New York, New York

...is where I will spend some time next year.

Writing a paper

Beginning is easy: "This paper investigates the evolution of prices and returns in the art market since the middle of the previous century." Then it gets harder.

"An incredible richness of experiences"

Now on Sotheby's TV: the preview of its Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York on November 11.

Seeing auctioneer Tobias Meyer talking about the works of Yves Klein and the likes, you start to understand what he said in an interview with The New Yorker in 2006: "What I love to do is put people in front of art and make them feel it, make them stop everything else they're doing and experience it, deeply. That's how I make art expensive. And that's my job, for the company and for my clients. To make art expensive."

Down, down, down (2)

Artinfo reports on the "funereal mood" at the London auctions.

"We obviously need to adjust our pricing," said Christie’s London contemporary head Pilar Ordovas at the post-sale press conference.

Down, down, down

Sotheby's stock price over the last six months:

Printing money

In today's edition of The Guardian, British artists talk about art and money.

"Any artist who doesn't secretly admire what Damien's been able to achieve is not being entirely honest. But that level of commodification is quite specific to Damien." About the individual Hirst works that went on the block, Julien is more circumspect. "Warhol's use of repetition had real intellectual meaning. Nowadays, I wonder if seriality is not just a way of printing money."

My shopping bag

I went to Frieze today. I couldn't afford any of the works up for sale, but I did go home with 'The $12 Million Stuffed Shark'.

When the book was published in February, The Economist's Art.view blog wrote:

A new book by an economist named Don Thompson entitled 'The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art and the Auction Houses' ought to be required reading for collectors intending to wade into well publicised contemporary art auctions like the one Sotheby’s will host on February 27th. It ought to be, but it won’t, because it is out of tune with the hype that accompanies these sales.

Two of Mr Thompson’s observations are particularly telling. First, only half of the modern and contemporary artists listed in Christie’s and Sotheby’s catalogues 25 years ago are now offered at any major auction. And second, of the 1,000 artists who had serious gallery shows in London and New York during the 1980s only 20 were shown in comparative venues in 2007.