The high end Art Market, the auction houses and the end of the bubble.

The incredible shrinking saleroom (Dec 24th 2008)
The high end Art Market, the auction houses and the end of the bubble.

With more than 200.000 lay-offs in Wall Street alone and many more in London and other financial districts around the world, stock markets off between 35 % and 55% globally, property prices like in East Hampton fallen by over 35%, and the gobal recession taking shape, the high end Art Market can be expected to take a heavy hit.

(from The Economist) THE moment the art market plummets is almost always signalled by a sudden catastrophic sale. This time was quite different. The top of the market can be narrowed down to the two-hour cocktail slot on Monday, September 15th 2008, when Oliver Barker raised more than £70m ($107.8m) in the first session of “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever”, the epic sale of Damien Hirst by Damien Hirst.
Thousands of people came to see the show in London during the ten days it was on view in the run-up to the sale. So many people registered to bid that Sotheby’s had to open up two extra rooms to accommodate the overflow. Against a background of one of Mr Hirst’s colourful spin paintings, Mr Barker worked the rooms hard. Just two lots of 56 failed to sell, and only three sold for less than the low estimate.

Third-quarter results, which cover the long summer period when there are no sales, revealed little. Only the fourth-quarter figures, due out in February, will show the full picture.
Auction house executives are already bracing themselves. “We are predicting dramatically reduced sales volumes,” Edward Dolman, Christie’s chief executive told The Economist on December 18th. “We’ve seen confidence dwindle away. People are not certain where prices are. Buyers all round are being very circumspect.” Death, divorce and debt will continue to provide artworks for the auction market. But discretionary sellers, who don’t have to sell, are likely to want to sit it out until things improve. “We’re not predicting much discretionary selling at all next year,” Mr Dolman said.