ArtMarket® Insight, la actualidad del mercado del arte

Diego Rivera – “I never believed in God, but I believe in Picasso” [22/03/2007]

Diego RIVERA was a friend of many of the great modern artists, not only Pablo PICASSO but also Amedeo MODIGLIANI, who painted his portrait, Piet MONDRIAAN and André BRETON. In 1913, Rivera experimented with analytical cubism before developing a mature style with simplified forms and bright colours, christened “naif”. His career took off in his home country of Mexico with the painting of mural frescos whose overt political commitment had a massive impact in the spirit of the times.

Art Market Trends 2006 [20/03/2007]

Artprice publishes its exclusive art market report that more than 6,300 international media and institutions rely on each year. Based on the 5 million auction recorded by 2,900 auction houses, “Art Market Trends 2006” is a 36-pages report of macroeconomics and microeconomics analyses updated to match the auction events and the artworks prices evolutions. This report published by ArtMarketInsight, Artprice’s press agency, in collaboration with Artprice’s econometrics department also includes genuine rankings such as the TOP 500 artists by turnover, the 100 highest auctions of the year and the 10 most buoyant art movements of the art market.

Artprice has never before recorded such high figures. The growth of the public auction art market is unprecedented. Artprice has compiled a hotly disputed TOP 10 based on price inflation and sales volumes. At the heart of this dossier, Artprice offers an exclusive ranking of artistic movements based on recorded price progressions.

Top 10 artists [13/03/2007]

Each artist makes their own, large or small, contribution to the total market. And ranking them by auction turnover gives a good indication of market conditions, preferences and trends. Every year Artprice ranks artists by this criterion.

The contemporary drawing market [08/03/2007]

Paris traditionally welcomes the Drawings Fair in March. This year, for the 19th event, 31 galleries presented more than 1000 papers from the Renaissance up to the 1970s in the Palais de la Bourse; there was a notable absence of more recent work because, for the first time, the Contemporary Drawings Fair took place March 22-26: forty or so French and foreign galleries took over a six-storey building on Avenue d’Iena for a show entirely dedicated to contemporary drawings.

New York hits the heights in 2006 [05/03/2007]

This year, the USA has again confirmed its position as the leading art market, with nearly a 46% market share in 2006 (vs. 43% in 2005). The Big Apple was booming with sales of near USD 3 billion and prices 32% higher than its last peak in 1990.

Discover the world of artprice with Thierry Ehrmann and the company’s HQ, the Abode of Chaos [27/02/2007]

Now available – the video of the TV show, Envoyé spécial, on Artprice, the Abode of Chaos, the headquarters of artprice.com, and Thierry EHRMANN, the founder of Artprice. Through a series of interviews of him and his co-workers, discover the Server Group and Artprice, and of the philosophy of the Group that has been on Internet for 20 years.

VernissageTV – Artprice.com / Interview with Thierry Ehrmann [25/02/2007]

Part 1/4 – Artprice.com considers itself as the world leader in art market information with a database of 21 million auction prices and indices, detailed auction results and 370000 artists. In cooperation with Artfacts.Net VernissageTV went to the headquarters of Artprice.com in Saint Romain au Mont d’Or, a medieval village near Lyons, France, to meet the founder of Artprice.com, Thierry Ehrmann.

Auguste Renoir in London [20/02/2007]

The National Gallery in London is hosting an exhibition of Pierre-Auguste RENOIR’s landscapes from 21 February to 20 May 2007. Whereas Renoir is essentially known to the public as a painter of intimist scenes and portraits, the 70 landscapes exhibited remind us just how much outdoor themes were also suited to Renoir’s soft touch and nuanced colours.

