Monkdogz Artblog

For most of us who’re not financially wealthy or commercially famous, we think that those who are rich and famous have it easy. Even if they were to lose a lot, go out of fashion or go bankrupt, we think that they are unlikely to end up on the streets; in fact they’d probably end up better off than we ourselves are now!

I’ve always accepted though that the wealthier you are or the more famous you are, your responsibilities tend to grow as well. You have a lot more people relying on you, working for you and with you and whose salaries you are responsible for. Your other expenses tend to be a lot larger as well including those fixed costs which can’t be reduced so easily.

So it was interesting to read the very frank (sic) interview of Frank Stella by Katya Kazakina for Bloomberg News. Frank Stella is 73 and still working. His current show at Paul Kasmin Gallery “Polychrome Relief” is reviewed in a previous post of mine titled “Rare Gems”. Despite his fame and critical recognition which includes a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2007, he explains that he is not currently in fashion and explains “there’s just not enough capital to keep going at the rate that I make work”.

Asked by Kazakina if Stella wakes up and goes to the studio every morning he replied “No, I wake up every morning thinking about servicing my debt. I have to pay for what I do. And in the last 20 years, I’ve done it all by myself.” Stella estimates that he has to raise $5million annually to create his work. He explains that “Exhibiting is how you make a living. You can sell everything, but you still have to go to work the next day. I have to earn money to make the work. So I work for the work. It rules me completely financially, psychically, physically.” However when Kazakina suggests that it sounds tough he replies. “It’s not any harder than digging ditches. It’s the poverty of imagination that defines us.”

He then goes on to give us the scoop on Larry Gagosian “I’ve been with Larry. It’s hard to get money out of him. He’s responsible to, essentially, the stockholders who are putting up the money. Those guys want 17-18 percent return on their money. I am not that successful.”

Asked how the art world factors into his life he concludes “There is the art world in which I live and have to function in. And there’s the art world which has been given to me, which is the past. And it’s the most sustaining thing.
You don’t get carried away because you see how you fit into it, if you fit at all. It’s pretty infinitesimal, the space that you occupy. What matters is that you are part of the organism and that you feel alive that way.”

It’s worth reading the full interview…. You know that question that they ask?.….If you could sit down to dinner with anybody, who would it be? It looks like Frank Stella’s just jumped to the top of my list!

After the crowds of last week, Chelsea was very much more subdued tonight. The one exception was Gagosian on 24th Street which was a zoo. Anselm Reyle and Takahashi Murakami’s work just couldn’t be seen for the hoards of humanity milling around. I had to escape.

In sharp contrast, I found serenity and inspiration at Gallerie Lelong on West 26th Street, where Jaume Plensa is exhibiting his sculptures until October 24th. “In the Midst of Dreams” is a skillful and elegant exhibition.

As you walk into the gallery you are faced with a block of alabaster; one of three in the exhibition. As you walk around it to the front, a face cut into the stone starts to emerge. It is a beautifully serene face. The effect of the stone and lighting gives it a holographic effect; somewhat ethereal, that despite being a large solid object it feels as if it could just suddenly vanish into thin air.

The artist’s vision is for a universal and global humankind, where race and nationality are superseded by a common need for spirituality and dreams.

At the back of the gallery are three large polyester resin heads standing over 7 feet tall in the middle of a sea of marble stones. They are lit from within with white neon light which brings them to life. The heads are facing in towards each other so that it is not possible to see the whole face from any one angle, making it necessary to move around the perimeter of the sea of marbles in order to see all sides of the faces and the text which are overlaid on the foreheads and cheeks.

It left me with a feeling of gentle frustration, a feeling of not quite grasping a concept but knowing that understanding was not too far, just a stretch away. I initially sensed my mortality and limitations as a human being, but as I stood there I started to feel hope grow. The hope that wisdom and serenity were but a step or two away; that I only needed to be open to learning and new experiences.

When was the last time that a piece of art made you feel that way?

Following the media attention of Susan Boyle especially in Britain where they are very good at building up and then knocking down anybody who dares to pop their head up, mole style, into the glare of their journalistic headlights, it makes you wonder what role they play in the success of person. 

Despite the fact that Susan Boyle lost to “Diversity” the exciting dance group of 3 sets of brothers, she will no doubt be able to cash in on her fame, albeit in a dimmer spotlight, but it will probably not be a bad outcome, considering the pressure that she’s been under and perhaps succumbed to.

