Artelligence Podcast: Recent Episodes
Marion Maneker
The Artelligence Podcast presented by LiveArt unpacks the mysteries of the global art market through interviews with collectors, dealers, auction house specialists, lawyers, art advisors, and the myriad individuals who make the art market a beguiling mixture of sublime beauty and commercial acumen.
Dane Jensen just opened his own art advisory firm in Los Angeles. He has worked in the art and auction industry as a curator, auction house specialist and art advisor. He became much more visible after engaging in an epic bidding war over Ernie Barnes’s The Sugar Shack II that sold to energy trader Bill Perkins for more than $15 million at Christie’s in May of 2022. In this podcast, Jensen talks about the role of an art advisor as well as what makes Los Angeles distinctive in terms of its collectors, their goals and what they value. We also talk about Ernie Barnes, how his market has rapidly globalized and, of course, what it was like to bid in that wild auction for The Sugar Shack.
In this podcast, David Galperin, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art for the Americas talks about the success of Justin Caguiat’s work in last month’s The Now sale, the continuing success of Jadé Fadojutimi’s work and how the cycle of discovery has accelerated. Why do young artists or historically overlooked artists launch so quickly into auction sales cycles? How does the discovery market function and what’s the interplay between galleries and auction houses.
Natasha Degen is the chair of the graduate program in art market studies at FIT in New York. She has just published a book called Merchants of Style, Art and Fashion after Warhol. That subtitle doesn’t really capture the depth and nuance of her book. SHe has written an anatomy of the ways art and fashion have become intertwined in the present-day global economy. It’s not just that major fashion brands have latched onto artists as way to market their wares and their brands. Degen unpacks the cultural codes and institutional structures that have promoted this convergence. In this podcast, she also speculates on what has been gained and lost by both art and fashion—and what’s at risk going forward.
The New York auctions begin this week with just over 2000 lots on offer. The combined low estimate is nearly $1.37 billion dollars. If we remove the Allen collection from last November’s sales, we’re still at about the same level in terms of the value of the low estimate. If that doesn’t surprise you, you’re lucky.That means you didn’t spend three months after November’s auctions waiting for a global recession to begin. During that period, little art traded hands. Now that the economic slowdown hasn’t happened—yet—it would seem as though the art market is trying to make up for lost time and take advantage of this goldilocks moment. Pre-sale guarantees seem to be down but the freight train of collections and estates hasn’t stopped either. In this podcast, we’re going to hear from the specialists at Christie’s, Phillips and Sotheby’s about some of the lots selling this month. There’s so much high quality art on offer, we’re not going to get to it all. But here are some of the interesting stories.
When the $270 million dollar Gerald Fineberg collection was announced, Christie’s Sara Friedlander remarked that the Boston real estate developer, “bought art like a curator.” Citing his ability to go deep into key movements like the artists of Black Mountain College, the Ninth Street Women, Gutai, Pop, Minimalism, Arte Povera and the Pictures Generation, Friedlander also points out that Fineberg had important works by Gerhard Richter, Christopher Wool, Alice Neel, Man Ray, Beauford Delaney and Barkley Hendricks. We sat down this week to talk through as much of the art on offer as we could possibly discuss in 30 minutes. Highlights from the Fineberg collection are on view at Christie’s until May 13th when the entire collection will be on display at the auction house’s Rockefeller Center headquarters. The highlights are hung in an engaging “salon” style—that means the works are sitting edge-to-edge—but the final exhibition will offer a different perspective. Auction season in New York is a rare opportunity to see art. The auction houses are open to the public. So avail yourself of this privilege starting May 6th.
S.I. Newhouse Jr. was a titan of the media business in the late 20th Century, presiding over Conde Nast but also owning with his brother Donald Advance Publication’s chain of newspapers and other cable television properties and networks. He was one of the preeminent collectors of Post-war and Contemporary art. Through the painter Alexander Liberman, who served as Conde Nast’s Editorial Director, he met the abstract expressionist Barnett Newman. Through Newman, he developed an interest in abstract expressionism and color field painting. But Newhouse was also a restless and inquisitive collector open to pursuing new ideas and remaking his collection continually. Alex Rotter, Chairman of Christie’s 20/21 art departments, and Max Carter, a Vice Chairman, sat down to talk about Newhouse as a collector and the important works that are being sold this season.
The global auction and art fair calendar hardly seems like the fascinating subject that it really is. The art world still operates on a schedule largely established decades ago. The disruption of the global pandemic seemed to offer an opportunity to reshape those assumptions. Asia has become more important and art fairs are proliferating from Seoul to Los Angeles and Paris. Nevertheless, 2022 saw the old auction calendar re-emerge. Judging by the very strong numbers posted last year, sales haven’t suffered. So what will happen next? To answer that question, I spoke to Phillips CEO Stephen Brooks. Phillips is the first to open a dedicated Hong Kong headquarters. His rivals will have their own premises next year. That means there is likely to be an auction season twice a year in Hong Kong either in 2024 or sometime thereafter just as there is in New York and London. How that will fit into the calendar and how auction houses view the growing number of sales opportunities is the subject of our conversation. I hope you enjoy it.
Cecily Brown has been a prominent painter for more than a quarter century. But starting in the last 5 years, her importance in the art market has grown substantially. With the opening of Death and the Maid at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, it seemed like a good time to discuss her market. The Met show is one of only a handful of museum shows that Brown has participated in including Boston’s MFA in 2006 and the Louisiana Museum in 2018. To get a better sense of how collectors view and value her work, I spoke to Hugo Nathan, one of the principles of art advisory Beaumont Nathan. As an art dealer and collector himself, Hugo has worked on a broad range of art from the Renaissance to Contemporary. His firm have advised a number of clients on the market for Cecily Brown’s work. We spoke early on the morning that the Met show opened
CJ Hendry is an artist “of sorts,” she says. She’s an Instagram phenom, an entrepreneur, a copyright provocateur and an impresario. Last year she converted a church in London into an immersive experience that involved a never-ending indoor “snowstorm.” This month in Brooklyn, she has created a massive indoor playground for children and adults for a show called Plaid. From her renovated Brooklyn townhouse just featured in Architectural Digest to acting as her own gallery to a documentary about her Copyright Infringement public art projects, there’s no shortage of topics to discuss. Hendry and I sat down in her studio to go through them.
Editions, or the sales of prints and multiple works, is an auction category that is rarely discussed. For many artists, editioned work is a significant part of their practice. Over the last several years, there has been an explosion in interest and auction activity. In 2021, Phillips saw a record-breaking year for its Editions sales. Since then, auction volume has risen another 30% to a total of $40 million in sales in 2022. Phillips editions department was founded in 2008. Since that time, there has been a five-fold increase in bidders registered with the house. To discuss the growth of the editions market, we spoke with Robert Kennan, Phillips’s head of editions in Europe.
Innovation is so important to Kenneth Noland's practice, says Pace Gallery's Alex Brown in this podcast. This month, Pace brings a show of Noland's Stripes, Plaids and Shapes to Chelsea after a successful run in their London gallery. To get a better understanding of Noland's career, we spoke with Bill Noland, the artist's son; then Alex Brown and the Noland estate's long-term advisor, Douglas Baxter, help us understand the market for the artist.
Sara Friedlander, a deputy Chairman at Christie’s who styles herself and “art merchant,” joins LiveArt’s George O’Dell to discuss the first New York sales of 2023. The auction calendar is anchored by the May & November sales in New York but the rest of the year is a free-for-all of sales. On a year-over-year basis, the New York Contemporary art sales were up in dollar volume due to presence of two single-owner sales but down only slightly on a like-for-like basis. Sara points out that she has never seen the primary market so strong which makes her wonder who are the new names that auctioneers should be bringing to market. Meanwhile, on the secondary market, sales are heavily dependent upon estimates. Bidders are reacting to perceived value. George and Sara talk about the market for Cecily Brown, Albert Oehlen, Shara Hughes, Leon Polk Smith, Bob Thompson and together they plot a Richard Estes show to spearhead the return of Photorealism to market favor.
Philip Guston Now is the biggest international retrospective of the artist's work in a generation. It's debut at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC this month comes shortly after the announcement of a major gift of the artist's work to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Both the retrospective and the donation contain a considerable number of works from the artist's daughter, Musa Mayer. In this podcast, we speak to the National Gallery's Harry Cooper, a curator of the show, about Guston's long and varied career. Cooper also talks about the confusion around Guston's symbolism and difficulty in knowing the meaning or intent of his paintings. After that, we speak to collector Claude Reich about Guston's market and why the artist attracts so many elite collectors yet still remains significantly undervalued compared to his peers.
The art market has been holding its breath for nearly three months. How will the global economy affect the art market in 2023? With the important London auctions now on view, we speak to Sotheby's Helena Newman, Phillips's Cheyenne Westphal, Christie's Keith Gill, Olivier Camu and Tessa Lord, as well as Sotheby's James Sevier to learn more about the upcoming lots including a $45 million Kandinsky on offer through restitution, a several Gerhard Richter abstract paintings at different price points, a very early work by Lucian Freud, a collection of diverse Surrealist talents assembled by a San Francisco "tech" couple and much more.
Noah Horowitz returned to Art Basel as CEO after a year and a half away at Sotheby's. In his new role, which is also a new role for the company, Horowitz is rebuilding the Art Basel team around a strategy for a bigger art fair business with more galleries, more fairs and more opportunities. In this podcast, he talks about the importance of each fair in the Art Basel constellation meeting the needs of galleries, collectors and the cities that surround them. But he also looks toward the future and the ways in which Art Basel can grow beyond the art fair business it grew out of.
Acquavella Gallery has represented the artist Wayne Thiebaud since 2011. The artist, who died on Christmas day in 2021 at the age of 101 was serious about his art, teaching and tennis. How serious was he about his art? Thiebaud worked on one painting for 32 years. Now the Fondation Beyeler has a show of 65 works by Thiebaud that will introduce the breadth of his work to a global audience. In this podcast, Eleanor Acquavella explains the unique factors that have led to a dramatic rise in value in the Thiebaud market and the reasons it might have taken so long for the artist to achieve this moment of recognition.
One of the clear trends visible in last year’s auction data is a renewed interest in abstract painting. Bidders are pursuing a range of overlooked artists from the 1940s and 1950s. Into that trend, David Zwirner Gallery has opened a new show, Roma New York, 1953-64. The exhibition more than 50 works by 23 different artists highlights the connection between some of the giants of mid-century art like Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Franz Kline and Cy Twombly , as well as lesser known names like Conrad Marca-Relli, and a group of Italian artists in Rome like Carla Accardi, Afro, Alberto Burri, Piero Dorazio, Luigi Boille, Gastone Novelli, Jannis Kounellis and Mario Schifano. The show is filled with discoveries. That may be why one obsessive gallery-goer on Instagram called it, “the most magnificent gallery show in New York right now.”In this podcast, the show’s curator David Leiber, who is also a partner at David Zwirner Gallery, explains the origins of the show and what he hopes to it will provoke.
Who are the hottest artists at auction in 2022 whose markets are likely to continue to rise in 2023? George O'Dell talks us through the trends that emerged from looking at more than 200 artists whose overall auction prices were well above the estimates. We identified six main trends: 1) strong demand for artists who are women; 2) revivals of forgotten or undervalued artists; 3) big names gaining value; 4) naive painters; 5) surrealists and their contemporary admirers; as well as demand for 6) a wide range of quirky Asian artists and historical Asian painters.To identify these trends and the artists who drive them, we calculated the hammer ratios for all auction lots by artist. The hammer ratio is the final hammer price of all lots sold divided by the aggregate low estimate of all lots offered. If works don’t sell—an increasingly rare phenomenon these days—or sell below the estimates, the hammer ratio can fall below 1.00. Conversely, if works sell above the estimate range (a hammer ratio of 1.5 or above) and the artist has enough works offered during the year, we can get a sense that demand is at a higher level than sellers anticipated. Then we removed any artist with fewer than 10 auction records, sorted by hammer ratio and looked at more than 200 artists whose work was bid above the estimates. From those 200, we could see the trends discussed here.
