December 2012

As the year of 2012 comes to an end, one has to look as what is going on with the world of art and what might be hot in the up coming year.
This brings into mind what is being sold right now and what is happening in the auction world. With placies like Christies dumping a lot of their Asian works and smaller auction house like Phillips de Pury being turned a little sideways with Mr. de Pury and his wife leaving the firm after 12 years as coheads and massive figures in the company, what is going to happen in the next year?

I still have a feeling that Street Art, works by graffiti artists, works by David LaChapelle, Justin Bua and others will still be a safe investment for time to come. They are a little bit of a risk as they are still new names in the art world compared to the likes of Monet, Da Vinci and others, so one would be able to purchase their works for rather a lower price than what most works will go at. I can tell you who are in Europe that you can currently see Mr. LaChapelle’s work right now till March 3, 2013 at the Swedish Museum of Photography (www.fotografiska.se).

However, with more and more galleries that show true modern art closing, like the Crewest Gallery in Los Angeles, and galleries like MoMA, the Tate Modern and others being a little cautious at times when it comes to “modern” but still has an amazing eye when it comes to most works, you can still find artist that way, however I would suggest that one take another route when looking for new artist to invest in. I would suggest that a buyer look toward some of the world wide art contest to see what is new and exciting in the art world. I would suggest something like the Future Generation Art Prize. I have never been lucky enough to be chosen as a finalist even though I have submitted my own work to both of their contest, yet the art work that comes out of contest like these are amazing and these artist will be the and most are, the hot artist of the future. Look towards these artist as great investments in 2013, if not to buy but to financially back as well.

Nov. 2012

What makes modern art?  How does it sale?

Modern art can be described as not so much as a hard definition, but yet more of a time frame.  Most art historians will include modern art from 1860s to today, some even earlier the late 1700s, yet it is somewhere around the time that Courbet and his Anti French Salon movement, Manet and his bridge from Realism to Impressionism to Monet and the Impressionists that set up the time frame for Modern art.

Who does one describe Modern Art though? is it just work that is created recently? In the past 100 years? A time frame cannot really put it in perspective as in in Music, songs and bands from the 70s are known as Classic and those from the 50s and 40s are known as Oldies and music from the time that the impressionist time period, yes that music that is hardly listened to outside of a few of us (I am one of them) is known only as Classical. This is seen as old and not “modern”. So why is it that other pieces of art work from that time period are known and called Modern? Literature is also one that falls to this as not “modern” as one can look at the works of Emile Zola and feel a transportation back to a world of the past.

It can be argued that to be Modern, work has to be avant-garde or works that is in the forefront, is innovatory, which introduces and explores new forms. That can truely be said for the work of Courbet as he broke away from the teachings of the 1800s French Salon and can be considered the great-grandfather of Modern Art. However, with the loose brush works of Manet that helped bridge the way for Monet and the Impressionists that really broke away from the what had been done before, making their work Modern.

Yet, why are artist like Jeff Koons, who is still in practice and working today, selling works for the same amount of money as what Monet, Warhol and other great artists from the past are selling their works for while artist like Justin Bua and Brian Ewing, whos work is just as impressive, doesn’t sell for as nearly as well as what Koons does?  Is it the style of art? If that might be the case, then Koons himself should not be as famous as what he is.  he has been doing the same work for the past almost 30 years and his time should be coming close to an end, but his works keep becoming evermore popular.

Sure, there has been some publicity of Modern Art, large galleries like MoMA and the Tate Modern and smaller galleries like Crewest in Los Angeles show extensive collections of what is considered New and Modern.  Yet the question still remains on why is one artist sold for so much more than another?  The question is not about quality of work. The pieces that the three above named artist create are fantastic in their own right (Yes even Koons, even though he doesn’t actually do any of his own work), yet the divide is still there for them.  Is the fact that Koons work is more relatable to the general public than what Bua and Ewing’s work is? Is that the reason why in art history classes, more emphasis is placed on people like Andy Warhol instead of Richard Hamilton, Edward Kienholz or even Chris Burden, Joseph Beuys or Marina Abramović.  

