Contemporary Art, Modern Prices

The prices of contemporary art works have been staggering. The big sales of Contemporary Art at Christies in London and Sotheby’s in New York last November made record prices including Jeff Koons’ “Hanging Heart” which was sold for $23.6million, an auction record for a living artist.

The November auction of Contemporary Art was a striking contrast from the big auctions of the Impressionists and Modern painting of a previous week held at the same auction rooms.

One of Van Gogh’s late period landscape and another of Gauguin’s Tahiti painting, both painted in their best years, did not sell. The two paintings were estimated at over $20million, not far from the estimate of Jeff Koon’s “Hanging Heart”.

For better or for worse, it seems people’s tastes have changed.

There are not many people who can afford to spend that amount of money on a singe work of art. However, there have always been collectors who set record prices at the auctions especially in the Impressionists and Modern Paintings auctions. However now the contemporary art is the hottest scene in New York.

It was also the first time contemporary Asian artists’ works were included in the evening sales of Christies and Sotheby’s. Some of the works, especially the Chinese artists fetched way above the estimate into couple of million dollars.

The Contemporary Asian Art Fair was held for the first time in New York last November at the Pier. They exhibited cutting edge artist from different countries of Asia. There is definitely a great interest in contemporary Asian art with the growing economy in China and India.

However, I was surprised that the Contemporary Asian Art Fair was very similar to any other contemporary art fairs which to me seemed as though the differences between east and west are fading. We are indeed living in an age where cultural differences are narrowing down as quickly as the differences in our dressing customs.