Laura Paulson is Principal at Gagosian Art Advisory where she has recently advised on the sale of David M. Solinger's collection which featured the much-talked about Willem de Kooning "Collage." Earlier this year, Paulson also advised on the sale of the Macklowe collection which galvanized the market and was briefly the most valuable single-owner collection ever sold. In this podcast, Paulson discusses the strategy behind the Solinger heirs decision not to take a global guarantee or third-party guarantees on any of the lots. The result was a 100% sell-through rate on the collection. From her vantage point as a former senior specialist at both Sotheby's and Christie's and in her role as advisor to collections reaching their term, Paulson has a valuable perspective on the current market as well as a considered view as to how the next few years might play out.
Lucius Elliott and Kelsey Leonard go through some of the sales trends in the November auctions with LiveArt's George O'Dell. David Hockney, new market share levels for female artists, Abstract and Color Field painters, Christina Quarles, Lauren Quin, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Louise Nevelson, Andy Warhol and Salmon Toor are the artists and markets covered in this conversation.
Lock Kresler is a Senior Director at Helly Nahmad Gallery in London. He's deeply involved in the private market but also spent a decade working at Christie's. In this conversation with George O'Dell of LiveArt, Kresler comments on the success of Paul G. Allen Collection, the uneven nature of this season's sales and how that will influence both the public and private markets going forward.
The Day sales are where the art market does its business. These marathon marts are where dealers, art advisors and the occasional brave collector chase the works they believe in. Collecting trends, price movements and discoveries all take place in the day sales. LiveArt's George O'Dell, Arina Novak and Sophie Coco discuss a broad range of artists on offer in the Day sales from a wide array of Abstract Expressionists to recent market mainstays like Scott Kahn. Join us for a preview of what to watch for during next week's action.
In 2022, artist Lynne Drexler's work exploded on the art market. An artist who had briefly shown in the early 1960s in New York, she continued to work on a remote island in Maine until her death in 1999. Two decades later, she became the artist of the moment. Sukanya Rajaratnam and Christine Berry have collaborated on a dual-gallery show of Drexler's work from her first decade, 1959-1969, The shows at Berry Campbell and Mnuchin have drawn in new audiences and further burnished Drexler's reputation. In this podcast, Christie's Julian Ehrlich joins Berry and Rajaratnam to tell the story of Lynne Drexler's extraordinary year.
LiveArt's sales team discussed the Paul Allen collection at Christie's, Alex Katz's market in light of his retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, and the new record prices set for Alighiero Boetti's work in Paris and the expectation of an even bigger record in New York this month.
Christie's Chairman Marc Porter talks about Paul Allen as a collector and the role philanthropy now plays in the sale of the major art collections of our time. Max Carter discusses the challenge of estimating a wide array of artists in a collection that ranges over hundreds of years. Led by works from Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, Klimt, van Gogh, Boticelli, Manet, Jasper Johns, Lucian Freud, David Hockney and many more artists.
LiveArt's George O'Dell and Sophie Coco discuss the mood in the market. George is just back from Paris Plus, the new Art Basel fair in Paris. He gives his impressions on the difference between the Paris and London markets. Can the two fairs survive side-by-side as they have for years or will one win out? Sophie and George also assess the Fondation Louis Vuitton Monet Mitchell show that brings together late works by both artists who lived in similar landscapes outside Paris but at different times. How does the pairing of two giants from different eras influence collectors? And what about the Joan Mitchell retrospective also on view at the same time? Finally, with so much interest in women abstract painters, in general, and such market curiosity surrounding the work of Alice Baber, in particular, Sophie talks through the decision tree collectors must consider when seeking out the next hot name.
Fresh off Sotheby's strongest Frieze-week sales ever, James Sevier discusses the state of the Contemporary art market. London was filled with eager buyers who packed the fairs and auctions. More than $257 million was spent at auction and there's no telling how much more changed hands at the various fairs and galleries in London. In this conversation, Sevier talks about the mood in the market, the effect of the cheaper pound on how consignors behave and the strong demand for artists like David Hockney, Frank Auerbach and Caroline Walker.
LiveArt's sales team of George O'Dell, Adam Rutledge, Sophie Coco and Arina Novak discuss Sotheby's Hong Kong Contemporary art sale where $81m in art was sold but the bidding was lackluster overall. Still, there were strong sales for Emily Mae Smith, Maria Berrio, Lynne Drexler, Lucy Bull and Louise Bonnet. Then the discussion shifts to what the sales team wants to see at Frieze London—especially the presentations of prominent galleries and the special presentation of AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions.)
Isa Lorenzo founded Silverlens Galleries in Manila in 2004. She was joined three years later by co-Director Rachel Rillo. Together they built an innovative gallery program in Manila and on the global art fair circuit. After partnering with galleries around the world for several years, Lorenzo and Rillo discovered they were seeing significant traffic to their website and social media from the United States. There was also serious interest from curators about their artists. The team opened in the heart of New York's Chelsea this autumn a space where they hope to show their international stable of artists and use the gallery as a site of collaborations.
George O'Dell, Sophie Coco and Arina Novak discuss the results from New York's mid-season Fall sale opening auctions. With $69 million in art sold at an 84.5% sell-through rate, the market remains stronger than many expected though the tug-o-war between sellers and buyers is now at a draw after several seasons where sellers were in the advantaged position. In this podcast, we discuss results for artists like Amy Sillman, Danielle Orchard, Louise Bonnet, Lynne Drexler, Mary Weatherford, Rashid Johnson, Salman Toor, Scott Kahn, Jordy Kerwick Amoako Boafo, Christina Quarles, Robert Colescott and many others.
The New York Mid-Season sales are upon us and the art market is eager to see what prices will be paid for a wide range of artists. There are many new names whose secondary sales are first appearing at auction. There's also a lot of Abstract Expressionist work by women and classic names in the market looking for prices and attention. George O'Dell and Sophie Coco talk about the artists on offer, which ones to watch and what might become of their markets.
Phillips Chairman, Asia, Jonathan Crockett talks about the challenges of selling art in Hong Kong over the past few years. As the auction house moves into its new headquarters at the West Kowloon Culture District, steps away from the M+ Museum, Crockett talks about growing interest in Western artists among Asian collectors and the market for emerging talents.
LiveArt's George O'Dell and Arina Novak discuss the Independent and Armory Show art fairs in New York; strong auction performances for Lynne Mapp Drexler, Ernie Barnes at Bonhams and David Hockney at Phillips; openings for Mario Ayala at Deitch and Lucy Bull at David Kordansky; plus a conversation about Brussels as a gallery destination.
After a career at Microsoft and Artsy, Devang Thakkar has combined his interest in art and the art market (he did graduate work on art pricing) with his experience in technology to launch Christie's early stage venture fund. In the podcast, Thakkar discusses the venture fund's thesis, his experience in technology and cryptography, and his views on what needs to happen next as the art world increasingly merges with technology.
LiveArt's sales team led by George O'Dell, Sophie Coco and Arina Novak discuss the week's most important events effecting the Contemporary art market. In this episode, they discuss Burning Man and Frieze Seoul; the markets for Michael Majerus, Lynne Drexler and Alice Baber; as well as the opening exhibitions for Wolfgang Tillmans at MoMA, Rick Lowe at Gagosian and Christina Quarles at Hauser + Wirth. Get the most valuable market intelligence from LiveArt.
This is LiveArt's Hot List for the second quarter of 2022. Using our comprehensive data, we looked at the sales in April, May and June in London, New York and Hong Kong. We tried to identify the artists with high hammer ratios across multiple sales. Hammer ratio is the hammer price over low estimate.
We narrowed that list to a few dozen artists, excluding, for example, the names from the Winter Hot List. Then we boiled it down further to 16 artists whose markets we think are worth paying some attention to right now.
We covered 9 artists in the first episode. In this one, George O'Dell discusses the markets for Sam Gilliam, A.R. Penck, with side tangent on Georg Baselitz and other European artists, Yuichi Hirako, Susumu Kamijo, Louis Fratino, Ross Bleckner along with some other re-discovered artists from the 1980s, Danielle Orchard and finally George’s take on the market conditions going into the Fall.a
If you want to follow along as we discuss the sales, go to analytics.liveart.io. Type the artist’s name in the nav-bar search window in the upper right hand corner. Once you’re on the artist’s page, scroll down to the search results. In the right-hand corner you can sort by date sold, newest to oldest. Or use the Auction Sales tab to select only the sales for 2022.
This is LiveArt's Hot List for the second quarter of 2022. Using our comprehensive data, we looked at the sales in April, May and June in London, New York and Hong Kong. We tried to identify the artists with high hammer ratios across multiple sales. Hammer ratio is the hammer price over low estimate.
We narrowed that list to a few dozen artists, excluding, for example, the names from the Winter Hot List. Then we boiled it down further to 16 artists whose markets we think are worth paying some attention to right now.
To give all 16 artists the time they deserve, along with some related observations from the marketplace by George O’Dell, we split the podcast into two parts. In this episode, George discusses the markets for Ernie Barnes, Anna Weyant, Robert Motherwell, Scott Kahn, Lynda Benglis, Donald Baechler, Francesco Clemente, Roby Dwi Antono, and Katherine Bernhardt.
If you want to follow along as we discuss the sales, go to analytics.liveart.io. Type the artist’s name in the nav-bar search window in the upper right hand corner. Once you’re on the artist’s page, scroll down to the search results. In the right-hand corner you can sort by date sold, newest to oldest. Or use the Auction Sales tab to select only the sales for 2022.
Erick Calderon is the founder and CEO of Artblocks, a generative art platform that produces NFTs. Generative digital art projects rely on a set of rules defining variables and parameters that control the visual characteristics of the iterative works.
As Snowfro, Calderon’s crypto-name, he is the creator of the Chromie Squiggles, a generative art project capped at 10,000 unique iterations. To date, Calderon has minted more than 9,000 of the Chromie Squiggles and retains the remainder.
An early collector of Crypto-punks, Calderon is an influential figure in the NFT community. He and Artblocks have been one of the most successful NFT platforms. In this podcast, we discuss his recent trip to Basel, Switzerland and his views on the current state of the NFT market as well as its future prospects. I hope you find it interesting.
Magnus Resch is a serial entrepreneur. He built companies in Europe before starting his first art business in Hong Kong. Then he built the Magnus app in New York to add price transparency to the art marketplace. At the same time, Magnus has written a series of books about the business of making and selling art. The first was a study of Best practices in art dealing. The second was “How to Become a Successful Artist.” It spawned an online course. Now, Magnus has written "How To Create And Sell NFTs - A Guide For All Artists.”
In this podcast, Magnus talks about his hopes for NFTs to bring price transparency, authenticity and provenance tracking to the art market. He also explains the most pressing questions artists have about success and offers some surprising insights common to both the market for traditional art and NFTs.
Frank Walter’s rarely seen work is being exhibited at David Zwirner Gallery on the Upper East Side of Manhattan until July 29th. He was an agriculture expert from the island of Antigua in the Caribbean. After a multi-year sojourn in Europe, Walter returned to Antigua where he spent the rest of his life making art. Few saw these works until the 2017 Venice Biennale. There Walter was featured at the first ever pavilion for Antigua and Barbuda.
Hilton Als is a writer for the New Yorker. He is also a frequent curator of art exhibitions. Als happened to be in Venice in 2017 and came upon Walter’s work by chance. In this podcast, we talk about Frank Walter and his art. We also discuss Hilton Als’s career as a curator. He was involved in the seminal Black Male show staged at the Whitney in 1994. Since then he has put on shows for Victoria Miro Gallery, David Zwirner and the Yale Center for British Art. Als next show is an exhibition on the life and work of Joan Didion. It will be the latest in a number of innovative shows he has created around literary figures. In these shows, he has found a new way to present ideas in gallery spaces.
