Top Art College Degree Shows - artmarketblog.com

Top Art College Degree Shows - artmarketblog.com

Every year universities from all over the UK present the work of their graduating visual art and design students in what are know as “degree shows”. As a result of the art market boom, what were once shows more concerned with academic achievements and grades are now commercially oriented extravaganzas where the art market elite go in search of the next art star. Art market power house Charles Saatchi is a regular at the degree shows and often buys a particular graduates whole body of work which usually results in that particular artist getting plenty of press and a rapid increase in demand for their work.

Because of his fame, Saatchi is basically able to increase the value of an artist’s work just by buying it so he can actually make money just by buying an unknown artist’s work. Those of us that don’t have the power and influence that Saatchi does will have to do things the hard way and actually put some thought into whose work we will be betting on. Below are some websites that will help all those art collectors and investors who are looking for the next big thing.

Degree Shows at the University of the Arts London
http://www.arts.ac.uk/showtime/explore/

Free Range - Europe’s largest showcase of graduate art and design
http://www.free-range.org.uk/

Slade Degree Shows 2008
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/degree2008/index.html

Royal College of Art Degree Shows
http://www.show2008.rca.ac.uk/Default.aspx?CategoryID=60028

London Metropolitan University Degree Show
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/jcamd/department/2008-summer-show-preview.cfm

If you are really confident you can even view the work of graduating secondary-school students via the Royal Academy Online Summer Exhibition here:
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/education/a-level-summer-exhibition-online/a-level-summer-exhibition-online-2008/

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications

Biennale of Sydney for Collectors and Investors - artmarketblog.com

Biennale of Sydney for Collectors and Investors - artmarketblog.com

Just because the 2008 Sydney Biennale is a non-commercial show (meaning that the works are not for sale) doesn’t mean that the biennale isn’t a great opportunity for investors and collectors to scout out new talent, because it definitely is. In fact I would consider a non-commercial event such as the 2008 Sydney Biennale to be an even better opportunity for investors and collectors than many of the commercial art fairs primarily because of the fact that many of the artist’s whose work is sold at commercial art fairs have already been “recruited” by dealers whereas non-commercial art events such as the 2008 Sydney Biennale include artists whose work may not have been discovered by the art market as yet.

If you can’t make it to the Sydney Biennale, which is taking place until the 7th of September 2008, then you are in luck because this year’s Sydney Biennale website is absolutely fantastic and jam packed with information. Before you begin any serious analysis of artists and artworks you should purchase the biennale catalogue through the website because it is an extremely informative, interesting and high quality publication that should be in the book shelf of every serious art investor and collector. To order your copy of the 2008 Sydney Biennale catalogue go to the link below and fill out the interactive order form which can be submitted via email.
Biennale Catalogue Order Form:
http://www.bos2008.com/files/2008_bos_catalogue_order_form.pdf

Once you have secured your copy of the catalogue you can then begin checking out all the artists who are taking part in the Sydney Biennale by clicking on this link: http://www.bos2008.com/app/biennale/artist/184 and selecting the artist’s you wish to view from the menu on the left hand side of the website. You should also check out the exciting online venue that includes projects by participating artists based on the exhibition theme: Revolutions – Forms That Turn and can be found here: http://www.bos2008.com/revolutionsonline/

According to the Biennale website “More than 70 living artists have created new works especially for this publication, amongst them: Christoph Büchel; Gerard Byrne; Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller; Jeremy Deller; Mark Dion; Willie Doherty; Sam Durant; Liam Gillick; Shaun Gladwell; Pierre Huyghe; Joan Jonas; Brian Jungen; Jannis Kounellis; Tracey Moffatt; Reinhard Mucha; Giuseppe Penone; Dan Perjovschi; Nedko Solakov; and Lawrence Weiner” so if you can’t find something to interest you then you aren’t looking hard enough.

To keep up to date with my thoughts on the biennale check out the official 2008 Sydney Biennale Blog here: http://blog.bos2008.com/

Image: Gordon Bennett
Settler and Shadow Reflection, 1993
Photograph: John O’Brien

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications

Winner of Next Star Artist 2008 - nextstarartist.com

Winner of Next Star Artist 2008 - nextstarartist.com

It is with great pleasure that I can announce the winner of the Next Star Artist competition (http://www.nextstarartist.com) for 2008 as being Herb Williams !!!