Andy Warhol in 1968 said “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”   It’s a now famous quote which may have backfired on him, with critics suggesting that he was just a famemonger and not a great artist.  Did fame contribute to his success?  Does his work command the millions of dollars because he was famous as a celebrity in his own right?  Would his work have stood the test of time without being attached to the media attention?  We will never know.

Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst are today’s celebrity artists. 

Jeff Koons went as far as hiring a media consultant and taking out adverts in international magazines, cultivating a successful persona.  His marriage to porn star Cicciolina (Ilona Staller) added to his notoriety added to his socializing with the rich and famous.  Legal cases surrounding their son after the divorce and copyright battles has meant that Koons remains in the news. 

Damien Hirst has courted fame and notoriety with his controversial art and public antics which have been well documented by the popular press. 

So does this celebrity status help or not?  Libby Purves a British journalist, radio broadcaster and author has been part of the UK celebrity culture for well over 3 decades.  Purves suggests that “moderate doses of applause and recognition are necessary to artists. They need both the sense of public communication, and the money.”  However she cautions the extreme; “overdoses of fame can be lethal: they often douse the creative spark and drive the artist into noisy self-parody and consequent self-hate.

It is worth noting that -all three artists above have had to use a “factory” of assistants, not unlike the renaissance studios in order to fulfill demand for their works. 

Interestingly and rather disparagingly Purves also says that “In a way, the new phenomenon of empty celebrity un-backed by original talent is less destructive: any amount of fame can’t do much harm to the oeuvre of Piers Morgan or Paris Hilton.

So what is success?  Is it financial wealth, is it critical acclaim, is it public applause, is it media attention, is it collector desire?  Perhaps only the passage of time will give us the real answer.  

So the latest trendy phrases are “good works are selling for fair market price” and “people are in observational mode”.  Both heard at the contemporary art auctions this week. 

Artinfo labeled Sotheby’s sales “solid but uninspiring”, with just over $47million in sales resulting in 81% of lots offered and 78% of the pre-sales dollar estimates.  48 lots were offered compared to 83 lots a year ago and $362million and the lowest result Sotheby’s achieved in a contemporary art sale since 2003.  

However an Alexander Calder sculpture sold for $3.5 million which was more than double its estimate.  

Bloomberg spotted Actor Owen Wilson billionaire Eli Broad and former Hollywood agent Michale Orvitz at the sale.  Larry Gagosian was also there and successfully bid for Jeff Koons’ “Baroque Egg with Bow (Turquoise/Magenta)” at $5,458,500.

Christie’s on the other hand did better and according to Artinfo “charged to a sizzling $93,734,500 tally, reassuringly nestled between pre-sale expectations of $71.5 million and $104.5 million” achieving a “sizzling” 91% of lots offered and 94% of pre-sales estimates.  54 lots were offered compared to 57 at last year’s May sales which brought in $348.2 million. This sale was the lowest contemporary result since November 2004 for Christies.

The highest bid went for the David Hockney portrait of Betty Freeman called “Beverly Hills Housewife,” which sold for an artist record $7.9 million. 

Bloomberg spotted Hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen and tennis great John McEnroe at the event.  Larry Gagosian was also there and bid successfully with a record price for Roy Lichtenstein’s “Frolic”

The New York Times suggested that Christies did better because of their strategy of conservative estimates and a wider variety of artists appealing to a wider range of collectors.  They suggest that the winning of Betty Freeman’s estate which included an excellent contemporary art collection was also key.

Phillips did the worst with Artinfo suggesting that it “limp(ed) to the finish line” with only 72% of lots offered, sold and 57% of pre-sale estimate value.

Anecdotal feedback from the Affordable Art Fair also suggested similar results with only half the number of sales compared to last year.  

N.B.  I’m sure everybody already knows that estimates do not reflect commissions, which are 25 percent of the hammer price up to $50,000, 20 percent of the price from $50,001 to $1 million, and 12 percent above $1 million for all three companies.  

Esther Barend very kindly sent over a link of Ben Lewis’ latest article about the dire straits of the contemporary art world in the London Times today.

Ben Lewis is a British art critic, journalist and documentary film producer. He has been predicting the “armageddon” of the art world since 2006; a little premature, but he is now feeling vindicated and is taking every opportunity to tell everyone “I told you so”. He has such a negative spin about the contemporary art world that he was banned from the Sotheby’s Damien Hirst auction, a distinction that he is inordinately proud of and which he wrote about in the Evening Standard.