Photojournalism – Collective memory and photography [14/02/2007]

The photojournalism market is booming. Turnover at auction has risen by more than 250% in 10 years, and the trend is strong in the USA, France and the UK.For many years photojournalism was considered a secondary form of art, much like scientific or ethnographic photography. Since the 1950s however it has become well established, partly thanks to World Press Photo, with its annual contest celebrating the year’s best journalistic photographs, and a number of exhibitions underlining the news photo’s dual role as documentary testimony and aesthetic artefact.

Dali sculptures [06/02/2007]

Surrealism emerged at the same time as Freudian psycho-analysis in the 1920s prompting some artists to turn their attention to the world of the unconscious. In the words of André Breton, the surrealists’ mentor, their manifest intention was to “express the mechanics of thought”. In 1924, the founding year of the movement, Breton focused on 3-dimensional objects and proposed to make “objects that can only be seen in dreams”. Six years later, Dali applied his owned paranoia-critique method to the construction of objects creating new delirious images that were totally surrealist!

French art market returns to form in 2006 [04/02/2007]

Having missed out on the art market’s growth in 2002-2004, France is finally booming again. Turnover rose by 42% in 2006 to EUR 330 million, while volume sales advanced by 14%. Prices were up by 9% over twelve months though this is still 40% below their 1990 level.

Emerging art markets [28/01/2007]

The art market is a good indicator of the general economic prosperity of a country. Driven by strong growth, both China and India are rapidly becoming major players on the international art market.

The boom in art prices during 2006 [21/01/2007]

Art prices continued their ascension in 2006 with sharp accelerations observed on most major markets. At a worldwide level, Artprice’s global price index was up a further +25.4% over the year, to just 5% below its peak level in 1990. In the United States, however, prices are now 32% higher than the speculative bubble peak in 1990.

Italian drawing from the seventeenth century [11/01/2007]

The seventeenth century is being brought back to life, through a series of seven regional exhibitions that offer an overview of Italian drawing at the time. The shows are organised by the Louvre Museum and run from October 14, 2006, to February 23, 2007.

The Supports/Surfaces group [08/01/2007]

Summer 1969. In a challenge to the conventions of framing and picture-making as well as the dead weight of galleries and museums a group of artists from the south of France start to paint by laying down coloured pigment in a “surface” on a specific “support”, a canvas that may be framed or unframed. For several years, the group’s founders Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Valensi and Viallat sought to explore one of the least exploited yet most essential aspects of painting: the materials that constitute the work.

The New York School [02/01/2007]

After World War II, American painting was revived by a number of young artists. Influenced by surrealism, they eschewed reality and began a free style of painting that developed into two basic trends: “Action painting” and “Colorfield painting”.

Lucio Fontana : The quest for immateriality [27/12/2006]

Lucio FONTANA, who was born in Argentina to an Italian father, developed his artistic language in Italy from the Second World War onwards. In his quest for the immaterial, he acquired an Yves Klein blue monochrome in Milan in 1957. Fontana’s own works are also monochrome and perforated or slashed with a craft knife, in what he termed his concetti spaziali (spatial concepts) and tagli (slashes). The rents are an opening into the void; a lyrical gesture towards the infinite. Fontana was a very physical painter, attacking, piercing and lacerating the canvas in an attempt to discover what lies beneath: a gaping emptiness of immateriality.Fontana’s approach was not understood during his lifetime, but today collectors fight over his works. After the market slumped in the early 1990s, Fontana’s index has made constant gains over the last ten years, advancing some 330% since 1996.

The affichistes [17/12/2006]

Since the late 1940s many artists have turned their gaze towards the banal everyday environment. The transition from post-war posterity to consumer society brought radical changes in behaviour, in the way people related to everyday objects of consumption and in the urban landscape, where walls were transformed into advertising surfaces.

The Boston Five [10/12/2006]

Also known as the Boston Five, David ARMSTRONG, Nan GOLDIN, Mark MORRISROE, Jack PIERSON and Philip-Lorca DICORCIA are five artists who work independently, but who all explore roughly comparable types of “intimate” photography. The similarity of their work and their common origins (they met at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston) has led certain critics to consider them as one and the same entity dubbed the Boston Five or the Boston School.

