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Before the pandemic, art price records tumbled in New York every May. In the past year everything was different and much smaller. Now the traditional spring auctions are back and should not only take place online.
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New York – Monet’s water lilies for $ 40 million? A Basquiat work for 50 million? Cezanne pears and apples for 35 million?
With impressive asking prices, the New York auction houses raised expectations ahead of the traditional spring auctions on Tuesday (May 11).
After an auction year marked by the coronavirus pandemic, in which a lot had to be postponed and relocated to the Internet, the spring auctions will now take place again on the usual date – and with various mixed forms of presence and online. The number of infections in New York is falling, the vaccination campaign is making rapid progress, an art fair in the metropolis has just opened its doors again with the Frieze – and the auction houses are also hoping to be able to set an example of the reopening.
Auction records in the three-digit million range, as in 2019, when a Monet painting changed hands for $ 110 million, had failed to materialize last year. In 2020, a triptych by Francis Bacon at Sotheby’s brought the highest sales with around 85 million dollars – at least significantly more than previously expected. The total volume of the auctions fell, but the auction houses proved to be more crisis-resistant than many experts suspected, and the pandemic turned out to be a catalyst for digitization for them too. Nevertheless, the question remains: How will the art market get out of the crisis and will prices reach the pre-Corona level again and records tumble?
“This time of upheaval had an enormous impact on the art world,” says Alexander Rotter, who is responsible for 20th and 21st century art at Christie’s. “It has influenced the kind of art that is made today and has changed our understanding of the art of the past.” The auction house wants to pick up on this “spirit of evolution and revolution” at this year’s auctions.
Christie’s is offering a work by the French painter Claude Monet (1840-1926). The auction house expects around 35 million dollars (about 30 million euros) for the cityscape of London “Waterloo Bridge, effet de brouillard”, created between 1899 and 1903. Christie’s is hoping for a sculpture by the German artist Martin Kippenberger (1953-1997) up to 15 million dollars. Kippenberger had the sculpture “Martin, off to the corner and ashamed”, which shows him as if standing in a corner as a punishment, created in 1989 as a reaction to a negative criticism of his work.
Competitive industry giant Sotheby’s is also hoping for many high double-digit million prices: The work “Versus Medici” by the US artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), which he painted in 1982 when he was only 22 years old, could cost up to 50 million dollars bring in, a water lily work by Monet 40 million. “Untitled (Rome)”, a 1970 work by US painter Cy Twombly (1928-2011) with chalk lines on a dark gray background, could be auctioned for $ 45 million. A portrait painted by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) in 1953 of his then partner Françoise Gilot could fetch 18 million. Works by the French artists Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) and Edgar Degas (1843-1917) are also estimated to be in the double-digit millions.
Outstanding works of art are and will remain the showpieces of auction houses, but in order to generate new sales, they are constantly on the lookout for new fields of activity and now regularly auction off jewels, wristwatches, trainers, designer handbags, wines – and recently also NFTs (non- fungible token), a type of digital certificate of authenticity. At this year’s spring auctions, Sotheby’s also wants to accept a cryptocurrency as a means of payment for a work by British street artist Banksy, the value of which is estimated at up to five million dollars.
This spring, the smaller auction house Guernsey’s is offering slightly more out-of-the-way items: a scribbled refrigerator door by US artist Keith Haring (1958-1990) and a stuffed elk’s head by his colleague Andy Warhol (1928-1987) – both are estimated at six-figure sums .
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210510-99-537463 / 3
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