Gold Rush Auctions Automatic translate

It seems that the era when great canvases appeared on the market once in the life of one generation has irrevocably sunk into oblivion. Just like, by the way, the galaxy of merchant-fanatics, who preferred to give great creations to the hands of a fairly narrow circle of collectors, connoisseurs and experts. Twenty years ago, lobbying groups, bringing together museum experts, critics, and collectors, influenced the public taste only in individual centers of the art trade - Paris, Milan, now they make the weather all over the world. It is these shadow managers who play a decisive role in promoting the paintings on the market, creating excitement around them and the rapid development of success.

The tactics are simple: a sharp increase in prices for one of the paintings of any artist almost automatically increases the value of his entire collection. It is only necessary that the work of the master selected for such an exchange operation regularly, with a certain frequency, appear on the market. In order not to dissipate the strength and attention of reputable clients (companies or individuals), a small number of artists are involved in the turnover - usually 5-10 for each country. It is no coincidence that over the past two or three years “personal records” have been recorded for the paintings of Kandinsky, Monet, Chagall. “There are no more collectors,” complains one of the most famous old-school art dealers Leo Castelli, “there are only investors, investors seeking to make money.”

It was in this atmosphere of turning art galleries from churches into shops that international auctions of fine arts have changed and entered the art front for the last twelve years, be it Sotheby’s or Christie’s, since only such institutions are able to establish the thrilling crowd of collectors’ investors true to date quotation of works of art.

The situation at hippodrome auctions has opened up another important source of inflation to the absolute unlimited range of prices for prestigious paintings: loud self-promotion. After all, transactions are now concluded not in the open air or in quiet offices, as before, but with the gathering of the public. Sales figures mesmerize the crowd, bidders become the heroes of hundreds and hundreds of publications in prestigious publications in all corners of the world.

Moreover, such advertising is practically free and goes as if to a prize for a respectable collector. For example, a Japanese insurance company, which decided in 1987 to celebrate its centenary with the purchase of Van Gogh’s "Sunflowers", laid out 267 million 300 thousand francs on the auction altar. But if her bosses would have come up with the saving idea of ​​glorifying their own activities with as many articles that were caused by their sensational acquisition, then they would have to fork out for the purchase of advertising pages in newspapers for an amount that was almost more than $ 40 million.

True, it is necessary that by the time of the record deal the hall was full of representatives of the writing and film fraternity, ready to capture the epoch-making event. But this is the task of “lobbying groups”: the excitement and expectation of unprecedented spending attract the press at auctions, and the presence of dozens of people with cameras and voice recorders awakens the spirit of competition among moneybags.

Today, perhaps, a company counting on benevolent advertising is much more profitable to buy a world masterpiece for fabulous money and put it for some time for general viewing and admiring than literally engage in charity work.

There is another important nuance of various kinds of auction transactions of the century. It has long been known that such purchases of paintings “painted in gold on platinum” always served as a “launder” of dubious money. However, auction victories also serve to “launder” reputations. Traditionally, philanthropy and collecting opened the way for the nouveau riche to a high society of titles and reputations. In conditions when masterpieces are becoming more expensive, the key that opens the doors to the "best homes of Philadelphia" becomes truly golden and therefore even more desired.

By the way, in the psychology of the exchange market players and financial adventurers who came to the art market, one should look for one of the main reasons for turning paintings and sculptures into a "refuge of money." “It’s not by chance that painting deprived gold of its reputation as the most sustainable form of storing money,” says French art historian Henri Keko, author of the book “Arena of Art,” because gold is a stable investment. Painting, however, gives hope for a significant growth over time of advanced capital. ” The purchase of paintings by famous masters really remains a peculiar game for many businessmen, a continuation of exchange operations: pan or disappear. Moreover, playing on the canvases of Van Gogh or Renoir is not as simple as it might seem at first glance: lay out the money and wait until the “bundle of banknotes” hanging on the wall doubles by itself.

Firstly, the acquisition cost will increase significantly due to taxes, insurance premiums, and delays in protecting the masterpiece from greedy robbers. In addition, unlike, say, stocks or securities, “passive capital” invested in Van Gogh does not bring at least minimal dividends. Therefore, in order for the “investor” in Van Gogh not only not to lose the money spent in due time (taking inflation into account, of course), but to earn it, he must be sure that his picture will increase significantly in price. At this point, the interests of the owners of the paintings, the firms conducting the auctions, and the shadow lobby groups, ready to work together to play the promotion, converge. As Henri Keko notes: “Within the framework of the system’s logic, a state is considered either as a privilege of a caste, or as a result of a successful adventure. Accordingly, a sharp increase in the cost of paintings - the providence of a connoisseur, or the player’s luck. ”

For Keko himself, a long-term professor at the Paris School of Fine Arts, the causes of price inflation lie more in the field of ideology, in an attempt by a liberal society to blur the boundaries between the material and the spiritual. “By paying a lot for the picture, capital itself seemed to be the creator, co-author of the masterpiece along with the master, and the deal becomes an independent creation!”

