Auctions in February 2008: the new rhythm of contemporary art

New schedule! Traditionally the two giants of global art sales – Christie’s and Sotheby’s – organise their auctions of impressionist and modern art followed by sales of post-war and contemporary art in the same week.

For 2008, Sotheby’s has decided to break with tradition by scheduling its contemporary art sales for 27 / 28 February in London, i.e. three weeks after the modern art sales. Sotheby’s will not however be alone; Phillips de Pury will be hosting its London sale of contemporary art on the same dates.
Devoting a separate week to contemporary art, independently of its modern art sales, allows Sotheby’s to take full advantage of the contemporary segment’s current effervescence. In effect, contemporary art is currently the most dynamic segment of the market. Between January 2007 and January 2008, its price index gained 69%, a much stronger increase than for any other art period, including the post-war period which also posted strong growth of +22% over the same period.Remember also that Sotheby’s New York sales of contemporary art in November 2007 generated a record revenue figure of 315.9 million dollars!

The highlights of the upcoming February sales from the two auction houses will include major works by Francis BACON. The artist was already the star of the November 2007 sales in New York with his Second version of study for bullfight N°1(1969) fetching 41 million dollars, the top figure from the two days of contemporary art sales (Sotheby’s).Since 1997, Bacon’s index has more than tripled and multi-million dollar sales of his works are becoming more frequent: of his eight sales that have fetched over 10 million dollars, seven took place in 2007!

That list is likely to grow longer on 6 February with another of Bacon’s masterpieces coming up for sale at Christie’s. The work is the last triptych of a series painted in homage to George Dyer, Bacon’s companion who committed suicide in 1971. Christie’s has produced an independent catalogue specifically focused on this work.

Three week later, Sotheby’s will be offering Study of Nude with Figure in a Mirror which could fetch more than 30 million dollars considering the 2 sales of over 40 million dollars that took place in November 2007 at the same auction house!

Another key event in February 2008: the charity sale (entitled RED) organised in New-York by Bono (the U2 singer), Damien HIRST and the Gagosian gallery with the proceeds going to the United Nations Foundation to support HIV/AIDS relief programs in Africa. Sotheby’s has scheduled this sale for a symbolic date: Saint Valentine’s Day (February 14).

Damien Hirst has been working on this project for over a year and is contributing seven works to the sale around the theme of the colour red. He has invited some of the major names on the international contemporary art scene to donate or create works based on this evocative colour for the sale. Among the participating artists: Matthew Barney, Georg Baselitz, Cecily Brown, Douglas Gordon, Antony Gormley, Subodh Gupta, Andreas Gursky, Jasper Johns, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Marc Newson, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Richard Prince, Marc Quinn, Ed Ruscha, Yinka Shonibare, Sam Taylor-Wood, Keith Tyson and Bernar Venet.

Among Hirst’s contributions to the February 14 sale, there will be two Butterfly paintings including All You Need Is Love, a red heart-shaped work measuring over 2 metres and carrying an estimated price of between 1 and 1.5 million dollars. The highpoint of the sale is Hirst’s Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way, a 3-metre pill chest filled with antiretroviral pills for the treatment of HIV. This piece alone could fetch between 5 and 7 million euros. Remember that a similarly themed work by Damien Hirst entitled Lullaby Spring generated Hirst’s all-time price record in June 2007 at 8.6 million pounds sterling (over 17 million dollars)!