I don’t actually care much about the art market, since, like 99% of the human race, I’m not in it. But the big spring auction season started last night at Christie’s in New York and naturally the results are being sifted for signs that the market is poised for a fall. The results? Monet, Rodin and Giacometti broke records. But 14 of the 58 lots failed to sell — including another Monet and a Van Gogh — and the sale as a whole brought in $277.2 million, a figure below it’s pre-sale low estimate of $286.8 million.
After days of pre-sale speculation about where the market was headed, it’s funny to see the different ways that last night’s mixed numbers were interpreted this morning at different New York media outlets.
The New York Times thinks that on the whole everything is still fine.
The Sun sees mixed sun and clouds.
Bloomberg.com doesn’t buy it.
But I think the most pertinent piece appeared in The Wall Street Journal before the sale. Its point was that the market has already corrected itself on the quiet. Among other things, fewer works were going to auction and sales of less than blue chip works, the ones that don’t make headlines, are already falling.
Meanwhile, most people I know were focused last night on an entirely different set of numbers.