Cathy's Art Diary

Intriguing online talk from The Art Newspaper looking at whether the art market can be manipulated by gaming type behaviour. Anna Brady, Anny Shaw and Georgina Adam from the journal discussed whether manipulation of the art market could occur in the same way that buyers influenced the stock price of Gamestop recently. Adam carefully laid out how the art market was different and this probably wouldn’t happen but they went on to discuss ways people do try to manipulate the market. They discussed some interesting recent cases such as the Zombie Formalists which gave me lots to look up and learn more about. They then talked about Non Fundable Tokens (NFTs) in light of the recent sale of a digital only art work by Christie’s Beeple’s “Everydays: The first 5,000 days”, the first work of this type to be sold by an auction house. The discussed the possible benefits to the market of applying NFTs to physical works as well as digital only ones. They ended by looking at how art fairs had c...

Fascinating online interview from the Art Newspaper with Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics analysing how the art market has been affected by the Covid crisis. This was the last session in a series on the art market "New Models for New Times: Rethinking the Art Market in a Changing World" in which McAndrew was interviewed by Georgina Adam, editor-at-large of the Arts Newspaper. McAndrew took us through various charts and graphs of how the marker has reacted to the crisis. She felt the worse performers were the mid-range galleries selling at $250-500K with all galleries sales being down an average of 30%. Auction sales were down 50% in value compared to the previous year but partly because the number of lots were down. She compared the real and online markets, with online obviously increasing with online sales making up 37% of sales this year as opposed to 10% the year before. They then discussed how the galleries and auction houses had adapted to the issues and reflected ...

Fascinating talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival by Philip Hook from Sotheby’s talking about the role of dealers in art. He admitted himself that despite the title of the talk and his book that not all dealers have been rogues. He talked about how dealers can influence taste either by trading and creating a demand or by championing particular artists and establishing them. He talked about how Joseph Duveen has influenced the art in American galleries as he bought from impoverished European aristocrats and sold to American moguls who later bequeathed them to the galleries. He was known for using “below stairs intelligence” ie bribing the servants to get information on the families involved. He quoted Paul Durand- Ruel as an example of a dealer who championed artists and a style. He spotted that the new Impressionist work was not getting into the Saloons and selling so he acted for the artists and organised shows of their work. As ever wi...