Reply #15: Wishful infeasibility: Fine art and the bubble in money

[54anickel]

http://www.prudentbear.com/articles/show/348

"...If you like your theatre absurd, keep an eye on the fine-art market in London..."


"Good art speaks truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth," wrote Iris Murdoch in The Black Prince – and seeing how Peter Doig's White Canoe (1990) was deemed good enough to fetch $11.3 million at auction last Wednesday, that must mean the only truth today is inflation.

Sotheby's (BID) midweek sale of contemporary art in London netted £45.7 million all told – some US$90 million. Indeed, it was "the most successful contemporary sale ever staged in Europe," as the auction house gasped in its press release. Doig's "early masterpiece" set a new cash record for a work by a living European artist, bagging five times its reserve.

Altogether the evening's sales ran up to 60% higher than the pre-auction estimates of only four weeks before. How's that for art appreciation!

It proved quite a week for London's wealthiest art lovers and their dealers, in fact. Last Monday, Sotheby’s achieved its highest value auction ever in Europe, knocking down Impressionist & Modern Art for a total of $173 million. On Tuesday night, Christie's achieved $177 million with its own Impressionist and Modern auction. Wednesday brought Sotheby's Contemporary sale, followed by Christie's auction of Post-War and Contemporary art on Thursday.

That netted $138 million, including a new Francis Bacon record, nearly double the previous high of $30 million hit in November.

Four days...one city...$578 million. That's more than gross inflows for the entire UK mutual fund industry over the same period. But don't forget Sotheby's commission on top! :wow:

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