The ministry of muses, as you know, does not endure fuss. Another thing is maintenance. The replenishment of the pocket of the muses-art business will endure the hustle and bustle, and the steps. Naturally, two heavyweights “Sotheby’s” and “Christie” clung to the front of the stage, tending to tear themselves a larger piece from the market cake with cream. Paradoxical as it may seem, it was the world of culture and art that was less susceptible to the rules of “fair play”.

The first successful cutting was carried out by Sotheby’s. Masterpieces with price tags with lots of zeros went on credit. Buyers-investors got the opportunity to defer payment of 50-60 percent of the sums inflated at the auction. From now on, collectors could longer longer than usual avoid the third blow of the auctioneer’s hammer, already operating with the whole budgets of some developing countries, and then, paying off the debt, slowly looking at new resale options.

The fountains from Sotheby’s decided to tame the sellers, who were guaranteed the reimbursement of the agreed amounts, regardless of the results of the bidding. Soon, however, cases of direct conspiracy of company employees with respectable clients were revealed, and Christie rivals realized that they were being led by the nose. And having gotten clear and indignant for the order, the Christies trading house officially adopted the technique of the game to raise its rival partner.

In the meantime, after each bidding, opposing intermediary companies vying to print colorful booklets that are more like collections of sports news. Continuous records, if not absolute, then for individual artists or, at worst, for total sales. The main thing is to show that not just works of art are expensive, but from auction to auction, they are becoming more expensive. Play, take risks - Sotheby’s and Christie’s customers are invited.

However, there is a category of people of art for whom the speculative increase in prices for paintings by old masters only "multiplies sorrows." Hammer hits at international auctions sound like a funeral march for employees of the largest and most famous museums in the world. “A museum that does not buy works of art is a dead museum,” experts and custodians of art galleries repeat on both sides of the Atlantic, but the French Museum Assembly, with an annual budget of 85 million francs, could afford to purchase only one sixth of Dr. Gachet’s painting: do you want to chop?

Moreover, the increase in the price of paintings is an increase in the costs of insurance and protection of priceless paintings, which means that the cost of organizing exhibitions has jumped sharply. Last year, an exposition of the founders of Cubism, Picasso and Braque, cost the Center Georges Pompidou 20 million francs. The usual estimate for exhibitions of this class was exceeded two and a half times. And auctions respond to the increase in insurance rates by adding new zeros to already five-six-digit sales amounts. Is the circle closed?

The simplest way out of this situation would be at first glance the refusal of museums with a world reputation from temporary artistic retrospectives: after all, their halls are already a storehouse of masterpieces. However, only exhibitions truly attract the attention of the press and the public, creating the atmosphere of universal attention and excitement necessary for art galleries. In such a situation, American museums prefer, for example, to sell some of their collections in order to have funds for updating the expositions. And on March 17 last year, the Guggenheim Museum presented at the Sotheby’s auction canvases by Kandinsky, Chagall, Modigliani, designed to slaughter for the purchase of 200 works of the conceptualists of 1960-1980. By the way, the director of the Guggenheim Foundation Krenz proposed to the art world a simple, like lowing, idea of ​​transforming routine expositions into permanent traveling exhibitions causing local excitement.

To do this, the fund creates its own branches in Venice, Salzburg and Japan at the same time, between which paintings will constantly migrate, not allowing citizens to get used to the masterpieces gathering dust on the walls. There are much more savage methods of saving money in sensational exhibitions. Modern masters are ready to make several copies of the same creation at once and exhibit them simultaneously in different cultural centers of the planet. So one of the most fashionable contemporary sculptors, Australian Jeff Kune, managed to organize three completely the same type of exhibition in New York, Chicago and Cologne.

But in general, many museums and art galleries prefer to switch to rent. This, of course, is not about renting museum exhibits by labor collectives, but about obtaining, for a fee, the right to exhibit paintings from private collections in their halls. The well-known collector Baron Thyssen for about five million dollars agreed to part for five years with part of his collection, which will delight connoisseurs in Madrid. In France, companies and individuals purchasing works of art enjoy tax benefits provided that they are not going to resell their “auction luck” for 10 years.

However, where is the guarantee that tomorrow the rental price will not exceed the current price of the originals. “Caress the circle and it will become vicious,” E. Jonescu repeats. Rates are rising. Game continues. What is the current course of Van Gogh paintings?