How long can the art market walk on water?
The wealth of the super-rich is keeping the miracle going
but mostly for the best works
By Charlotte Burns. Market, Issue 237, July-August 2012
Published online: 05 July 2012
The top end of the art market appears to keep climbing,
despite fresh crises in the currency and banking markets and ongoing turmoil in
the Eurozone. The reportedly strong sales at Art Basel (13-17 June) indicate a
buoyancy bearing little relationship to the problems in the global economy and
the fact that major financial institutions are still struggling with risk
management—J.P. Morgan was one of several banks to be downgraded by the credit
agencies in June after losing $2bn in trades of illiquid credit derivatives.
Meanwhile, according to a report in the New York Times, the growth of the art
market is outstripping GDP (gross domestic product).
The $78m price tag for Untitled, 1954, a large orange
canvas by the late Mark Rothko offered by Marlborough Gallery at Art Basel, was
both a statement of intent and an indicator of confidence, at least at the very
top level of the market. Works of this quality are rarely offered so openly by
dealers, but the piece had been coaxed out of a private Swiss collection after
the record-breaking $86.9m sale of another work by Rothko, Orange
Art Basel, and the quality it purveys, proves rather
reassuring in such turbulent times,” says Andrew Renton, the director of
Marlborough Contemporary. The 1954 Rothko was yet to find a buyer as we went to
press, though Renton
Remarkably, 11 of the top 20 works ever sold at auction
have hammered down since 2008, including the top three lots, which have all
sold for more than $100m since 2010. New records have also been consistently
set for individual artists. There was excitement at Christie’s sale of
contemporary art in London on 27 June when a
record £12.9m ($20.2m) was paid for Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled, 1981,
breaking the previous record of $16.3m, set in May at Phillips de Pury in New York
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