TEFAF Maastricht, the mother of all art fairs encompassing 7,000 years of art history, normally runs for multiple weeks in March. This week it re-opens for a shortened run. Noted as the centerpiece of the Old Masters calendar, and with Christie’s having held Old Masters sales in New York just a week or two before, I thought it would helpful to speak to William O’Reilly, who runs the New York office of Dickinson.
Founded in 1993 by Simon Dickinson, the firm boasts that it privately and discreetly handles a uniquely broad range of quality artworks, from early Renaissance masters through to blue-chip Contemporary artists. It is one of the very few firms that can truly say that. O’Reilly began his career studying Arabic in school. He worked for Christie’s for 10 years rising to be International Head of Old Masters drawings. Since 2018, he has worked at Dickinson which is known for its gallery exhibitions and their curated art fair presentations at places like TEFAF. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Nate Freeman writes a weekly art column for Vanity Fair. He made the evolution from art world reporter for ARTnews, Artsy and Artnet to writing a weekly gossip column that profiles the most interesting characters in the art world. In this podcast, we talk about how he writes his column, what he expects to see at Art Basel, the fusion of the art and fashion worlds, New York’s hippest neighborhood Dimes Square, the temperature of art market based upon the May sales, the return of Larry Gagosian to the gossip columns, competition between the big four galleries, the fate of tastemaker galleries and why everyone is attracted to the worst behavior in the art market.
In her 17-year career at Sotheby’s, Gabriela Palmieri presided over the most valuable Contemporary art day sale ever held. She was involved in the sale of Adam Sender’s collection and worked with the estate of Allan Stone. Since establishing Palmieri Fine Art, Gabriela has worked on the Emily and Jerry Spiegel collection and the sale of Barbarlee Diamondstein-Spielvogel and Carl Spielvogel’s collection. She also advised on the Brillembourg-Caprilles collection and the sale of a major collection of Pictures Generation works along with her work for many other clients.
In this podcast, we discuss the recent May sales in New York as well as her take on what collectors want in the market right now.
Andrew Fabricant became Chief Operating Officer of Gagosian Gallery a year before the global pandemic radically transformed the business of dealing art. In this podcast, Fabricant discusses the recent auctions in New York, the unexpected surge in the art market during the pandemic and what that means for the future of the art market as the global economy rebalances toward a post-pandemic world. We also delve into the opportunities and challenges involved in running an art-dealing enterprise with more than 300 employees, 19 locations and reputation as an aggressive sales organization. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
The May week of sales began with Andy Warhol's $195 million Shot Sage Blue Marilyn. That was the work everybody expected to be the most talked about lot of the week. But on the third night of sales, something extraordinary and authentic happened. A work by former professional football player and artist Ernie Barnes was offered for sale. Positioned at the auction house in a highly trafficked place, it had begun to stir interest. When the bidding began, that interest erupted into a war between an art advisor sitting in the audience bidding for a client and Houston trader Bill Perkins. In the end, Perkins paid $15 million for the lot originally estimated around $100,000. That was a lot more than he had originally intended to pay but much less than was he was determined to spend to get his prize. Bill Perkins joins us to talk about the experience.
LiveArt Market's Managing Director Rachel Hagopian discusses the approaching launch of LiveArt's exchange, The Trading Floor, where buyers and seller's will be able to match wishlist demand with supply. Hagopian also talks about the surprising entities that have benefited from the platform's anonymity and the growing interest interest in private sales.
May is the biggest auction season of the year. It opens with a huge set of sales at Christie’s.
In this podcast, we’ll speak with Christie’s Chairman, Marc Porter, about the brother and sister collectors Thomas and Doris Ammann. Johanna Flaum, head of the Contemporary department, tells us about Warhol’s Marilyn, the rare large Flowers painting, and a work by Francesco Clemente.
Max Carter, Head of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern department, talks about an early cubist Picasso bronze being deaccessioned by the Metropolitan Museum before going into detail on the extraordinary collection of Anne Bass.
Vancessa Fusco tells us about a $45 million Van Gogh landscape and two more Monets coming to market. Emily Kaplan details the Jackson Pollock drip painting Christie’s has on offer. Then she tells us about the many women artists whose work is included in the evening sale, especially a major work by Howardena Pindell who has seen million-dollar sales on the private market but little in the way of large prices in public auctions.
Finally, Ana Maria Celis walks us through an important Basquiat triptych, the return of a major Richter abstract that could reset that market and a work by sought-after artist Maria Berrio.
Christie’s sales begin on May 9th at 7pm in New York. Sales continue on May 10th, 12th, 13th and 14th.
Phillips Auction house has a reputation for creating markets for artists who don’t have a track record. Over the last several years, the house has grown rapidly to become a venue for a range of works including some of the biggest lots of the season.
In this podcast, we’ll talk to Phillips Basquiat expert Scott Nussbaum about the massive Jean-Michel Basquiat painting Phillips will be auctioning for Yusaku Maezawa. We’ll also hear from Deputy Chairman Robert Manley about a rare Calder mobile, an early Yayoi Kusama painting, a much in demand Helen Frankenthaler, and a bright red-and-yellow Rothko, as well as works by Hans Hoffmann and Carmen Herrera. It wouldn’t be Phillips if we didn’t also speak to Rebekah Bowling about the auction debut of Justin Caguiat, the largest work to come to market by Colombian artist Maria Berrio and another rare Amy Sherald painting.
The sale takes place in New York on May 18th at 7pm.
The sale of Harry and Linda Macklowe’s art collection was one of the most anticipated events of 2021. The first part of the two-part sale was held in November after a delay caused by the Covid pandemic. Sotheby’s had made an aggressive play for the collection. As Brooke Lampley points out in this podcast, a new team was in place with a lot to lose from a weak sale. In the end, the sale and the season saw prices beyond anyone’s expectations. On May 16, Sotheby’s will sell another $200 million or more in art from the Macklowe collection. These are additional examples of work by the artists the Macklowes had bought in depth.
Julian Ehrlich is the head of Christie's Post-war to Present sale. In today's market where artists are regularly bid high above their estimates, the mid-season Post-war to Present sale is a place for breakout lots. This season that happened spectacularly with the work of Lynne Drexler. But she's hardly the only artist to shine at Christie's. In this podcast, Julian talks about putting together his first sale at Christie's and how he reads the market.
It’s the end of the first quarter in the art market. That gives us a good opportunity to assess the momentum for a number of artists whose work has been selling at auction. The first quarter is traditionally less active than the Spring market. So we can focus on some artists who might not draw attention at other times during the year. With that in mind, we’ve put together a Hot List for the first quarter. These are artists with active markets where we see demand. You can read our list on the LiveArt app or at LiveArt.io. LiveArt’s Executive Vice President George O’Dell comments on these particular artists’ markets.
Austin Lee’s second show at Jeffrey Deitch, Like It Is, is on view through April 23, 2022. Lee’s painting process is unique. He initially mocks up ideas using 3D modeling software or digital sketches. Later, he recreates the digital image in physical form through 3D printing or, more often, using an airbrush and and acrylic paint on canvas. Lee’s goal is to present the images, experiences and emotions provoked by digital aesthetics in physical form. His work ruminates on animated representations of his own feelings, alluding to emojis and early internet culture. In this podcast, Lee talks about his interest in Old Master paintings, his own traditional training in materials and how the two combine to create his uncanny take on digital culture.
African American artists and artists of the African diaspora have been getting a great deal of attention from the art world for the last five years. But Nigel Freeman built the African American art market one sale at a time at Swann Auction Galleries. For 15 years, Freeman developed collectors and courted consignors. He was instrumental in igniting the market for Barkley Hendricks and helped refocus market attention on a broad group of artists like Charles White, Hale Woodruff, Sam Gilliam, Elizabeth Catlett, Hughie Lee-Smith and Kenneth Victor Young. In this podcast, Freeman talks about how this market developed out of the spotlight and what has happened since these artists have gotten the recognition they deserve.
Bethany Collins has a new show, Cadence, at PATRON gallery in Chicago where she presents work that explores the political and social evolution of three songs, The Star-Spangled Banner, Auld Lang Syne and Dixie. Creating installations with music and "hymnals" that present the evolving lyrics inspired by competing political and social movements, Collins discusses the liberation and frustration of making art through "using the language of others to make sense of the world."
Jacky Ho is Christie's Head of Evening sale for the Hong Kong auctions. In this podcast, he discusses the growth of these sales into perhaps the most global auctions of the international calendar. We discuss the interests and tastes of Christie's clients in the region, their strategies for collecting and many of the artists whose markets have emerged in Asia.
Johann König is one of Europe’s most entrepreneurial art dealers. He started his gallery in Berlin at 20 years old. Now, 20 years later, he has grown to spaces in Berlin, London, Monaco, Seoul Vienna, Tokyo and the Decentraland metaverse. More than that, König Galerie publishes a magazine, produces a podcast and launched a digital platform for NFTs and fractional art ownership called MISA, which will be the subject of a separate podcast. In this episode, we asked Johann what it means to be a gallerist in an age when the art market is changing how dealers build audiences and represent artists—and the nature of art itself is changing rapidly too.
In this London 2022 Winter auction preview, we speak to Helen Newman at Sotheby's, who will tell us about their $60 million Magritte, half a dozen Monets, a Picasso and a Van Gogh. Katharine Arnold at Christie's will discuss their late Francis Bacon triptych, a portrait by Lucian Freud, as well as a Bridget Riley work held by the same family for 57 years. Giovanna Bertazzoni tells us about Christie's restituted Franz Marc painting and their surrealist Picasso. Finally, Cheyenne Westphal goes through the long list of breakout artists—like Lauren Quin, Doron Langberg, Jadé Fadojutimi, and Emily Mae Smith—at Phillips and others whose markets continue to roll on. But she also takes a moment to discuss a rare, unseen work of Sigmar Polke coming from the well-known collection of Emily and Jerry Spiegel.
Sonya Roth has been a prominent Los Angeles collector for two decades. Originally a criminal prosecutor, she was an early champion of the current generation of emerging artists and collectors and played an important role in the growth of LA’s contemporary art scene. Since 2015, Roth has led Christie’s Los Angeles office which moved to an expanded Beverly Hills location two years later. Roth is now the Managing Director for Christie’s Western US Region leading the firm’s growth strategy by focusing on client engagement and strategic business development. With Frieze Los Angeles opening today, Roth talks about the unique role artists play in LA's collecting culture, the importance of the entertainment industry and the changing nature of collecting in the city.
LiveArt is a platform for providing transparency to the art market. Our app gives users access to live auctions, historical price data for artists’ work and in-depth analysis. It is also peer-to-peer trading platform. In this episode, we speak to George O’Dell, who heads sales at LiveArt, and his colleague Kelly Cahn, about their views of the marketplace. Kelly also takes a little time to talk through how sales work on the LiveArt platform.
Antwaun Sargent became a director at Gagosian gallery in 2021 after a decade as a writer and curator, most notably of the book and now exhibition "The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion." In this podcast, he discusses the global success of the New Black Vanguard Show and his upcoming collaboration with late designer and artist Virgil Abloh. That exhibition will open in June at the Brooklyn Museum. Social Works, his first show for Gagosian, was a major event in Chelsea. There were lines around the block for admission. Gagosian's Chelsea galleries have previously seen such lines for shows about Picasso's late works, curated by his biographer John Richardson, and a blockbuster Monet exhibition mounted by former MoMA curator John Elderfield. Social works was so successful, Gagosian accelerated the launch of Social Works two in London from 2022 to last fall. In this podcast, Sargent tells us of the potential for a third social workshop and where it might be held, as well as a series of shows he's putting on at Gagosian's 74th street location in New York.