Thanks to everyone who entered the competition and to all the fantastic judges

Next Star Artist competition judges:

Rebecca Wilson: Saatchi Gallery - http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk
Amy Stein: Artist - http://www.amysteinphoto.com
Adam Simon: Fine Art Adoption Network - http://www.fineartadoption.net/
David Cohen: Artworld Digest Magazine - http://www.artworldigest.com
Shelley Esaak: About Network (Art History) - http://arthistory.about.com
Jon Feinstein: Humble Arts Foundation - http://www.humbleartsfoundation.org
Sandra Pattin: Florence Biennale - http://www.florencebiennale.org
Jay FC: Galleri HK - http://www.galleri.hk/
Paul Drake: Artist - http://www.artists.co.nz/drake/
Amani Olu: Humble Arts Foundation - http://www.humbleartsfoundation.org
Jodi Melfi: Absolute Arts - http://www.absolutearts.com
Morgan Croney: Artcards.cc - http://www.artcards.cc
Martin Hosking: Red Bubble: http://www.redbubble.com
Sixtine Crutchfield: Art Culture Studio: http://www.artculturestudio.com
Dion: Art News Blog - http://www.artnewsblog.com

Herb Williams Bio (http://www.herbwilliamsart.com):

I am interested in iconic objects that society perceives to fit one role, and then reintroducing them in different subtexts. There are several questions that arise when an object(such as a crayon) that is so often associated with childhood is used to address issues dealing with more adult matters. The sculptures are childlike in their curious approach to the object as icon, but intriguing and satisfying to me in the use of pure color as form. Larger room installations also add the element of playing to the olfactory sense. I hope that this body of work is my most successful in adding to the greater visual dialogue of original art. My intent is to continue to seriously create art that looks at itself unseriously.

Some of my influences are H.C. Westermann, Jasper Johns, Jim Dine, Cai Guo-Qiang, Sandy Skoglund, Liza Lu, David Mach, Charles Ray, Magritte, Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Robert Rauschenburg, Banksy, and Ai Weiwei.

I am the only individual in the world with an account with Crayola. I get these colors individually packed 3000 to a case. I cut down the sticks to the length I need by hand with either double guillotine cigar cutters or large breed dog nail clippers. I then bond the paper, not the wax, to a form I have carved or cast, completely enveloping the form. Lately I have been casting the completed crayon sculptures in a silicone jacket mold with a two-part epoxy resin and then painting the resin sculpture to look like the original, for a small edition. The sculptures beg to be touched, so when they are cast it makes the handling of them that much easier. (from http://www.herbwilliamsart.com)

image: Herb Williams in his studio

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications

Debt Masked Art Market Turmoil - artmarketblog.com

Debt Masked Art Market Turmoil - artmarketblog.com

Today’s post is a continuation of my series on the art market correction of the late eighties and early 90’s and looks specifically at the role that debt played in the correction. The highly publicised agreement between Alan Bond and Sothebys in 1987 for the purchase of Van Gogh’s “Irises” is the most pertinent example of the effects that debt based sales can have on the art market. At the time Alan Bond didn’t have the money available to pay for “Irises” so Sotheby’s, not wanting to lose Bond as a bidder for this work, lent Bond the $27 million to enable him purchase to the work which he did actually buy, for the then record price of $53.9 million.

Lending this amount of money would have been risky enough for Sotheby’s but they actually lent Bond the money against the work he was planning on buying (“Irises”). So, basically, Sotheby’s lent Bond the money using a work of art that Bond didn’t actually own at the time as collateral. The loan was originally a one year loan but when Bond started having financial difficulties the loan was renewed for another twelve months and then again on a “short term basis”. Unfortunately for Bond, the stock market crash had a major impact on his various business dealings which resulted in him having to sell “Irises” to get the money to pay back the loan. In 1989 Bond Corporation went into receivership with debts of US$8.23 billion as of June 30, 1989 and a loss of US$580 million for the second half of 1989.

