but two pieces sold, is the worst since the Japanese stopped fetching more than £70m, a record for a buying Impressionists at the end of 1989, a sale by a single artist. It was a last hurrah. move that started the most serious contrac• As the auctioneer called out bids, in New tion in the market since the second world York one of the oldest banks on Wall Street, war. This time experts reckon that prices Lehman Brothers, led for bankruptcy. are about 40% down on their peak on aver• The world art market had already been age, though some have been far more vola• losing momentum for a while after rising tile. But Edward Dolman, Christie’s chief vertiginously since 2003. At its peak in executive, says: I’m pretty condent we’re 2007 it was worth some $65 billion, reck• at the bottom. ons Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Eco• What makes this slump di erent from nomics, a research rmdouble the gure the last, he says, is that there are still buyers Acknowledgments ve years earlier. Since then it may have in the market, whereas in the early 1990s, Sarah Thornton is the author of Seven Days in the Art World (Norton, 2009). The authors would like to express come down to $50 billion. But the market when interest rates were high, there was their thanks to the many people who helped in the generates interest far beyond its size be• no demand even though many collectors preparation of this special report. A full list of cause it brings together great wealth, enor• wanted to sell. Christie’s revenues in the acknowledgments and sources is at mous egos, greed, passion and controversy rst half of 2009 were still higher than in Economist.com/specialreports in a way matched by few other industries. the rst half of 2006. Almost everyone In the weeks and months that followed who was interviewed for this special re• Pictures Mr Hirst’s sale, spending of any sort be• port said that the biggest problem at the Cover: Sam Taylor•Wood, Self•Portrait Suspended V, came deeply unfashionable, especially in moment is not a lack of demand but a lack 2004, C•print. Courtesy White Cube. D Andy Warhol, Eight Elvises, © The Andy Warhol New York, where the bail•out of the banks of good work to sell. The three sdeath, Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. coincided with the loss of thousands of debt and divorcestill deliver works of art Shadi Ghadirian, Like Everyday Yellow Glove, 2000•01. jobs and the nancial demise of many art• to the market. But anyone who does not Courtesy Saatchi Gallery. buying investors. In the art world that have to sell is keeping away, waiting for meant collectors stayed away from galler• condence to return. An audio interview with the author is at ies and salerooms. Sales of contemporary The best that can be said about the mar• Economist.com/audiovideo art fell by two•thirds, and in the most over• ket at the moment is that it is holding its heated sectorfor Chinese contemporary breath. But this special report will argue More articles about the art market are at artthey were down by nearly 90% in the that it will bounce back, and that the key to Economist.com/artview year to November 2008. Within weeks the its recovery lies in globalisation. The sup• 1 2 A special report on the art market The Economist November 28th 2009 2 ply of the best works of art will always be Warhol’s giant faces of Chairman Mao was limited, but in the longer run demand is Planet art 1 $17.4m, paid by Joseph Lau, a Hong Kong bound to rise as wealth is spreading ever Sales of fine art at auction, by country, 2008 property developer. It was the rst major more widely across the globe. Warhol to go to the Far East. A month later United States Britain The World Wealth Report, published by 35.7 34.5 the Qatar royal family bought a Hirst pill Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, charts the cabinet, entitled Lullaby Spring, for spending habits of the rich the world over. £9.7m, the rst major Hirst bound for the % It includes art as one of a range of luxury Other China Middle East. Everyone wants an iconic items they like to buy. According to the re• 9.3 7.7 work, which helps explain the global de• France port, in 2007 there were over 10m people Switzerland 6.0 mand for artists such as Warhol, Je Koons with investible assets of $1m or more. Last 1.5 and Mr Hirstand the eye•watering prices year that number dropped to 8.6m and Germany Italy such work can command. many rich people scaled back their invest• 2.5 2.8 Source: Arts Economics ments of passionyachts, jets, cars, jewel• Masters of the art universe lery and so on. But the proportion of all Straddling all areas of the art market is a luxury spending that went on art in• lectors and museums tend to hold on to handful of individuals who have emerged creased as investors looked for assets that what they have. Old Master paintings, for as the key gures in the art world in recent would hold their value in the longer term. example, have stuck at around 5% of both years. Chief among them is François Pi• The regional spread of buyers also Sotheby’s and Christie’s sales for many nault, a luxury•goods billionaire who is changed signicantly as some parts of the years. By contrast, contemporary art, also a noted collector of contemporary art world became relatively richer. During the which in the early 1990s accounted for less and the owner of Christie’s. Philippe Séga• boom the number of wealthy people in than 10% of Sotheby’s revenues, grew to lot, his French•born adviser, was behind Russia, India, China and the Middle East nearly 30% of greatly increased revenues one of the biggest deals involving a single rose rapidly. In 2003 Sotheby’s biggest buy• by last year. Dealers and auction houses work of art, the private sale of Warhol’s ersthose who purchased lots costing at now sell more post•war and contempo• 1963 painting, Eight Elvises, to an anony• least $500,000came from 36 countries. rary art than anything else. This report will mous buyer for over $100m. By 2007 they were spread over 58 coun• concentrate on that part of the market, Mr Ségalot is also believed to be advis• tries and their total number had tripled. which accounts for about half the world’s ing the royal family of Qatar, which in the That upward trend is still continuing, art trade and most of the excitement. past two years has spent large sums buying and many of the new buyers take a partic• Part of the extra demand has come from modern art at auction, including record• ular interest in the art of their own place a large increase in the number of muse• breaking works by Mark Rothko and Mr and time. Last year China overtook France ums. Over the past 25 years more than 100 Hirst. Steven Cohen, an American hedge• as the world’s third•biggest art market after have been built, not only in America and fund billionaire, also owns works by War• America and Britain (see chart 1), and some Europe but also in the sheikhdoms of the hol, Mr Hirst and Mr Koons. Mr Cohen 25% by value of the 100,000•plus works of Persian Gulf and the fast•growing cities in used to be a sizeable shareholder of Soth• art sold by Christie’s went to buyers from Asia; sometimes in partnership with West• eby’s and is still an important provider of Russia, Asia and the Middle East. ern institutions, such as the Guggenheim liquidity to art buyers. Auction records remain dominated by or the Louvre, sometimes on their own. The popularity of blockbuster art exhi• Impressionist and modern works (see ta• Many of these institutions have made bitions and the emergence of buyers with ble 2), but the biggest expansion in recent their mark by buying contemporary art.