Esther Kim Varet founded her gallery Various Small Fires as project space in her Los Angeles home. It has since grown to have a location in Seoul, Korea with plans for another—as she announces in this podcast—to open soon in Dallas, Texas. In this podcast, Kim Varet talks about her experience as the child of immigrants with strong ties still in Korea, her conservative Baptist education and her own experience with art and how that has informed her role as a gallerist. After a brief experience as a partner in a New York gallery, Kim Varet discovered in Los Angeles that her personal experience—from her background to the artists she was interested in to her own ties to Korea—could become a valuable asset in growing her gallery.
A partner at Mnuchin Gallery since 2013, Sukanya Rajaratnam has played an important role in connecting some of the world’s most respected collectors with artists whose work has been previously overlooked or undervalued. Trained in finance but finding her way into the art world, Rajaratnam explains that although she is self-taught in art history and deal-making, her experience looking for value in the financial world has been instrumental in her role as an art dealer. In this podcast, she talks about the exhibitions Mnuchin Gallery has put on for artists like Ed Clark, Sam Gilliam, Lynda Benglis, Mary Lovelace O’Neal and more.
Mari-Claudia Jiménez is Chairman, Managing Director & Worldwide Head Business Development Global Fine Arts, Sotheby’s. In this podcast, she connects the challenges of 2020 to the incredible art market successes of 2021. The pandemic revealed a new market environment where in-person viewings are no longer requisite for sales but digital and AR technologies are key. Jimenez explains that big market players like Sotheby’s focus on global reach. The notable growth in Asia is having a broader effect on the market as collectors are no longer strictly bound by the former collecting categories but they view luxury goods and a diverse variety of artworks as essential elements of their fine art collections.
editing & original music by Colin Ketchen
In this episode, we hear from artist Sharon Hayes, who is currently exhibiting her work, My Little Corner of the World, Anyone Would Love You at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of its New Grit Art in Philly Now show. Hayes is connected to Philadelphia by virtue of her professorship at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work uses photography, film, video, sound performance and text to interrogate the intersection between the personal and the collective. Her work has been shown at the Whitney Biennial, Documenta and the Venice Biennale.
She’s interviewed by artist James Allister Sprang, whose own work combines elements of photography, sound installation and poetry. He tells stories that draw from black, radical and experimental traditions. He has shown work or performed at the kitchen, the Brooklyn Museum, Storm King Art Center, the Public Theater, Baryshnikov Art Center, the Apollo Theater and many other institutions.
Valerie Cassel Oliver discusses her latest trailblazing exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, “The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse.” Illustrating, through the frame of Southern hip-hop, how early 20th-century Black visual and sound aesthetics helped shape contemporary Southern art, music, and a material culture of customized cars and personal adornment, Cassel Oliver’s show is an exemplary expression of her curatorial vision.
Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Francis Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to this position, she spent sixteen years at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas, where she was senior curator.
Even as it adapted to changing market conditions imposed by the pandemic, Phillips gained ground in auction totals, global reach, and the number of high-value lots it sold. At the same time, it furthered its long-held reputation as the auction house that creates markets for new artists. Phillips CEO Edward Dolman talks about the importance of Asia in the art market’s future and his company’s alliance with Poly Auction in China. He also speaks about the new Phillips auction rooms and exhibition space in New York, and provides insight as to how Phillips maintains its read on the pulse of the emerging art market.
Art writer, curator, fashion figure and man about town, Antwaun Sargent discusses the May/June 2021 issue of Art in America which focuses on New Talent. In the 1950s and 60s, Art in America ran a series of regular features and issues that sought to identify up-and-coming artists whose work would be lasting and meaningful for the future. Instead of approaching the idea of New Talent as a singular benchmark, Sargent talks about how he took the approach of assembling a group of artists and writers who could better show the multiplicity of what New Talent means. Sargent argues against the idea of equating the idea of New Talent with youth. Instead, this issue features artists ranging from painters Deborah Roberts and Amy Sherald to photographers Tyler Mitchell and Clifford Prince King and artists working in different media like Precious Okoyomon or Allana Clarke or Qualeasha Wood. Above all, the issue brings new voices into the conversation about art. “We talk about audiences all the time,” Sargent says, “but we’re still allowing all of that to be defined by a very limited number of folks. This magazine is an opportunity to push back against some of those notions—about what a critic can be, about what an art writer can be.”
Robert Mnuchin, a retired banker who became an art dealer, reflects on his career as an organizer of insightful and original exhibitions. In an era when galleries have expanded across the world with multiple venues and large sales teams, Mnuchin remains a committed individual dealer advising and supporting clients in their acquisitions. Mnuchin’s unabated passion and a record of groundbreaking shows that gather works rarely seen together by a single artist—some lent by leading museums and collectors—has won him the confidence of the world’s best-known collectors.
Presented by The Macallan.
Artsy CEO Mike Steib joined the platform for galleries and collectors only eight months before Covid-19 shut down the global art market. The pandemic has isolated most galleries from their collectors. Without gallery shows or the huge influx of visitors at art fairs, Artsy has worked to fill the gap with new tools for both client galleries and collectors seeking engagement. Despite the coronavirus-constrained art market, Steib believes the greatest opportunity in art lies in expanding access and participation.
Presented by The Macallan.
The 2020 auction season—a wild ride of improvised sales amid strong but elusive demand—closed out with Asia driving the market for a wide range of artists. Koji Inoue, Senior Director of Sales for Hauser & Wirth in the Americas, and Kim Heirston, a private art advisor, help us make sense of the bidding. Hong Kong Saves the Art Market is part of our ongoing Auction Reaction series.
Following a year in uncharted territory, Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti takes stock of his company’s performance and ventures a look ahead to the challenges of 2021, which include increasing art market access to a broader range of clients and property. Cerutti highlights the bright spots in Christie’s 2020 auction results—especially the strength of the Asian market even as European and American buyers continue to grapple with the constraints of the pandemic—as well as the novel strategies his team has used to transform the sales calendar from in-person events to livestreams.
Barry Avrich is a prolific documentary film producer. In 2017, he released "Blurred Lines" about the Contemporary art market. Avrich's latest project, "Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art," deals with the Knoedler forgery trial that took place in 2016. Avrich talks about how he got former Knoedler director Ann Freedman to participate in the documentary as well as alleged mastermind of the fraud, Juan Carlos Bergantinos. Throughout the movie, Avrich allows the parties to speak for themselves. The result is a fair but compelling look at the illusions and delusions that surround the world's most valuable art.
The film will open with a limited theatrical release later this Fall in New York, London and Los Angeles. It will be streamed in wide release in early 2021.
Bill Griffin of Los Angeles's Kayne Griffin Corcoran gallery joins Cynthia Sachs and Naomi Baigell of Athena Art Finance to discuss the current state of art market. Griffin discusses the ways that the pandemic has had an impact upon his business and the surprising ways that it has not. Gallerists are traveling less but collectors seem no less keen on continuing conversations and re-thinking the composition of their collections.
Nick Olney, Director at KASMIN Gallery, discusses the life and legacy of Paul Kasmin, the gallery's founder who died in March 2020. Olney illustrates Kasmin's vision through an examination of the William Copley show that opened just days before New York fell under a "stay-at-home" order that closed the galleries temporarily. Copley was a California-bred painter who became an ardent and self-styled surrealist before becoming an artist in his own right. Copley's experience dovetails with the subject of another show at KASMIN Gallery—"Valley of Gold: Southern California and the Phantasmagoric"— temporarily suspended too.
This is another episode in our series of collaborations between ARTnews and Yieldstreet x Athena Art Finance. At the Armory Show in New York, Vajra Kingsley moderated a panel on what it takes for women to be successful in creative leadership positions featuring Angela Redai, founder of Artine Advisory; Samantha Bloom, partner at Unbranded Pictures; Lexie Komisar, global head of Startup Ecosystems & Partner Platforms at IBM; and Wen-You Cai, founder and director at Special Special.
Since 2017, Athena Art Finance has awarded $10,000 to the best booth in The Armory Show Presents, a section of the fair for emerging galleries. In this podcast recorded at the fair, Athena's Naomi Baigell and ARTnews Editor-in-Chief Sarah Douglas talk to Mariane Ibrahim, a gallerist and former winner of the prize, about what it takes to put on a winning art fair presentation. You'll learn here about all of the thinking, planning and strategy that goes into making an effective art fair booth.
Continuing ARTnews's collaboration with Yieldstreet for the Armory Show fair in New York, Michael Weisz talks about bringing liquidity to art collectors in the form of non-recourse loans backed by Yieldstreet's platform. Weisz, co-founder and President of Yieldstreet, talks about the transformation Yieldstreet is bringing to investors looking for diversified investments and the opportunities that offers to art collectors and dealers. Loans, properly applied, offer those with significant capital tied up in art greater flexibility and spending power.
At the 2020 Armory Show Art Fair, three entrepreneurs—Yieldstreet's Co-Founder and President Michael Weisz, PRZM Co-Founder Larry Milstein and Athena Art Finance's CIO Cynthia Sachs—got together to talk about the challenges to building a business in the creative industries. Milstein's PRZM guides companies through the complexities of marketing to Gen Z consumers who prize experiences and cultural property in ways that are novel and rapidly expanding. Sachs has built Athena into the leading non-recourse lender in the art finance category. Now owned by Yieldstreet and benefiting from the capital sourced through Yieldstreet's platform, Athena provides art collectors and dealers with a different model for managing the capital and liquidity requirements of owning art. Weisz shared his experiences in building the Yieldstreet platform and vision for the future of finance.
To kick off the second Frieze LA art fair, ARTnews Editor-in-Chief Sarah Douglas interviewed Los Angeles collectors Ric Whitney and Tina Perry-Whitney at the Four Seasons Los Angeles, exploring ways to begin collecting art.
During the panel the Whitneys spoke about their interest in patronage of such institutions as CalArts, getting to know artists as individuals, and how they got involved in the art world in Los Angeles and beyond. “All this art we live with, there’s an energy emanating from it,” said Tina. “It is a privilege to get to buy this work and live with it.” Since 2012, the couple—Ric is a music publishing and talent management entrepreneur, and Tina is president of Oprah Winfrey Network—have been building a collection that is diverse not only in terms of the artists’ ethnicity and gender, but in medium, comprising sculpture, installation, painting, and photography. Among the artists whose work they hold are Charles Gaines, Genevieve Gaignard, Joe Goode, Henry Taylor, Sadie Barnette, David Shrigley, Thinh Nguyen, and many others.
At the Peninsula hotel in Los Angeles, Art in America hosted a brunch for the highlighting the magazine's January Issue on Artificial Intelligence and Generative art. Artist, scholar, and collector Anne Spalter joined A.i.A. editor William S. Smith and tech entrepreneur Laura Lehmann for a conversation about the history and future of computer art.
Spalter, author of the influential history The Computer in the Visual Arts (1999), described how her research into a field within art history that was neglected at the time led to her interest in collecting. She and her spouse, Michael Spalter, have built a significant collection that includes work created between the 1950s and 1980s by pioneering figures such as Vera Molnár, Georg Nees, and Koji Fujino. Though many of the compositions were produced by algorithms, the designs were fabricated with plotter printers on paper. The Spalters’ collection of computer art features many pieces in traditional mediums. Lehmann articulated an expanded view of collecting, noting that the meaning of collecting and curating is changing as those activities become widespread on social media. A new generation accustomed to managing collections of digital imagery on a daily basis could very well transform fundamental values in art and assumptions about its singularity.
Postcommodity's The Point of Final Collapse is a sound piece broadcast from San Francisco Art Instititute's Chestnut Street campus every day at 5:01pm. The work incorporates the effects of AMSR to capture the city's housing crisis by highlighting the sinking Millennium Tower, a ten-year-old development in downtown San Francisco, and its structural problems. The work attempts to turn data about Millennium Tower's pitching and yawing into a soothing, ever-evolving audio experience. In a conversation with Brian Droitcour, an editor at Art in America, artist Cristobal Martinez of Postcommodity discusses how he turns data into sound and why he feels the piece provides a tonic and comment upon upheaval in San Francisco's built environment.