Lending money to clients for the purchase of works wasn’t that uncommon in the art auction industry at the time but lending such a huge amount of money against a work that the client was bidding on was very unusual. The reason that the market was so concerned about Sotheby’s actions was because of the impact such a sale could have on art market confidence. A new auction record occurring a month after a stock market crash would indicate that the art market was strong but this impression would be false if the buyer didn’t actually have the money to purchase the work at the time. Art dealers were worried that the sale of Irises had given people a false sense of security and confidence in the art market at a time when the art market was in a rather fragile and unstable state. It would seem the sale of “Irises” as well as many other factors created a positive impression of the art market that masked the problems that the art market faced and prevented people from realising how they should have been approaching the art market.

The impact of debt on the art market doesn’t end here but you will have to wait until the next post to find out more.

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications

Saving the Art Market - artmarketblog.com

Saving the Art Market - artmarketblog.com

Are you aware that it is estimated that between 10% and 40% (depending on who you talk to) of artworks on the market are fakes or forgeries? Did you know that according to the Smithsonian Magazine, “almost 75 percent of the so-called antiques marketed through Hong Kong are said to be copies”? Did you know that according to an article from Art Business News “According to Thimmel, president of All American Collectibles, the FBI estimates that fully 70 percent of the signed memorabilia in circulation is phony”? The same article from Art Business News [1] includes a quote from the executive director of the International Foundation for Art Research who estimates that 80-90% of the works that they research are not by the artist who was supposed to have created the works in question.

As you can see from the statistics, art fraud is a massive problem that is much more prevalent and much more problematic than most people actually realise. The reason that there is not a greater knowledge of the number of fakes and forgeries on the market is because:

1. Dealers don’t want to report fake or forged works they have dealt with for fear of being seen as nieve or stupid.
2. Dealers don’t want to be associated with fake or forged works in case it has an negative effect on people’s perception of their business.
3. Buyers of fake or forged works don’t want to be seen as being nieve or gullable and therefore are unlikely to publicise the fact that they have purchased a fake or forged work
4. There is no obligation for people to publicise the fact that an artwork is a fake or forgery and as such many of these questionable works continue to circulate within the market.
5. A dealer will rarely report another dealer for handling fake or forged works for fear of being seen to be jealous of that other dealer or being seen to be trying to

The stigma attached with being associated with a fake or forged artwork has meant that more often than not the market will turn a blind eye to works that they consider to be questionable and will usually just refuse to deal with a work they believe to be a fake or forgery and send the owner of the work on their way. Art dealers, auction houses and galleries will rarely report a fake or forgery which means that someone trying to sell such a work will just continue moving from dealer to dealer trying to sell the work until someone takes on the work for sale. In the case where a dealer, gallery of auction house has taken on a work that they later believe to be faked or forged they will either just give the work back to the owner or just not say anything at all. Either way the questionable work is once again allowed to continue to circulate the market unchallenged.

One thing that everyone needs to be aware of is that the definition of a fake or forged work is not just a work of art that has been created by someone with the intention of deceive people into believing it is by someone that it is not. The market will sometimes consider a work that is altered (repaired, touched up, completed etc.) beyond what is reasonable and acceptable (in terms of maintaining the artist’s original intention of what the work should look like) to be no longer by that artist and as such, if still attributed to that artist, to be a forgery or fake.

Because the problem of art fraud is such a massive problem the severity of which is severely underestimated, I am going to continue to report on this issue in the future with the hope of encouraging collectors, dealers, investors, gallerists, auctioneers etc. to be more vigilant when dealing with works of art.  Just because a problem is not widely publicised doesn’t mean that it isn’t having a major impact.  If something is not done about this problem very soon I believe the ramifications will be most severe.

[1]In the World of Forgery, No Work is Sacred - art and collectible forgeries and how to recognize them
Art Business News, Oct, 2000 by Barden Prisant

Image: Time magazine cover with image of painting by famous art forger Emlyr de Hory

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.

