Andy, Pablo and Francis

A couple of weeks ago, Artprice.com published its yearly overview of art market trends. It contains interesting insights in the "suicidal competition" in the art market and the remarkable rise of contemporary Chinese art (for example from Zhang Xiaogang and Yue Minjun). Anyway, 2007 might have been the last year without Asian artists in the top-10 of artists based on the total revenue generated by public sales (2006 ranking between brackets):

1 (2) Andy Warhol [422 million USD]
2 (1) Pablo Picasso [320 million USD]
3 (19) Francis Bacon [245 million USD]

4 (79) Mark Rothko
5 (14) Claude Monet
6 (9) Henri Matisse
7 (37) Jean-Michel Basquiat
8 (26) Fernand Léger
9 (6) Marc Chagall
10 (17) Paul Cézanne

Have fallen out of the top-10 this year: Modigliani, De Kooning, Gauguin, Liechtenstein, Schiele and Klimt.

Why we like art less...

...when the price goes down.

Press clips

Some interesting articles:
- London banks sell Old Masters, buy Contemporary
- Banksy chimps get sliced up
- Art funds expand in emerging markets...
- ...but Belgians don't really care

The Acid Test

"The historic month of January 2008, when the art market and the broader economy spectacularly diverged, will be debated at length by future historians of Western societies."

Read the full article from 'Art + Auction' here.