Art in America's Editor Will Smith interviewed Diarmuid Kelley at Offer Waterman's pop-up gallery on Madison Avenue in New York during the November 2019 sales season. Smith and Kelley talk about Kelley's interest in clothes, costume and cinematography.
Born in Stirling in 1972, Diarmuid Kelley grew up in the north of England. He studied Fine Art at Newcastle University, graduating in 1995. He was the youngest artist ever to win the prestigious Nat West Art Prize at the age of 23, in the same year, he graduated from Newcastle. He went on to study for a Masters degree at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Kelley has a long association with Offer Waterman & Co, having had five solo-exhibitions at the gallery. His work has regularly featured in the BP Portrait Award held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and he has recently participated in a number of other group exhibitions including The Figure, Browse & Darby, London, Hinterland, Thomas Williams, London and Illuminate, Jasmine Studios, Hammersmith, London.
Each year, Diarmuid undertakes a limited number of portrait commissions, often painted on location, which are produced in parallel to his studio work. In 2010 he was commissioned to paint Dame Anne Owers, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, This painting is now part of the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection.
Pamela Joyner's collection of abstract art by African-American artists includes some of the giants of the field like Alma Thomas, Jack Whitten and Sam Gilliam. Her collecting focuses on supporting scholarship as much as acquiring and donating important works by African American artists to institutions like the Tate Modern in Britain.
Adam Lindemann regales Sarah Douglas, Editor-in-Chief of ARTnews, with his stories and adventures on the art auction market. Lindemann explains the strategies he uses to approach estimates, reserves, guarantees and private sales. One of the most successful sellers at auction, Lindemann set the record price for a living artist in 2007 when he sold Jeff Koons's Hanging Heart for $23m. He succeeded again when his Jean-Michel Basquiat painting sold for a record price of $57m.
AMM Fantasy Art Collecting game is live now for the November auctions. Entries will be accepted until 9pm on Nov 10th at fantasy.artmarketmonitor.com. In this podcast, Christie's Johanna Flaum, a past winner of the game, joins us at CORE Club to talk about strategies for playing the fantasy collecting game and give us an overview of the November 2019 New York sales season.
This podcast is a partnership with Sean Kelly Gallery to promote their Collect Wisely program which is a series of podcasts in which Sean Kelly interviews prominent international collectors on the nature of collecting and connoisseurship in the 21st century. These conversations aim to inspire a new generation of individuals committed to making a vital and meaningful investment in our common cultural future.
To subscribe to Collect Wisely, please visit Anchor, SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast hosting platforms, or through Sean Kelly's website: skny.com/collect-wisely
Sean Kelly will have an exhibition at the gallery in the summer of 2020 which will have a publication the following year.
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Art in America's Editor in Chief, William Smith, talks about the redesigned magazine, the launch of two newsletters—one featuring a daily review from the magazine's critics and one on the subject of Art & Technology—as well as Theaster Gates's Portfolio project featuring images from the Johnson Publishing Archives and W.E.B. Dubois's early 20th Century infographics about African American life, and his own essay on the artist KAWS and what Smith calls the long 1990s.
Jean-Paul Engelen discusses Phillips's position in the new global auction marketplace, its recent additions of highly experienced specialists in Impressionst, Modern and American art, and the new exhibition space, "The Cube," at 432 Park Avenue.
Jean-Paul Engelen is the Deputy Chairman and Worldwide Co-Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art. He joined Phillips in August of 2015 and is based in New York.
With over two decades of market experience and working with artists, Engelen was Director of Public Art Programs at Qatar Museums beginning in 2011. In this role he was responsible for a significant public art installation program, the establishment of an Artist in Residence program and space, and Contemporary Art exhibitions and working with contemporary artists on notable exhibitions including Damien Hirst, Richard Serra, Cai Guo Qiang, and Takashi Murakami.
Engelen also oversaw over three dozen site-specific public art installations including “East West West East” by Richard Serra, “The Miraculous Journey” by Damien Hirst, “Salwa Road Murals” by eL Seed, and “Untitled (Playground)” by Tom Otterness.
In this podcast made in collaboration with Phillips, Scott Nussbaum, head of 20th Century and Contemporary Art at Phillips, New York and Fred Hoffman, curator of a seminal Basquiat retrospective and author of The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, talk about Matt Dike's relationship to the artist, their work together in Los Angeles in the 1980s, their friendship around music and the gifts of art Basquiat made to Dike.
Chief among those gifts was the self portrait painted on two doors and a panel that will be sold during Phillips May 16th Evening sale in New York. Moved directly from Basquiat's studio to Dike's home, the work is a rare example of Basquiat's art never to have been sold before, as Fred Hoffman explains in his catalogue essay for Phillips:
"As one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s most compelling depictions of himself, Self Portrait, 1983 presents a metaphysical subject on two related panels. The full-length representation of the artist is juxtaposed with an adjacent panel portraying both his personal incantation, “To Repel Ghosts”, and his characterization of the passage from the material to the eternal. Self Portrait is unique, having been executed on two found doors, one which also includes an attached plywood panel. This singular painting was executed in Venice, California sometime in 1983 at New City Editions, the print studio where Basquiat produced his now acclaimed silkscreen works, Tuxedo, 1983, Untitled, 1983 and Back of the Neck, 1983. The creation of this painting is recorded in filmmaker Tamra Davis’ acclaimed documentary, The Radiant Child, possibly the only extant film documentation of Basquiat working on a painting.
As conveyed to the author by Tamra Davis, after having completed the work, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Tamra Davis moved the work to the studio of Matt Dike in West Hollywood. The work is also documented in Tamra Davis’ 1988 promotional video for Matt Dike’s record label Delicious Vinyl, in which Matt Dike and his business partner Mike Ross are filmed sitting on a couch with Self Portrait in the background."
Vivian Brodie, Christie's Head of Mid-Season and Online sales; Elena Soboleva, Director of Online Sales, David Zwirner; and Sam Orlofsky, Director, Gagosian discuss their experiences extending sales from their globally branded enterprises into the digital domain.
Among the topics we cover in this panel discussion is the different ways that Christie's, Zwirner and Gagosian have come to selling digitally; how the sales process is integrated into the larger pattern of client acquisition and sales; who benefits internally from digital sales and how the companies are charting a path forward.
On Thursday 7 February, Randall Bourscheidt and Vincent Fremont will join Peter Brant and Gary Tinterow in a panel discussion about Henry Geldzahler at Christie’s New York, 20 Rockefeller Plaza. The event will be chaired by Marc Porter, Chairman of Christie’s Americas.
This conversation with Randall Bourscheidt explores some of the themes of Geldzahler's life: His role at the Metropolitan Museum during the height of New York's art market ferment; Geldzahler's friendships with Andy Warhol and David Hockney; his experiences as New York City's Cultural Commissioner; his eventual retreat to the Hamptons and his early death from liver cancer.
Asher Edelman has a long history participating in the art market and as a transformative player on Wall Street. From his perspective as an investor, art dealer and provider of art financing through his company Art Assure, Edelman talks through the effect of guarantees on the auctions and the broader market for art.
David Norman discusses the November Impressionist and Modern sales in New York. In particular, Norman looks at the Picasso and Monet markets, the participation of Asian buyers, the bidding patterns on top lots like Edvard Munch's Scream, Alberto Giacometti's Chariot and Pointing Man, the role of guarantees and the right strategy for bringing lots to market in today's guarantee-supported auction environment.
Three years ago, after a career at Christie's and as a private advisor, Hugues Joffre took over the task of establishing a Modern art department within Phillips, auction house noted for its expertise in cutting edge artists.
In this podcast, Joffre talks about the process of winning the kinds of 20th Century consignments that would help drive Phillips' sales totals higher and position the auction house as a peer and alternative to Sotheby's and Christie's not only in Contemporary art but also in the art of the 20th Century.
Along the way, Joffre comments on the way young collectors develop and broaden their tastes, the future of the art market and the taste of the great Greek shipping collectors of the 60s and 70s.
Magnus Renfrew launches his new fair Taipei Dangdai in Taiwan on January 18, 2019. The fair features 90 galleries from Asia, Europe and North America. Dealers David Zwirner, Thaddaeus Ropac, Edouard Malingue, Gagosian, Gallery Hyundai, Kukje, Lisson, Massimo de Carlo, Whitestone, White Cube, Tomio Koyama, Tang Contemporary, Spruth Mägers, Sadie Coles, Sean Kelly, Simon Lee , Perrotin, Pearl Lam and Longmen Art Projects are among the participants.
Since its founding in Palm Desert, California, Heather James Gallery has carved a particular niche in the art market catering to wealthy residents of a fabled community of vacation homes. The formula has clearly worked. Heather James now has galleries in Jackson, Wyoming, San Francisco, New York and will open a new gallery in Montecito this Fall.
In this podcast, Jim Carona walks through the history of the gallery and the secret of its expansion. He explains the philosophy behind their eclectic program and the appeal of art to his constituency.
As part of an international program to celebrate the gallery’s 25th Anniversary, Dickinson held a panel discussion at their New York space during Spring TEFAF. Conversation centered on the multiplicity of sources of advice in the art market and how collectors can be best served as they seek to acquire art.
On the panel are Megan Fox Kelly, President of the Association of Professional Art Advisors and an advisor with a broad practice that includes helping new collectors to find their bearings in the art market and advising artist's estates and foundations on a market-facing strategy; Todd Levin, who has built noteworthy collections that have achieved verifiable market successes as well as curated his own shows at various galleries in New York, Los Angeles and Berlin; and William O'Reilly, Senior Director with Dickinson in New York where he works with collectors of Old Master through to Contemporary Art.
The lively conversation explores the relationship between advisors, collectors and the art market ecosystem, and the joys and pitfalls of building a collection.
Elliot Safra describes Christie's Art + Tech Summit taking place on July 17th in London. The full-day conference will explore the many hoped for uses of block chain technology in the art market.
Safra explains that the tech summit is meant to appeal to a broad range of constituents from attracting technology investors who might learn more about the art world to creating a showcase for technology companies launched to solve art market constraints to offering the art industry a place to come together and discuss the challenges and opportunities for selling art in the 21st Century.
Art dealers, auction house staff, technology investors and entrepreneurs are all expected at this year's summit. For more information: http://www.christies.com/art-and-tech
Bloomberg art market reporter James Tarmy spent the better part of a week swimming in the aisles of Art Basel in Switzerland, the world's premier art fair where many of the top galleries not only make important sales but set the tone for their client base and communicate their view of the art market and its opportunities.
Basel isn't only about sales, as Tarmy explains. The city's museums put on influential shows like the Sam Gilliam retrospective or the Beyeler Foundation's Francis Bacon-Alberto Giacometti show. Then, of course, there are the dinners.
Thaddaeus Ropac opened his first gallery in Salzburg, Austria after having met and been inspired by Joseph Beuys in Berlin and having become acquainted Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe while in New York. He expanded to Paris in the depths of the global art market recession in 1990. In 2012, Ropac expanded in Paris; and, again, in 2017, he opened in London. Along the way, Ropac began to represent Georg Baselitz, Alex Katz, Anselm Kiefer and dozens of other artists and estates. Most recently, Ropac completed the circle by taking over representation of the Beuys estate.
David Norman applies his 30+ years experience in the Impressionist and Modern category to the results from this May's sales in New York where $1.5bn in Modern and Impressionist art was sold. As a result, this season the Impressionist and Modern category returns to a pride of place as the biggest market, a stature it has not held for a decade.