Now sure, Burden, Beuys and Abramović are preformance artist, but there are images that one could purchaces of their works that a partron of the arts could keep and hang just like any other works of art.  In fact I know a couple of people who do. So for this up coming year, I would look for those works, works by artist who are not as big as the Jeff Koons in modern art, but those who are on the verge of making it big, such as Justin Bua (even though OvationTV and Bua have done several projects together), Brian Ewing, David LaChapelle or support preformance art or images from a preformance that have helped make these artist known today.  This is where the term investment comes in because one can purchase these works for cheap and sit on them where I predict that one day they will bring you a nice return.

May 2012

In the month of June, there will be several good auctions.  Sotheby’s will have a Fine Books and Manuscripts auction that will be happening on June 15th in New York City to their Impressionist and Modern Art action happening on June 20th in London.  This will be an interesting sale that I will look forward to.  I am not going to lie and say I know a lot about Fine Books and Manuscripts.  I LOVE to read, and I know which books that I would consider a good book and which ones I would not…like right now I’m reading Emile Zola’s Nana, which I’ve just started reading, and I know a few things to look for in a book to see if it is at least considered an okay or good book…but until further notice, I will say that I know nothing in regards to having the ability to say what a book is worth and what it is not.

Yet another sale that Sotherby’s will be doing on Wednesday, June 20th in London will be their Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale (34-35 New Bond Street London W1A 2AA) at 10:30am and 2:30pm. This sale includes work by Jean Arp (from 1960 to ’65) and surrealist Joan Miro (later works, 1970, 1978 and others) to Henri Matisse, Max Ernst and Salvador Dali.

The one constant in the works that Sotheby’s is auctioning off is that the works are by the artist in their later life, not when they were in their prime.  These works seem to be, for the most part (excluding works like Dali’s La Maison Surrealiste c. 1949) as the artist are on their way out or right before they pass. Yes, there is a market for these works, a grim look on life, seeing an artist’s last grasp at something that they were at one point in time renowned for, however when Joan Miro, a surrealist (which had their day from the mid 1920s (some say as early as 1922 with ManRay others when the first Surrealist Manifesto of either 1924 and yet others in the year 1929, that is why I say the Mid 1920s), having his work from 1970 (the work I’m referring to is Tete [Sale Lot #116] which was executed on the 31st of March, 1970), almost 50 years since the Surrealist movement had had it’s day and only 13 years before Miro died, can be appealing to some people, to own the last bit of history of an artist.

However, I remember watching a documentary, I don’t know if it was from the Tate Modern or had a retired curator from the Tate that stated even Andy Warhol, who most consider one of two of the greatest artist of the 20th century, if not the greatest, as well as one of the five artist that changed art forever, couldn’t get an exhibition in the last years of his life, that actually when Warhol passed on, the Tate had been taking steps and scheduled an exhibition of his work, his first one in over five years (and if I am wrong on this, either way far off or if there was another exhibition that came closer to his death than this one that was in the works, please let me know and comment) or longer as he had been all but forgotten about outside of the work that he had done in the late 1950s to the early 1960s.

That is the way that it happens with art.  As the artist grow older and their work no longer fits into the world around it (as Miro’s work Tete was done in the Pop Art era, when screen printing and BenDay Dots were all of the rave), the work can be seen as the artist doing what he/she loves the most, which is art for art’s sake.  For the most part, their work is not being sold for what it was (Example that Tete has an estimated value of $243,000-324,000 and Salvador Dali’s Deesse De La Pluie [Sale Lot #119] is estimated at $40,500-57,000, a price fare less than work created in their prime) can bring the buy to sure that they might be buying a beautiful piece of work, but the price is there namely for the sake of the the artist who created it, and nothing more.

To see the works up for sale, including the catalogue notes and the provenance on the auction, please go to the Sotheby’s Auction Website or to see the exact works that I reference in this article, please visit the following:

Joan Miro’s Tete

Salvador Dali’s Deesse De La Pluie