Jeff Koons, star of the US market [04/12/2006]

The American Jeff Koons is one of the top-quoted contemporary artists on the market, and perhaps one of the most controversial.

Neo-pop, made in Japan [26/11/2006]

After the frenetic speculation in 2004 for the works of Murakami and Nara, young Japanese artists are now making their way into the auction world

Christie’s leads the public auction market in 2006 [22/11/2006]

USD 866 million from six sessions – that is the total revenue figure generated by Christie’s from its two thematic auctions held in New York this November, Impressionist & Modern Art and Post-War & Contemporary Art. The sum is an unprecedented figure in the history of auction results. By comparison, Sotheby’s generated USD 476 million from auctions with exactly the same themes.

Breaking news Artprice : Artprice will benefit from the European Directive on auctions sales. [14/11/2006]

Artprice is carefully studying the European Directive on services (derived from the Bolkestein Directive) to be voted in a plenary session today, 15 November 2006. This directive will have an impact on voluntary auctions.Artprice, author of the main legal analysis of the Law of 10 July 2000 and its decrees regarding the reform of voluntary auctions today observes that this French reform does not comply with the European directives on services.

Fashion photographers [12/11/2006]

To mark the opening of Paris Photo, a selection of works encapsulating the various facets of fashion photography will come under Thierry de Maigret’s hammer in an auction to be held at Drouot on 16 November.

Christie’s turns over USD 491.4 million from one sale [08/11/2006]

As expected, Christie’s auction of Impressionist and Modern art has confirmed that the art market is running at historical highs. In a single evening session involving a total of 78 lots, the auction house generated the astonishing figure of USD 491.4 million, the highest ever turnover at a single sale, far higher than Sotheby’s previous global record of USD 286 million notched up in May 1990.

Paris Photo: zooming in on the photography market [08/11/2006]

Paris becomes the world capital of photography this November, playing host to numerous exhibitions, fairs and auctions. Now in its 14th year, the Month of Photography will provide the occasion for more than 80 themed exhibitions. At the heart of the festivities, Paris Photo, the prestigious international fair held at the Carrousel du Louvre between 16 and 19 November and now in its tenth year, will showcase the works of 106 artists in 88 galleries — a vast panorama of the photography market embracing everything from the early masters to the very latest works.

French humanist photography [07/11/2006]

Between photo-journalism and picturesque paintings of society, humanist photography is a superb witness of people’s mannerisms and customs. The core of this artistic current occurred after WWII through to the late 1960s. The photographs of Robert DOISNEAU, Édouard BOUBAT, BRASSAÏ, Willy RONIS, and others, fed the newspapers and magazines of the era …and are often reproduced today. These photographs – charged with emotion and capturing fleeting moments of everyday life – have the undeniable documentary value of authenticity, but simultaneously, via their black and white medium, express a certain aesthetic of nostalgia. Over the years, this duality has particularly attracted collectors who, today, are not frightened to pay high prices for big names in photography.

Sale of the year… [02/11/2006]

The impressionist and modern art sales are the centrepiece of the New York auction season. As ever, Sotheby’s and Christie’s catalogues include some exceptional pieces.

The FIAC, at the heart of the French market in October [22/10/2006]

In October, the French art market is dominated by the FIAC, its principal contemporary art fair, judiciously organised for the period between the Frieze fair and the Art Cologne fair.

Maurice Denis : A Nabi at the Orsay Museum [19/10/2006]

The Musée d’Orsay in Paris will be celebrating the works of Maurice DENIS from 31 October 2006 to 21 January 2007. This retrospective homage should give the public a clearer understanding of the artistic evolution of a painter who was a contemporary and friend of Paul GAUGUIN, Pierre-Auguste RENOIR, Edgar DEGASand Édouard MANET, among others.