The season was packed with stories from the Rockefeller Estate which featured an extraordinary concentration of Impressionist pictures from artists like Monet, Picasso, Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Juan Gris, Ferdnand Léger, and Georges Seurat.
The biggest, and some of the most impressive, sales came from the Impressionist and Modern Evening sales where works by Modigliani, Kazimir Malevich and Constantin Brancusi set new benchmarks.
Even with those successes and the stratospheric sales totals, the sales results do show that nearly a decade of uninterrupted growth in art prices may be beginning to have an effect on the market. Buyers and sellers are increasingly having a standoff over estimates and expectations.
The Impressionist and Modern market is strong but picky. David Norman explains why.
The Peggy and David Rockefeller collection is likely to be the most valuable single-owner sale in history. The great breadth of the Rockefeller collection—with extraordinary examples of French, German and American painting—furniture, ceramics and other decorative objects—will be on view at Christie's Rockefeller Center headquarters in late April with a series of auctions held the first week in May.
In this podcast, Marc Porter, Chairman of Christie's Americas, discusses the unique opportunities and challenges of organizing and marketing the estate of one of the world's most famous families. From China to Europe to the Gulf States to the UK and America, Christie's has tailored its marketing and publicity to the attributes of the Rockefeller family and the collection that are key to exciting the interest of each of these distinct populations.
Porter goes further to tell some of the history of the Rockefeller's collecting experiences and the goals of the estate.
Lock Kresler discusses Lévy Gorvy's exhibition, 'Source and Stimulus' open until April 21, 2018 at 22 Old Bond St in London. The show features a series of outstanding museum quality loans and seminal examples of works by all three artists in the exhibition including Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Frightened Girl’ (1964), being seen publicly for the first time in 25 years having been hidden away in a private collection in Europe since its last public display in 1993, when it was shown in the artist’s retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Lévy Gorvy is also exhibiting Sigmar Polke’s ‘Untitled (Couple)’ (1965-66), which was purchased directly from the artist and has never been seen publicly or published before, and ‘Girlfriends’ (1964-65), which featured prominently in Polke’s retrospectives in 2014 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and London’s Tate Modern.
The exhibition also sees two paintings by Gerald Laing reunited for the first time since they were created in 1965. ‘Shout’ and ‘Rain Check’ were sold the same year by Richard Feigen to two different collectors in the US, and neither work has been seen publicly since then.
In addition, Lévy Gorvy has a video (https://youtu.be/_9tFL9b1LDI)about the exhibition and you can see images of the show on the gallery's website (https://www.levygorvy.com/exhibitions/source-and-stimulus-polke-lichtenstein-laing/).
Mark Lurie is the founder of Lofty, a seller of art and collectibles online that he sold a little over a year ago. Since then, Mark, who has worked as a venture captialist as well as a founder, saw the natural fit between the art market and blockchain technology. His new venture Codex seeks to create an title registry for the art market. But Codex is more than that. It seeks to be a foundational technology for many different businesses and services in the art market. In this podcast, Mark explains his vision of the future of the art market and how we'll get there.
Bloomberg's art market reporter, James Tarmy, discusses the unexpected corners of the Contemporary art market by looking at six different artists and their markets. They range from Lawrence Abu Hamdan who has strong support from museums and other institutions but no real market to John McAllister whose work thrives without much fanfare. In between, Tarmy looks at Laura Owens, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Michael Krebber, all artists who have thriving but very different market trajectories. Each of these case studies attempts to ask how we can identify an artist whose work and reputation will last.
David Norman talks through the results from November's Impressionist and Modern auctions in New York. Norman discusses the use of guarantees, the differences between the public and private markets, the relative strength of different types of work by Pablo Picasso, the tastes of Asian buyers and the impact of private museums on that Modern market.
Cheyenne Westphal speaks, after two full New York sales cycles with Phillips, about the company's strategy moving forward to carve out a place for itself in a Contemporary and Modern art market dominated by two larger houses.
Speaking a few days before the November Evening sale, Westphal talks about attracting buyers and sellers, the increased use of guarantees, collectors' interest in identifying new artists and the use of shows with unexpected focus to bring attention to historically undervalued art.
The $450m sale of Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi was surrounded by a the near constant repetition of the erroneous idea that there are doubts about the work's authenticity. From news reports to essays by Contemporary art critics miffed at the growing spectacle, writers ignored the consensus among scholars and scientific researchers that the work is the lost work of the Renaissance master.
In this podcast, Bendor Grosvenor, an Old Master dealer credited with numerous 'sleeper' finds and the host of "Britain's Lost Masterpieces," discusses the 2011 National Gallery show on Leonardo that admitted the Salvator Mundi into the canon of the few recognized works by the artist.
Grosvenor also addresses the tone of the Old Masters market, his hopes that this sale will remind art collectors of the enduring popularity of Old Master paintings and spur more attention to the field.
Michael Findlay, the author of The Value of Art, has a new book out about changing the way we approach a work of art. In Seeing Slowly, Findlay suggests we put our experience of the art itself first. Ignore the wall labels, avoid pontificating to your companion and simply look at the art informed by own connoisseurship, the experience of having looked at art in the past, and your own cultural awareness.
In this podcast, Findlay explains what he means and why he thinks we would all be better off approaching art this way. Then he talks about Instagram and the way that the business of selling art has changed—and how buyers and sellers would benefit from seeing slowly.
Nicholas Lisson on his philosophy of running an enduring gallery business: "The money will come if the art is good enough."
Lisson Gallery's father-son duo Nicholas and Alex Logsdail discuss the history of their gallery, its more than 500 exhibitions over 50 years now only partially captured in a book of 1,200 pages.
In this intimate conversation between Elena Platonova and the Logsdails we learn about the path both men took from pursuing their own artistic visions—Nicholas as a painter; Alexander as a musician—to running a transatlantic gallery. We hear about their plans for further global expansion and their own fifty-year rule for gauging the quality of an artist.
Lisanne Skyler's parents were art collectors in the 1970s. Her father was a young lawyer in Manhattan who spent his weekends going to gallery shows looking for exciting young artists. To buy new paintings he often had to sell the works he already owned. That's how he came in 1969 to buy from the OK Harris gallery a small yellow Brillo Box sculpture made by Andy Warhol. Two years later, Skyler sold the work to buy a drawing by another artist who, at the time, seemed like he was going to have a career that would eclipse the faltering Warhol's. Over time, the Skylers' Brillo Box passed through the hands of collectors like Charles Saatchi and other anonymous figures before landing among the possessions of Robert Shapazian, a noted gallerist who ran Gagosian in Los Angeles. When Shapazian's estate was sold at Christie's in 2010, the little yellow Brillo Box made $3m, a shock to Lisanne Skyler who was now an adult. Curious about her family's glancing role in the art world, Lisanne made a documentary film now available on HBO. Brillo Box (3¢ Off) is not just about the sculpture's journey from her childhood living room to the auction block at Christie's but about how and why her parents collected art; what became of the works they owned and the stress art collecting eventually placed on their marriage. In this podcast, Lisanne Skyler talks about the role art played in her parents marriage, their personal evolution and the family that they raised.
Amy Cappellazzo talks about her record setting sales of three works by Barkley Hendricks, the recently deceased artist whose unique portrait style, developed in the 1960s and 70s, has been gaining attention for the last decade since the Nasher Museum held a retrospective of his work called, The Birth of Cool.
In this podcast, Cappellazzo talks about having encountered the artists work and then getting the rare opportunity a few decades later to sell three works from one collection as it came to market.
Faced with a series of choices about how to position and market the work, Cappellazzo walks us through her thinking and strategy. The record prices ultimately achieved were the product of a combination of cultivating new buyers, personal selling and the value of a sense of discovery.
Timothy Taylor has a space in New York that measures 16 x 34 feet. The intimacy of the gallery appealed to his artist Alex Katz who helped create a show around one of his student sketchbooks. The small works set in a small space offer a very different experience of the artist known for his work at scale.
In this podcast, Timothy Taylor talks about the changing ways in which art dealers must operate to represent their artists well while coping with the constraints of ever-rising retail space rents in major metropolitan centers and the growing interest in art from collectors in far-flung cities across Asia and the West.
Taylor, who has just opened a show of Ding Yi's new work in his London space, has also brought Alex Katz and Sean Scully to China. He sees the way that dealers represent their artists requires thinking creatively and hints that the future of art dealing may already be upon us.
David Norman, formerly head of the Impressionist and Modern department at Sotheby's, and Brooke Lampley, formerly the head of the same department at Christie's (and scheduled to join Sotheby's in 2018,) get together to discuss the results of the Impressionist and Modern art auctions in May of 2017.
From the stunning performance of a number of sculptures to the quandary of Monet's results to the use of guarantees and mix of lots in the Evening sales, Norman and Lampley offer their insights into the sometimes opaque bidding.
The buyers of Impressionist and Modern art are changing. Their approach and objectives are different from the way in which buyers in the category used to see Impressionist and Modern art. Lampley and Norman illuminate these shifting trends.
Elena Platonova sits down with Stefania Bortolami to talk about her new gallery in Tribeca, Daniel Buren's show inaugurating the space and her ambitious plan to get art across America including into former fast food outlets.
In this podcast, Bortolami and Platonova discuss:
*Has Chelsea left galleries no more room for error?
*Will TriBeCa take over from the Lower East Side as the next gallery neighborhood?
*Daniel Buren—"the Stripe Guy"—his latest exhibition and his career?
*Her program to bring art exhibitions to cities around the US. Next up, New Haven's remarkable Marcel Breuer masterpiece.
Sirius XM produced this interview between artist Sam Gilliam and Jonathan Binstock, the director of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery and a Gilliam scholar.
On the occasion of Gilliam's return to the Venice Biennale 45 years after he represented the United States, this far-ranging conversation covers the artist's entire career. Born in Louisville, Kentucky where Cassius Clay, Sr. (Muhammed Ali's father) was a prominent painter, Gilliam encountered a European refugee Ulfert Wilke at the Louisville and became his studio assistant.
He also eventually encountered the Gutai artists in Japan, Bob Thompson and moved eventually to Washington, DC where Kenneth Noland was at the center of the Color Field movement and the city was "a town of connection."
Throughout this conversation Gilliam talks of the lifelong struggle to make art and make a life as an artist. His career followed no clear trajectory but has been punctuated by encounters with an endless cast of 20th Century artistic influences culminating in his most recent turn in the center stage.
Santa Fe, NM has long been a center of the visual arts in the United States. For more than a century, modern artists have retreated to the dry climate. The region is also home to a rich array of native and Spanish artists and artisans that have attracted visitors for hundreds of years.
With a large number of vacation homes and occasional visitors, a long-running international opera that attracts foreign visitors and being a major tourist have made Santa Fe a magnet for art dealers as well as art buyers.
There are more than 200 galleries in the city spread across four major neighborhoods. SITE Santa Fe, a national and international Contemporary art venue, re-opens in expanded form this Fall.
Mike Tansey and Barry Ellsworth are two prominent gallerists in the city, they talk about the culture of art dealing in Santa Fe.
Acquavella galleries has brought together the 23 gouaches in Joan Miró's Constellations series that were last seen together in 1993 at the Museum of Modern Art.
Considered by many to be the height of Miró's achievement as an artist, these works gain power and impact from being shown all together. Indeed, the condition for many of the loans was that the entire series had to be on view.
The suite of images was produced between January of 1940 and September of 1941—but it was not until 1958 that André Breton named them “Constellations." When Miró and his family fled France for Spain ahead of the German invasion in June of 1940, he took virtually nothing with him apart from the portfolio of his ten completed Constellations.
"Since they were first exhibited at Pierre Matisse’s gallery in New York in early 1945, after having been smuggled out of Europe, the Constellations have been celebrated as one of the most powerful artistic statements of the 20th century," said Bill Acquavella.
