Word: auctions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...there a case for setting up an independent regulator -- an art- industry Securities and Exchange Commission? Not before hell freezes over, say the auction houses (although Christie's may be wavering a little on the point, since it has no guarantee and loan system to defend). Probably not, say many dealers. But others think the idea is worth serious thought, though none believe it likely to happen while Washington still clings to the conservative catchword of deregulation. Besides, says Eugene Thaw, the doyen of U.S. private dealers, Sotheby's in particular may have enough political clout in New York...
This may be why so much of the auction action has shifted to contemporary art. It is a field that can still produce huge unsettling leaps of price that shake a market to its core, as publisher S.I. Newhouse's gesture of paying $17.7 million for Jasper Johns' False Start in New York a year ago proved. (It made sense, of a kind, for Newhouse to buy the Johns: he owns quite a few others, whose book value has accordingly multiplied...
...Sandro Chia when Saatchi dumped him -- as that new traders can move in and, by buying blocks from Saatchi, bypass the artists' dealers and force prices up out of all proportion to those of their new work. Robert Ryman, one of whose chaste minimalist paintings made $1.8 million at auction recently (gallery prices: from $50,000 to $300,000), now thinks it "unfortunate" that he ever let Saatchi have twelve of his prime works...
...night of the auction, an agent for Bond in New York City placed his bids by telephone. Irises, according to observers, quite quickly went up to $40 million. After a slight lull, the contest resumed between two telephones, whose disembodied bids were relayed to auctioneer John Marion. Moments later, Irises was hammered down to an anonymous bidder at $49 million -- $53.9 million counting the 10% buyer's commission. The name of the underbidder on the other phone has never been divulged. A year went by before it was announced that Bond was the new owner of Irises...
...auction house had no choice. It had punctually paid John Payson the full sale amount, $49 million, and now the exposure of the buyer's inability to pay for the painting would have been horrendous. Although the firm could have repossessed Irises and put it on the block again, such a move would almost certainly have been a disaster. It might have brought $30 million, maybe $35 million, according to informed sources -- a fire sale. And the results for the art market if the World's Most Expensive Picture lost a third of its value in a year...