Kenny Schachter’s New York Auctions Diary: Big-Game Hunters, Flipping In-N-Outers, and Passionistas
Kenny Schachter is a curator, writer, and collector based in London.
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The megalith known as today’s art market has more personalities than noted 1970s schizophrenic Sybil. A recap of the hyped-up, rocket-fueled auction sales this past week might be better served in the form of an animated cartoon, but here is my attempt.
The trip didn't get off to an auspicious start upon my arrival from London — I passed a prone man with police kneeling on his chest bang in the middle of Sixth Avenue, while he screamed at his accuser, “When I get out of jail I will have you killed.”
What a welcoming that might serve to reflect an art world characterized by the big guns — megagalleries and auction houses — tightening the reins on increasingly disenfranchised, mid-level artists and dealers.
The auctions are like elections held in monster circus tents, where one and all anxiously await the results of the Lib Dems and Tories (Labour didn’t rate a mention after performing so badly earlier this month in the U.K.). Objects are mercilessly traded and re-traded in a dizzying, tail-chasing cycle for ever-increasing profits. Can it or will it persist?
Sometimes the beanstalk seems to rise infinitely, while other times it’s prematurely cut to size. Driving the art market in 2015 are the money-no-object global players so drenched in wealth that figures like $40, $50, or $100 million (or more) are shrugged off like a day at the races. And it can be as much of a crap shoot. Then there are the day-sale-trading In-N-Outers with attention spans like fleas (some with intelligence to match) and, believe it or not, people who still actually like art.
It's a dangerous game for the unwary and seasoned pro alike. You only hear about the headline-grabbing office-building-scaled figures, but the everyday buying and selling of art is a minefield littered with multiple pitfalls and pratfalls; trust me, I stepped into it myself this time around (read on).