Margit Rowell is an art historian and curator who works mostly in Paris and New York. She has held curatorial positions at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and as curator of drawings at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Adam Lindemann discusses hisVenus Over Manhattan gallery's presentation of a survey of Bernard Buffet's paintings:
The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Estate of Bernard Buffet, marks the first major solo presentation of Buffet’s work in New York in nearly three decades.
While Bernard Buffet (b. 1928, Paris, France; d. 1999, Tourtour, France) was once hailed as the next Picasso in France and internationally, the artist’s work has weathered dizzying cycles of acclaim and rejection. Immensely popular – and always commercially successful – at numerous points in his career, Buffet suffered long spells of vicious critical repudiation, when his work was considered the ultimate embodiment of poor taste. But curatorial attention has returned to his oeuvre in the years since his death, culminating in a major retrospective of his work at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2016, organized by the museum’s director, Fabrice Hergott. At this moment of renewed relevance, Bernard Buffet: Paintings from 1956 to 1999 reintroduces the artist’s oeuvre to a new generation of American viewers, charting a history of the artist’s development through a tightly focused selection of highlights from Buffet’s career.
"This is why Phillips positioning is right. We essentially believe in an international Contemporary art marketplace and we believe most tastes converge at some point." ——Edward Dolman, CEO Phillips Auction House
In the two and a half years since Edward Dolman took over the helm of Phillips auction house, he has been engaged in a remaking of the firm from an upstart auction house focusing on the fringes of the Contemporary art market to a serious alternative to Sotheby's and Christie's with a seat at the table when the biggest art deals are being made.
In this podcast, Dolman talks about how the expansion of the Contemporary art market has made Phillips's strategy viable and profitable.
He talks about the new team he has spent the last two years hiring—with leading specialists who decamped from Christie's and Sotheby's—and how their arrival will position the auction house to expand into new collecting fields and penetrate other regions of the world.
He discusses the growing financialization of the art market and the role guarantees play in facilitating art transactions, especially public ones. Dolman shares his view of the watch, jewelry and collectible markets. Finally, shares his thoughts on the global auction calendar and how that is likely to change in the coming months and years.
David Norman looks at the results of the March 2017 auctions of Impressionist and Modern art at Sotheby's and Christie's. The surprisingly strong sales came in the context of a nervous art market wondering what the future might hold.
In part because of that uncertainty, few of the works on offer were considered the kinds of trophies that would motivate bidders to aggressively pursue these works. Nonetheless, they did. Buyers, especially from Asia, were out in force.
Although, as Norman points out, the bidding was tactical and sober. Buyers are keen on acquiring works of art but not at any price.
With that in mind, Norman follows up on the previous sales of many of the works and points out that very few of the works auctioned in this March cycle lacked market exposure. Some did well against previous prices; others fared poorly. But the market showed that it could distribute familiar material efficiently and with strong prices even if the sales lacked an estate or other fresh material that might excite "animal spirits."
Art storage is one of the most overlooked aspects of the global art market. Crozier Fine Art is one of the first dedicated art storage firms specializing in storage, transport and transaction support.
Simon Hornby discusses the firm's history and orientation toward serving the needs of collectors, dealers and museums. He also talks about the ways in which the art storage industry has grown into a custodial and service role to enable the new global art dealing that is based in art fairs around the world.
Firms like Crozier provide support to the professionals who manage legal and tax concerns for collectors, dealers and institutions. Finally, Crozier's recent acquisition by Iron Mountain, the document and records storage concern, has initiated a new phase of expansion for Crozier both geographically and into broader areas of tangible asset storage.
Mnuchin Gallery's founder, Robert Mnuchin, discusses the work of Robert Mangold and his gallery's show, "Robert Mangold: A Survey 1965-2003."
The exhibition begins with a selection of early works from the 1960s in which the artist inaugurates his mode of tracing hand-drawn geometric figures within the outline of a shaped support, and continues through the 1970s, featuring examples of Mangold’s Circle paintings and A Triangle Within Two Rectangles paintings. In the early 1980s, the geometric forms of the paintings’ interior compositions—in this case, Xs and +s—began to dictate the shapes of the canvases themselves. The show also includes examples of Mangold’s work from the 1990s and 2000s, including the Attic Paintings, the Plane / Figure Paintings, and the Column Paintings, speaking to the evolution of Mangold’s interest in art history.
“Sell as little as possible but as much as necessary.” --Loretta Wurtenberger on the Arp estate's guiding principle.
Loretta Wurtenberger is one of the founders of the Institute for Artists’ Estates (http://www.artists-estates.com/)and has been managing the estate of Hans Arp since 2009.
The prospect of managing artists’ estates has become a new topic lately, so we’re presenting the audio of Dr. Wurtenberger’s talk from the Keeping the Legacy Alive conference held in Berlin in September of 2016.
Entitled Back to Square One, Wurtenberger’s talk describes the seven-year odyssey the Hans Arp estate made from controversy over posthumous casts to a vibrant discussion of the artist in the academic world, museums and on the art market.
The talk begins with a brief biography of Arp, the conditions of the from Arp’s death in 1966 through the mismanagement of a German dealer and the controversies surround posthumous castings.
In 2009, when Wurtenberger took over the the strategic management of the estate, Arp was out of fashion. There was no academic interest; the Catalogue Raisonné was out dated; the last US exhibition of the artist had been in the 1980s; and Arp’s work was undervalued on the art market.
Wurtenberger helped the foundation focus on repositioning Arp through sponsoring academic research, enabling museum exhibitions not only of the best known blockbuster works by Arp but also of the lesser known works held by the estate, and by enhancing the artist’s market in Europe and the US.
Finally, Wurtenberger explains that the Arp foundation is not legally allowed to have an endowmen t. So it must sell from its holdings enough each year to cover the annual expenses.
Nicholas Maclean spent nearly a decade as the co-head of Christie's Impressionist and Modern art department along with his partner, Christopher Eykyn, before opening his own New York and London-based gallery, Eykyn Maclean, 11 years ago.
In this podcast, Maclean talks about the often overlooked private market where many substantial collectors who do not buy or sell through auction houses conduct a surprising amount of business that potentially dwarves the public art market.
Maclean also talks about the difficulties for dealers in acquiring new work in today's art market where the overall public sales volume has fallen substantially without having an effect of weakening prices.
In this climate, Maclean points to Italian Pop art as a potential area for collectors to find high quality work at prices that have yet to equalize with the rest of the global art market.
Finally, Maclean shares his thoughts on new collectors and their behavior in the art market.
Christy MacLear, former Executive Director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, speaks about building the Rauschenberg Foundation at the Institute for Artists Estates Conference in Berlin (http://www.artists-estates.com)last September. Rauschenberg put some thought into his own legacy before he died. From arts education to the environment, Rauschenberg wanted his Foundation to have an impact on several areas. It was left to MacLear to build a bridge between Rauschenberg’s interests and the community at large.
MacLear emphasizes the importance of understanding a foundation’s assets and creating create a “time horizon” in which goals should be accomplished. MacLear’s task was to understand the artist’s “values,” so she could, in turn, help the heirs and foundation decide what to do with the assets. I
In addition, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation chose to make Rauschenberg’s copyright open to public use keeping with their belief in “art as a communicative currency.”
"It's easier to know what bag to pick up for a lot of people than it is to know what art to pick."
Marisa Kayyem, program director for Christie's Continuing Education, talks about the ways in which art and fashion have grown to depend upon each other more and more.
In this conversation she talks about:
*Why brands are in search of the "new" and what they find in art.
*The trend toward luxury retailers using art to create unique spaces.
*Fashion shows as performance art.
- Historical links between fashion and artists like Schiaparelli and Salvador Dalí.
*The controversy surrounding Cecil Beaton's Vogue photoshoot in front Jackson Pollock's work.
David Norman delves into his 30 years experience as a top specialist in Impressionist and Modern art to discuss in this podcast sponsored by Christie's Education New York the results of the November sales in New York.
*Norman explains the backstory behind Wassily Kandinksy's Rigide et courbé and the not-easy decision to guarantee a post-Bauhaus Kandinsky at that level.
- Norman offers some of the market history behind Edvard Munch's Girls on the Bridge.
*We learn more about how the changing tastes have effected the prices for Monet's gainstacks.
*Also discussed here are many works that were previously offered nearly a generation ago that failed to find buyers but now achieved major prices, as well as surprises for Miro, Chagall, Picasso and others.
This edition of the Artelligence Podcast is the second part of a two-part conversation at Christie's Education between Vernonique Chagnon-Burke, Judd Tully and Marion Maneker.
Chagnon-Burke is the director of Christie's Education New York. She organized this panel to discuss the future of auction houses and the current state of the art market for students and guests at Christie's Education's Rockefeller Center location.
The discussion begins with a general take on the shape of the auction houses' businesses, how they differ and what their strategies going forward appear to be.
This edition of the Artelligence Podcast is the first part of a two-part conversation at Christie's Education between Vernonique Chagnon-Burke, Judd Tully and Marion Maneker.
Chagnon-Burke is the director of Christie's Education New York. She organized this panel to discuss the Art Basel in Miami Beach art fair and the current state of the art market for students and guests at Christie's Education's Rockefeller Center location.
The discussion begins with a general take on the state of the art market and the tone of the Art Basel fair. Artinfo's Judd Tully gave his impressions of the dealers, their inventory and the booths.
The discussion includes a brief exploration of the state of the Andy Warhol market and its effect on the broader Contemporary art market.
Part 2 of the discussion focuses on the landscape of the auction houses and their differing strategies.
Each year 30,000 visitors arrive in Miami for the Art Basel fair. Many are art dealers and art collectors looking to buy or build relationships. But Art Basel in Miami Beach is also the art market's trade convention or annual Christmas party, take your pick.
In this podcast, we speak to 8 different attendees about why they come to Art Basel and what they do at the fair. You'll hear from auction house professionals and appraisers, art lawyers and magazine publishers, the creator of Artsy's activation and a museum director.
Featured in this podcast are:
Kenny Schachter: perhaps the only serious collector, dealer and advisor who also writes extensively about the art market. Schachter details his strategy for obsessively extracting every relevant piece of information out of the fair.
Elena Soboleva: Elena leads special projects at Artsy and details the year-long planning and execution of Artsy's signature event, this year an immersive experience of VR and music at the Faena Art Time Capsule Geodesic Dome featuring site-specific works by Rachel Rossin, Jon Rafman and Jacolby Satterwhite.
Jonathan Binstock: The director of Rochester, NY's Memorial Art Gallery details his trip to the fair with members of his board. He explains how museum groups interact with the fair, the dealers and the subtle negotiations between supporting collectors and furthering the goals of the museum.
Naomi Baigell: Athena Art Finance's head of marketing talks about the fair as a community of like-minded art market professionals who mix the demands of work with a common experience of a career in the art market.
Judd Grossman: The principal of Grossman LLP explains why he's on hand at the art fair to help his clients with the inevitable last-minute legal problems that arise between the myriad of participants in the art market.
Mari-Claudia Jimenez: Sotheby's head of Trusts & Estates explains why she arrives earlier and earlier each year to Art Basel in Miami Beach and it matters that art professionals attend.
Kimball Higgs: Winston Art Group's Contemporary art appraiser and advisor talks about his strategy for tackling the fair.
Laurent Moïsi: The publisher of Whitewall magazine talks about how Art Basel in Miami Beach has shifted from parties to content as he arranges the distribution of 60,000 magazines to hotel rooms in the days before the fair opens and organizes the Lexus Art Series at the Faena hotel.
Dealer Gary Nader discusses the future of the Latin American art market.
• The central importance of Latin America's four global masters: Wifredo Lam, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Fernando Botero and Roberto Matta.
• The history of the Latin American category, why it was invented and how the market needs to move beyond it.
• Museums of Latin American art and the museum infrastructure in Latin America.
• How Central and South American collectors view artists from their own countries and from other countries around the region.
• Who are the generation of artists who happen to be from Latin American countries but are now major global artists.
