You can burn a whole career on a failed sale
Amy Cappellazzo, International Co-Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie's, New York
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I probably dedicate more time than I should to watching the younger markets; I'm always interested in the younger artists because they're the future of the market. You need them to keep growing and emerging, and you have to watch them very closely, and therefore it can be very time consuming. I am conscious of the fact that you can burn a whole career on a failed sale. For example, if you put a young artist on a very big stage and they can't keep the stage, you run the risk of tanking the market and burning a career. I'm not sitting here in this ethical position claiming that I have to take care of young artists; it's more a question of burning my own inventory out, too, by running it up too high.
The auction's effect on an artist's career
Jeff Koons was completely born and raised at auction, although his gallery, Sonnabend, does a good job in the primary market of selling his work, but the strength of his market owes everything to auction, truthfully. There are also other examples, like Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami, etc.
On Jean-Michel Basquiat's Profit selling for $ 5.5 million
Sure. That's another one. That set the bar for a great Basquiat.What was essentially missing in the Basquiat market was that one price that happened at Christie's - it felt a little unusual for the market because there were still so many run-of-the-mill Basquiats trading for $ 400 000 or $ 500 000. That was really an extraordinary reach at the time. In Richard Prince's own words, I think he at one time said that he owes more to auction houses than he does to museums for the success of his career. That's another great example.
An Andreas Gursky photograph versus a Prince photograph
With the Gursky photos that tend to make the top prices, out of the edition of six, maybe four are in museum collections. Richard's market is a little bit different. There are certain museums that own a lot of his work, like the Whitney, for example, but Richard was not as heavily and broadly collected by museums right from the get-go. With Gursky, a huge price for a certain image is possible because it is the only example not in a museum, whereas the other five examples are in museum collections.
Buying at auction
People like depth in markets. Basically, auctions bring transparency and democracy to this market. It's an unregulated market, so there are still lots of other things that remain undisclosed. In auction, you might not know who is bidding or whether it is a dealer or a private collector, but you can count the number of telephone bidders on it, you can count the number of paddles, and you can assess the depth of the market.
Page [1] [2] [3]
Page [1] [2] [3]
I probably dedicate more time than I should to watching the younger markets; I'm always interested in the younger artists because they're the future of the market. You need them to keep growing and emerging, and you have to watch them very closely, and therefore it can be very time consuming. I am conscious of the fact that you can burn a whole career on a failed sale. For example, if you put a young artist on a very big stage and they can't keep the stage, you run the risk of tanking the market and burning a career. I'm not sitting here in this ethical position claiming that I have to take care of young artists; it's more a question of burning my own inventory out, too, by running it up too high.
The auction's effect on an artist's career
Jeff Koons was completely born and raised at auction, although his gallery, Sonnabend, does a good job in the primary market of selling his work, but the strength of his market owes everything to auction, truthfully. There are also other examples, like Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami, etc.
On Jean-Michel Basquiat's Profit selling for $ 5.5 million
Sure. That's another one. That set the bar for a great Basquiat.What was essentially missing in the Basquiat market was that one price that happened at Christie's - it felt a little unusual for the market because there were still so many run-of-the-mill Basquiats trading for $ 400 000 or $ 500 000. That was really an extraordinary reach at the time. In Richard Prince's own words, I think he at one time said that he owes more to auction houses than he does to museums for the success of his career. That's another great example.
An Andreas Gursky photograph versus a Prince photograph
With the Gursky photos that tend to make the top prices, out of the edition of six, maybe four are in museum collections. Richard's market is a little bit different. There are certain museums that own a lot of his work, like the Whitney, for example, but Richard was not as heavily and broadly collected by museums right from the get-go. With Gursky, a huge price for a certain image is possible because it is the only example not in a museum, whereas the other five examples are in museum collections.
Buying at auction
People like depth in markets. Basically, auctions bring transparency and democracy to this market. It's an unregulated market, so there are still lots of other things that remain undisclosed. In auction, you might not know who is bidding or whether it is a dealer or a private collector, but you can count the number of telephone bidders on it, you can count the number of paddles, and you can assess the depth of the market.
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Collecting Contemporary
Flexicover, 16.8 x 22.6 cm (6.6 x 8.9 in.), 300 pages
$ 34.99
$ 34.99
Words from the wise: insiders' tips on how to navigate the art market like a pro
Richard Prince, Untitled (Cowboy), 1999, ektacolour photograph, image: 154.94 x 82.55 cm (61 x 32 1/2 in. ), edition of 3 + 1 AP. Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York (c) Richard Prince 1999