This week being the start of the spring bellwether auctions in New York, there’s a lot in the art press about the art market. In one entry from WSJ, The Wall Street Journal’s quarterly magazine, which arrived with my paper on Saturday, David Zwirner had several interesting things to say. Calling him “the art world’s go-to gallerist right now” — a title others would no doubt contest — the magazine promised his “unvarnished opinion on a market in free fall.” Kelly Crow did the interview. A few choice excerpts:
Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami are going to get tested, and the jury is out. Andy Warhol’s market collapsed completely in the early 1990s. He withstood his test. Hirst and Murakami–I’ll be curious to see where their careers are in five years.
And:
I’d like a 25-year moratorium on selling living artists’ work at auction. It would give artists time to develop their work without worrying about auction prices. Auction houses got greedy and wanted in on selling new work–right up to the infamous Hirst sale when they stepped in and played art gallery. I don’t like it, and my artists don’t like it. When a piece they’ve sold is flipped for $1.5 million at auction, they don’t get anything out of it–and they’re left standing in front of blank canvases worrying about money when that should be the last thing on their minds.
And:
If you have deep, deep pockets, go buy Early Modernists. They’re the closest thing we have to a blue-chip market. It’s going to be difficult to get a Titian or a Rembrandt because the good ones are already in museums. We’re not quite there yet with Cézanne and Monet.
Some of this is self-serving, certainly — rival Gagosian has exhibited both Hirst and Murakami, for example, and what primary dealer wouldn’t like a moratorium on auction sales? — but revealing nonetheless.
Here’s a link to the published interview and here’s a link to the additional Q&A on the web. In the second part, he talks about the undervalued Alice Neel, a sentiment with which I heartily
agree. Zwirner is opening an exhibition of her works on May 14, and Zwirner + Wirth, an affiliate, is opening a show of her nudes on May 6. Neel’s estate has now has a website, on which you may view many samples
of her work.
At left is an image from the upcoming Zwirner show: Cindy, 1960. At right is Winifred Mesmer, 1940, from the Zwirner + Wirth show.
Credits: © the Estate of Alice Neel (Courtesy of David Zwirner Gallery).