New York Art Auctions Bring in $1 Billion

November was a very good month for Christie’s and Sotheby’s New York operations. Combined, they sold off $1 billion of art. And the artists weren’t just the usual suspects of Renoir, Van Gogh and Picasso. Andy Warhol’s portrait of Mao set a record at $17.3 million, and Andy’s not been dead 20 years yet. All of this is a sign that money is running out of places to go.

Globalization has brought about a great deal of opportunity and for those with the luck, connections and talent, that has meant a great deal of money. Very little of that money has trickled down. There are still 2 billion people on Earth living on a couple dollars a day. Meanwhile, a painting of arts patron Adele Block-Bauer by Gustav Klimt sold for $87.3 million.

Owen Moritz of New York’s Daily News reported today that “Christie’s says its buyers during two weeks of feverish auctions in mid-November were about 40% American, 42% European, 4% Asian, 3% Latin American and 1.5% Russian.” The money still flows to where it always has, but there are some extremely well-off folks in the developing world.

David Norman, director of Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s, explained what’s going on quite succinctly. He told Mr. Moritz, “There’s just a tremendous amount of liquidity in the world. After they buy the homes and the boats, people build art collections.” Art collecting is expensive, but if there’s still money left over from all the other conspicuous consumption, why not?

This journal values the arts greatly. When one says a piece is priceless, that is absolutely true. The greatest art humanity has produced is best displayed in public museums, though. It shouldn’t hang in the drawing room of some LBO wizard, trust fund baby or fellow whose grandfather happened to pitch a tent atop a lake of oil (they’d probably call it the “living room” or the “front room” anyway). At some point, a painting, sculpture, dance or novel goes beyond being something to own. It becomes the common heritage of mankind. Would it be so very awful if the truly wealthy did what the obscenely rich in the 19th century did, and build museums for those whose labor made them rich? After all, the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo's David belong to everyone. So does Mr. Warhol's Mao, although one mightn't hang it very prominently.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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