• The future of Cuban art and artists as the country opens itself to the US and the world.
Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, Inc. discusses the intersection of the real estate and art markets. In this podcast, Miller goes into some detail about
•the financing and construction of luxury real estate in New York and Miami •the glut of supply in the luxury market of $5m and above •the sudden drop in demand at the highest end of the market •how real estate markets clear when supply is greater than demand •apartments as stores of wealth and which cities predominate
Paul Becker, founder and CEO of Art Money, talks about how Art Money enables art buyers to pay for a work of art from a gallery over 10 months while the gallery owner gets paid in 10 days (helping the gallerist pay the artist sooner too.)
This art buying model solves a stalemate between buyers—who want to purchase art but feel it is more responsible to pay for the works over time—and sellers who do not want to play the role of a bank.
Becker explains that 90% of his customers can afford to pay for their art upfront but it is a powerful psychological enabler for them to be able to pay over time.
More important, Becker explains, Art Money takes a widespread practice among art market veterans—paying for a work of art over time—and makes it available to new buyers who may not know that some galleries will over such terms to buyers.
"We allow people," Becker says, "to say 'Yes!'"
Jamie Niven, the well-known charity auctioneer, discusses his new role at Athena Art Finance, his years in business development at Sotheby's and the loneliness of the auctioneer struggling through a bad sale.
Touria El Glaoui is the founder and director of the 1:54 Art Fair which opens in London on October 6th. In this podcast, El Glaoui talks about the African collector base for Contemporary African art, the 1:54 Fair's role in developing that collector base further and the future of African Contemporary art within the global art market.
Allese Thomson, who works with many Contemporary artists as executive producer at Here Be Dragons, and James Tarmy, who covers the art market for Bloomberg, discuss the new Thomas Heatherwick structure being built for Hudson Yards as a "public" art project, the current mind-set of Contemporary art collectors as they digest the fruits of the last few years of market frenzy, and the continuing evolution of art fairs in this episode of the Artelligence podcast.
Galerie Gmurzynska's Mathias Rastorfer talks about Wifredo Lam's legacy in the context of the Tate's new show of the Cuban Modern master. Rastorfer reviews Lam's progress back into the mainstream of the global art market after a sojourn as a Latin American painter. He also reveals the strong connection between Jean-Michel Basquiat and the work of Wifredo Lam.
Mary Rozell discusses the UBS Art Collection which holds 30,000 works of art in the bank's offices around the world. Rozell's team curates and conserves the art it owns and acquires on the primary market additional works from artists and dealers around the world.
In this podcast, Rozell discusses the unique nature of UBS's art collection and her thoughts on guiding it into the future.
Mary Rozell has been an advisor to collectors, artists and estates on legal and strategic issues relating to the acquisition, management and deaccessioning of private art collections. An art lawyer with a master’s degree in modern art from The Courtauld, she was until recently the Director of Art Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art – New York. Rozell has also served as the director and/or consultant to several major private art collections, as well as Managing Director of the Swiss Institute – Contemporary Art in New York and Curator/Director of the European Studio Programme for the ACC Galerie in the city of Weimar, Germany. While living in Berlin for almost a decade, Rozell was also the German correspondent for The Art Newspaper, a curator of contemporary art and a consultant to galleries and Villa Grisebach Auctions. She has written and lectured extensively about Berlin’s emerging art scene and architectural landscape, and is the author of numerous journal articles, catalogue essays and translations.
Inigo Philbrick discusses his new London gallery show of Rudolf Stingel's "Instruction Paintings," Stingel's market and the vagaries of art dealing.
Leon Benrimon is spearheading Heritage Auction's expansion into Modern and Contemporary art and sales in New York. He speaks here about his focus on the middle market of works ranging in value from $10,000 to $1m, why he thinks that market is going to expand dramatically and Heritage's unique use of the web for bidding and selling.
Adam Fields is the founder of Arta, the platform for matching galleries and collectors with the appropriate art shipping firm. Arta offers a tool to give quotes on art shipping as well as providing fast and easy access to competitive bids. (Shiparta.com)
Marc Spiegler, Global Director of ArtBasel, and Noah Horowitz, Director Americas, talk about the world's leading art fair, the character of each of the different fairs and how ArtBasel works with galleries to create a massive federation of global galleries.
Norwegian explorer, book publisher and noted art collector talks about his experiences becoming a collector without access to the art world or a great deal of money.
A panel discussion at ArtBasel Miami Beach offering perspectives on the future of the art market as the global economy moves toward significant re-adjustment with Wilbur Ross, Jr., Steven Tananbaum and Jeffrey Deitch.
Robert Heffel of Canada's leading auction house, Heffel Fine Art, discusses the firm's Post-War and Contemporary art and Fine Canadian art sales that will take place on November 26, 2015. The Fine Canadian art sale features three important works by Lawren Harris, the Group of Seven artist who was featured at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles this Fall.
Mathias Rastorfer, CEO and Co-owner of Galerie Gmurzynksa, talks about the survey of Joan Miro's work the gallery has mounted for its 50th Anniversary. The exhibition comprises early, radically abstract-surrealist museum-works such as the 1925 “Circus Horse” or the beautifully-hued 1927 “Peinture;” rarely seen mixed-media “Collage-Drawings” of the 1930s; a suite of large drawings picturing fantastic biomorphic interpretations on the female figure and on the theme of lovers; and a distinct group of Miró’s commanding anthropomorphic bronze sculptures from the 1960s to 1970s.
Fred Hills and Daisy Sanders of Collisart discuss the growing international demand for American paintings and their experiences at Masterpiece, the London art fair.
Collector turned private dealer, Stavros Merjos, discusses his love for the work of Ed Ruscha, hot artists from the 1980s and their markets, LA collectors, Richard Prince and why Warhols are still really, really cheap but won't be forever.
Rudiger Weng describes the business logic behind his new venture, Weng Contemporary, which hopes to transform the market for prints and multiples by contemporary artists.
Judd Tully of Art + Auction and Scott Reyburn of the International New York Times discuss the May 2015 cycle of marquee art auctions in New York. With sales totals well above $2bn, Christie's bold move to consolidate sales and its aggressive use of guarantees have pushed the art market into new territory.
Heffel holds its Spring sales in Vancouver on May 27th amid growing interest in Canadian art exemplified by the popularity of the Dulwich Picture Gallery's show of Emily Carr and the upcoming Lawren Harris show co-curated by Steve Martin coming to the Hammer Museum.
Alfred Pacquement, former director of the Centre Pompidou, Sukanya Rajaratnam of Mnuchin Gallery and Daniel Hantai, discuss the artist's career and his position within the history of abstract painting.
Global gallerists Rachel Lehmann and David Maupin discuss artists, collectors and running a gallery with offices on opposite sides of the world serving artists and collectors everywhere in between.
Joshua Roth, Head of United Talent Agency's new department representing artists, discusses the new options for artists to reach a wider audience through relationships with global brands, his background in a Los Angeles art collecting family, LA's changing art culture and the role for curators in the new global art ecosystem.
Scott Reyburn of the International New York Times discusses the TEFAF art fair, the growth of online art sales and the future of Sotheby's now that a new Chairman has been installed along with his hand-picked CEO.
Former Federal Prosecutor Victor J. Rocco, now chair of Herrick Feinstein's White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice, discusses what gallery owners should do when faced with a subpoena or questions from law enforcement. Several stories in the press cite the Manhattan District Attorney's office as conducting an investigation of gallery practices around sales tax collection.
In this episode of the Artelligence Podcast Judd Tully talks about the dealers, the fairs (at the piers and on Park avenue) and the sales during this year's Armory Week.
The International New York Times's Art Market correspondent, Scott Reyburn, discusses his story on London's private dealers and their struggle with "buyers" instead of "collectors." Also, we discuss the Arttactic confidence survey, Marcato's renewed attacks on Sotheby's board, Sotheby's deal with RM Auctions to get a foothold in the classic car market, and much more.
Scott Reyburn discusses the London Contemporary sales and the possibility that the art market has achieved a new, sustainable level; Thorstein Veblen's idea of conspicuous consumption; and the weight of auction catalogues.
Colin Gleadell recaps the London Impressionist and Modern sales at Sotheby's and Christie's; Artnet's Director of Marketing, Thierry Dumoulin, explains the site's new partnership with TEFAF.
Hrag Vartanian of Hyperallergic describes his trip to LA for a series of art fairs including the LA Art Book Fair and ArtLA Contemporary; James Tarmy of Bloomberg and Brian Boucher from Artnet News talk about the New York Old Master sales.
Patricia Cohen of the New York Times discusses the reaction to her story about private museum tax exemptions; Rob Weisberg describes Invaluable's strategy, its alliances with eBay and Epai in China as well as the growth prospects for art collectibles.
This section of the September 2011 Artelligence Modern Market panel opens with Helly Nahmad explaining how Chinese buyers came to collect Giorgio Morandi (pictured) paintings and continues to explore the artists Guy Bennett, Nicholas Maclean and Nicholas Acquavella saw as worth buying and holding.
Olyvia Kwok is the principal of Willstone Management, an art investment and advisory firm in London and New York. Here, Kwok discusses her business and her views on artists and the art market.
Marion Maneker & Judd Tully discuss the previous week's round of Impressionist and Modern sales.
The panel discussion originally took place in September of 2011 at the Artelligence conference. Guy Bennett, Nicholas Acquavella, Nicholas Maclean and Helly Nahmad discuss various aspects of the market but the conversation focuses on the prices achieved for Joan Miró.
Peter Stevens, Executive Director of the David Smith Estate, joins Robert Mnuchin and Sukanya Rajaratnam of Mnuchin Gallery to discuss their show at Frieze Masters of David Smith, The Forgings.
Peter Loughrey is an established curator, trusted consultant, and a well-recognized expert in Modern Design & Fine Art. He is a prominent figure in the Los Angeles Modern Art & Design community through his involvement at LACMA as a member of the Decorative Arts and Design Council and Contemporary Friends, as well as his contributions to Taschen books. Not only is he a repeat appraiser on PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow”, but he has also been featured on Forbes’ “Sold!” on Ovation TV.
Peter co-curated many Los Angeles gallery shows, including “Gio Ponti: Furnished Settings & Figuration” (2004) and “Dutch Design” (2005), both at ACME Gallery, in addition to co-curating and publishing a catalog for “Gaetano Pesce: Pieces from a Larger Puzzle” at Los Angeles’ Italian Cultural Institute (2010). He has also written numerous articles and was a contributor in the books Case Study Houses (Taschen 2003), Julius Shulman Modernism Rediscovered (Taschen 2007), and Collecting Design (Taschen 2010). He was named one of the 50 most powerful dealers in the Art + Auction “Power Issue” for two consecutive years.
Curator of BANKSY The Unauthorised Retrospective on view at Sotheby's in London and owner of Lazarides, Steve Lazarides talks about the "street art" market, Banksy and future of this global style.
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Richard Wright, founder of the design and Contemporary art auction house Wright, speaks about his 14 years in the business, the growth of the design market and his expansion to New York.
Dr. Loretta Würtenberger of Fine Art Partners discusses her firm's role in providing financing to dealers for secondary market transactions and fabrication for the primary market. Dr. Würtenberger also explains how her firm works with artists estates.
Venus Over Manhattan gallerist and collector Adam Lindemann talks about the Contemporary art market, the New York auctions, guarantees, Richard Prince, Joe Bradley and Alexander Calder (because, in the end, Calder goes with everything.)
After nearly 13 years at the head of Christie's Contemporary Art department during a period of un paralleled growth in the art market and, even more strikingly, the market for Contemporary Art, Amy Cappellazzo has started a new firm called Art Agency Partners with renowned art advisor Allan Schwartzmann.
Here Amy talks about the essential ingredients—liquidity for the wealthy and a liquidity of art and artists—that made this global art boom possible.