He is currently making a documentary film about the contemporary art world which is expected to air later this year. The working title is “Brave New Art World” a very jaundiced view of the contemporary art boom, based on statistics such as published by the Contemporary 100 Index, which suggests that the top 25% of the 100 highest selling artists increased in value by 3010% since 1984 and that 2000 percentage points of that happened between 2005 -2008. Interestingly, he was turned down for interviews by many of the people and organizations that he approached,

His focus is mainly on artists such as Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Zhang Xiaogang, Richard Prince and Takashi Murakami and dealers such as Larry Gagosian and museum directors such as Sir Nicholas Serota of the Tate Gallery. His outlook is very pessimistic and he doesn’t offer an solutions, except for some banal suggestions, in a talk he gave late last year, of  “civil disobedience” such as “behaving like an artist – do really stupid things……and say that you are appropriating stupidity to critique it”.

I think he is right in that there will be changes to the art market, but I’m not ready to jump off the roof just yet.

The second ART HK opens this week with 110 galleries from 24 countries.  The only galleries from the US are Gagosian and Gebert Contemporary (Santa Fe) plus Frey Norris Gallery (LA), PYO Gallery (LA), Arario Gallery (NY), Gana Art (NY) and Chambers Fine Art (NY), all five of the latter being Asian specialists.  This year, European galleries make up about a fourth of the list of exhibitors, just over 50% from the Asia and 10 from Australia. 

Hong Kong continues to be an attractive region with it’s continued status as a free port, it has 45% of China’s art market according to the Financial Times; a market worth $3.8 billion in 2007 making it the world’s third largest market.  The contemporary market increased more than 200 times in Hong Kong between 2003 and 2007.  With the current recession, this phenomenal growth is likely to slow down, but with the Hong Kong government already approving a $2.7 billion budget to develop nearly 100 acres as a cultural district, including a museum, exhibition space and performance art venues, it may not be as hard hit as some other key cities.  Hong Kong is also bordered to the north by Shenzhen which is currently the wealthiest city in China and one of the fastest growing cities in the world.  

Last year’s ART HK 08 brought in over 19,000 visitors to see 101 international galleries and generated $20million in gross sales.  The fair has some major figures in the art world including Will Ramsey, CEO of Pulse, Mary Dinaburg, Founder of Dinaburg Arts which has been one of the advisors to the Armory show for the few  years, and Charles Mereweather, the artistic director and curator of the 2006 Sydney Biennale.  The list is completed with a stellar list of experienced art world and art fair organizers.  

We look forward to seeing how this year’s Art HK 09 does in the current economic climate.  The fair runs May 14-17. 

The contemporary art market is really going through some changes.  The Mei-Moses Fine Art Index is reported to have seen a 35% drop in the first quarter of 2009.   The coming week’s spring sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips will be very interesting.  Is the art market still alive or is as dead as a dodo?

The DOW and Nasdaq index has been steadily rising since March 9^th which is giving some people reason to hope that the recession may have bottomed out.  President Obama is suggesting that “we have begun to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and we’ve begun the work of remaking America.”  The Ftse 100, Nikkei and Hang Seng have also seen increases in Britain, Japan and Asia over the last few months.  

However with the realty markets still showing signs of a downward trend and many analysts suggesting that the current rise in the stock markets cannot be sustained the wariness is still palpable.  The “lost” $350billion, the AIG bailout money which has given many of the major banks a boost to allow them to show returning profits, the fall of Chrysler are still major factors that make any sensible person double think trusting their money to these corporations and institutions.  Will this benefit the art market or harm it?

The auction houses have drastically reduced their offerings in these sales.  In an effort to maintain prices and not see some major reductions, the Wall Street Journal suggests that the auctioneers have tightly edited their sales, with very few artists who have seen significant increases in their prices over the last few years.  They also suggest that lesser known artists who may be more sought after by museum curators and well-seasoned collectors are being offered in the hope that they will be snapped up.  A movement that WSJ journalist Kelly Crow, cleverly calls “a swing from celebrity art to cerebral art”.  

