Word: working
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...will bid it up. Prefinancing by the auction house artificially creates a floor, whereas a dealer who states a price sets a ceiling. And then, if the borrower defaults, the lender gets back the painting, writes off the unpaid part of the loan against tax, and can resell the work at its new inflated price...
...Aponte decided to review the consumer affairs guidelines on auctions. For more than a year his team pored over Sotheby's and Christie's records, wrestling with such exotic-sounding practices as "bidding off the chandelier" (announcing fictitious bids to drive up the price) and "buying in" (leaving a work unsold because it does not reach the seller's reserve price). By Sotheby's account, the investigators came up with nothing after sifting through thousands of documents...
...growth area for forgery today is the work of the Russian avant-garde -- Rodchenko, Popova, Larionov, Lissitsky, Malevich -- which, as a result of perestroika, is coming on the market in some quantity after 60 years of Stalinist-Brezhnevian repression. Prices are zooming, and authentication is thin. Sotheby's held a Russian sale in London in April 1989. It contained, according to some scholars, two outright fakes ascribed to Liubov Popova and one dubious picture, badly restored and signed on the front -- something Popova never did with her oil paintings. Doubts about the authenticity of these works were voiced...
...difficulties. Saatchi bought in bulk, sometimes whole exhibitions at a time. He acquired, for instance, more than 20 Anselm Kiefers, whose prices are now past the $1 million mark, and at least 15 Eric Fischls, which are on or around it. Artists let him have the cream of their work because it was understood -- though never explicitly said -- that Saatchi would never sell; his collection would become a museum in its own right, supplementing the cash- strapped Tate Gallery...
...much that their prices will falter -- though that happened to Italy's 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...