Contemporary Art prices

[Tomcat]

" If is says its Art then it is Art".

 

I wont argue with that  but i see many of the new rich in London are being taken for a ride.=example- I think the guys name was Milliue or similar and he was been producing minimalist scrawls on paper which were selling for a few hundred pound last year. Now you have to part with more than 30K for a scrawl on paper.

 

I give this as an example but what is happening is that the Artist forms a group of friends who pool their money and buy back their own art at a puffed up price and hence the artists work is seen by say a Russian oligarch as a serious work and something that they must have on their wall and to impress his new friends at dinner parties

 

Some recent works sold for 200,000 maybe worth peanuts when this bubble bursts according to some art critics . As they say "when the tide goes out we can see whos wearing no clothes" 

 

note

I must be in the wrong business

[pdogg]

I'm with you TC, you can't live in a painting, baseball cards, or other collectibles.

[Tomcat]

On another subject

 

The Sunflowers by Van Gogh is on display near me and the Dutch gallery one as well .. worth a cool 300,000,000 US dollars it is said for the two if they were ever sold.. wow ( thats what value it said in the Newspaper)

 

i heard that there is a version in a Japanese Bank that is said to be a copy but they wont have it tested for fear of losing face.. they paid 50 million i think

 

great business eh. Sell the japs a fake knowing that huge loss of face means they wont ever test its authenticity. I remember seeing a TV Doc on this some years back... maybe they did get it resolved but my guess is that its still in the vault worth around 100 bucks.

[pacman]

Another famous Van Gogh painting "Irises" was on the wall of a private office for many years here in my home town. I think the owner bought it for $15 million & sold it for $69 million. I will stand corrected on those figures but I am fairly sure they are right. And given the inflation in the top end of the art market, the current valuation of 300 million for "The Sunflowers" sounds plausible.

 

Expect prices to go much further given the lack of faith in world equity markets. Investors are torn between sitting on cash & blue chip shares. Both are vulnerable & there are few sound places to park money that won't get savaged by inflation & the vagaries of world events. A Van Gogh or a Picasso makes a lot of sense if you have a lazy hundred million or more laying around. 

 

As for these scribbles that are currently commanding 100's of thousands of pounds, I think someone is being taken for an enormous ride. If their value stacks up & they continue to appreciate, I am off to buy a set of crayons. I'm sure I can knock up something equally as vapid as that lot of child's rubbish.