This may be the spin that the auction houses are putting on, but I assume, that many sellers are not keen to sell at these drastically reduced prices and if they don’t have to.   There is also the other less- talked about factor that owners of high-profile and expensive art works, often leverage these items to secure borrowings.   I am also sure that dealers are a more ‘private” way to sell without everybody else finding out if they are having to sell their prized art pieces.  .  

There are some celebrity works being shown such as the Picasso’s painting of his daughter that I talked about recently, Giacometti’s “Let Chat” at Sotheby’s and a well timed (with Gagosian’s “Mosqueteros” exhibition) Picasso’s musketeer “Mousquetaire à la pipe” at Christie’s in the hope that they will generate some excitement and upward bidding. 

At the moment, it looks like everyone’s just poking their noses out from the burrows for a little twitch and to gather a whiff of climate.  I think that there’s probably too great a smell of fear still in the air for any major fireworks to occur at the sales, unless as somebody pointed out to me today, they’re trying to launder some of that missing $350billion…….

As a gallery owner representing contemporary living artists, the emphasis placed on dead artists seems to me to be a bit of a cop-out.  There is little risk in buying and selling these works and for a collector there is only a role of voyeur.  The collector is not a part of the development, growth and excitement of the rising career of a living artist.  

However, I felt that the new show at Gagosian “Picasso:Mosqueteros” was a risk to take.  Picasso exhibited his late work in 1973 just before he died.  He was slammed by the critics and unappreciated by the public.  So to exhibit these works took either a leap of faith or some insider information.  It was obviously the latter; the collection was put together by Bernard Picasso, the artist’s son and curated by John Richardson, a friend and biographer of Pablo Picasso.  

I was surprised by the gushiness of the New York Times review and slightly put off to be honest.  Yet last Saturday, there were over 5000 people who came in through the doors, with many waiting for over an hour to get it as the line snaked down the block to the West Side Highway.  There were so many people in the gallery, they had to allow 20 people to leave to allow another 20 people in for safety and security reasons.  People have been coming in from all over the continent and around the world specifically to see this show.

The show has been hung very creatively by John Richardson to best showcase the paintings, drawings, and prints.  It is a very dynamic show of powerful work.  I was there for nearly an hour today but it was not nearly enough.  Not all the work is of the same stature in terms of quality and technique, but for a man who created nearly 50,000 pieces in a lifetime and spent the last 6 years of his life, after a major operation, continuously working in his late 80s and 90s, the achievement is phenomenal.  

I’m going to go back again to see the show next week to give the old man his due and myself another education.  If you’re going to go and see it, I recommend seeing the interviews on Gagosian’s site and reading whatever you can before you go.  It will be worth your time. 

I think I might be hissed at by some people, but I think the art world benefits from the presence of Larry Gagosian.

To some he’s a superstar or the royalty of the art world. Many are scared of him and many are jealous of him. He’s certainly a larger than life character; he flaunts his power and he doesn’t pander to the masses. His business style is impressive and in a world where perception is everything, he manages to maintain the mystique despite his high profile. As another profile of him appears in the press, this time in an excellent article by David Segal of the New York Times, I find that I still know little about this art world kingpin.

I’ve locked gazes with him a couple of times at openings and he’s pretty inscrutable; neither friendly nor dismissive. I’m told by those close to him that he’s not a “nice guy”. However his networking is very potent and his business acumen is first rate with the proof in the unique multi-national business that he’s created. He is known for stealing artists from other galleries, where they had been nurtured and developed. He had to make a multi-million dollar settlement with the federal prosecutors for unpaid taxes. He’s known to create deals with works of art that the owners were not thinking of selling. Players in his arena are reluctant to say ‘no’ to him in fear of offending him and being banished from the “inner-sanctum”. Rumors always abound about him; “he’s over-extended”, “he’s not sold anything in months”, “the mafia have a contract out for him”, “he’s manipulating the prices at the auctions to maintain artificial prices for his artists”. He doesn’t respond to them. Some even suspect that he may start some of them himself.

I think he adds excitement, mystery and certainly acts as a catalyst to make things happen in the artworld. He’s known to be brazen and to disregard old “rules of engagement” in the art market for which I applaud him even if I doubt I would do the same in his shoes.

I’ve realized that we’re not in quite the same business. His main driver is the dealing in the secondary markets; the very private buying and selling of artwork. The small gallery who is looking to develop emerging artists is playing in a different ballpark, although occasionally there are away matches to be played. I look forward to the opportunity to doing business with him soon. I’ll just remember to keep my wits about me.