Provenance and the Art Market - artmarketblog.com

Provenance and the Art Market - artmarketblog.com

The art market boom has undoubtedly resulted in an increased level of art forgery and other fraudulent activities related to art which means that provenance (ownership history) has become an even more important factor for art investors and collectors. Some of the world’s most reputable art dealers have unknowingly sold artworks to people that have later on proven to be fakes so buying from a reputable dealer does not mean that you are immune from art fraud. In my experience there is only one thing that you can do to help protect yourself from art fraud and that is to check and cross check the information you are provided with in relation to an artwork to ensure that what you are being told is correct. In an effort to help prevent art fraud - museums, galleries and other organisations around the world have set up searchable provenance databases and indexes that art collectors and investors can use to help confirm the provenance of works of art. Many of the provenance databases concentrate on the period 1933-45 (World War II) during which many artworks were looted by the nazis but they are still a useful resource for art collectors and investors.
Below is a list of some of the best provenance resources:

The Getty Provenance Index
http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/provenance_index/

The National Gallery of Art Provenance Search
http://www.nga.gov/collection/srchprov.shtm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/provenance/index.asp

Harvard University Provenance Research
http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/provenance/servlet/webpublisher.WebCommunication?ia=tr&ic=pt&t=xhtml&x=prov

Chinese Art - Research into Provenance
http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/admn/php/carp/index.php

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.

Indian Art Auction Sets Benchmark - artmarketblog.com

Indian Art Auction Sets Benchmark - artmarketblog.com

If you need evidence that the interest in Indian art is far from a short term fad then look no further than the results of the Saffronart (http://www.saffronart.com) Spring 2008 auction results which was held from the 18th-19th June. 140 works by 67 modern artists went under the hammer in an online auction that allowed collectors and investors from all over the world to bid on works by some of India’s most famous artists such as Gupta, Raza, Chowdry, Souza, Santosh, Narayan and many others. As the one of the world’s top sources for high quality Indian art, Saffronart auction results can be viewed as being indicative of the current taste and developing trends in Indian art. Not only did the auction exceed the lower estimate total of INR 27 Cr. (approx US$6.3 million) but a new auction record was set for Subodh Gupta whose untitled painting that features images of tin cans, pots and other metal kitchen utensils fetched INR $57,100,000 (us$1,427,500) against an estimate of INR $8,000,000 -10,00,000 (US$200,000-$250,000). The new Gupta record came only a week after Christies sale of contemporary Indian art in London sold an untitled installation of steel pots by Gupta for a then record price of US$1.2 million dollars which exceeded the previous month’s auction record of just under US$1.2 million again achieved at a Christies auction in Hong Kong. Auction results such as those available from Saffronart are a great way of identifying which artists, styles and mediums and are extremely useful for tracking the progression of the market for a particular artist’s work.

Other notable results from the Saffronart Spring auction included:
Francis Newton Souza
Untitled
1964
Oil on Board
Estimate
$100,000 - 125,000
Rs 40,00,000 - 50,00,000

Winning Bid
$232,300
Rs 92,92,000
(Inclusive of Buyer’s Premium)

J Swaminathan
Untitled
Oil on Canvas
Estimate
$175,000 - 225,000
Rs 70,00,000 - 90,00,000

Winning Bid
$460,000
Rs 1,84,00,000
(Inclusive of Buyer’s Premium)

Bose Krishnamachari
Plot
2005
Acrylic and oil on Canvas
Estimate
$35,000 - 40,000
Rs 14,00,000 - 16,00,000

Winning Bid
$86,825
Rs 34,73,000
(Inclusive of Buyer’s Premium)

Rashid Rana
Red Carpet - 2
2007
C Print + DIASEC
Estimate
$70,000 - 90,000
Rs 28,00,000 - 36,00,000

Winning Bid
$500,250
Rs 2,00,10,000
(Inclusive of Buyer’s Premium)

Francis Newton Souza
Untitled
1961
Oil on Canvas
Estimate
$100,000 - 125,000
Rs 40,00,000 - 50,00,000

Winning Bid
$408,250
Rs 1,63,30,000
(Inclusive of Buyer’s Premium)

For more results and further information check out
http://www.saffronart.com/auctions/auctionresults.aspx?eid=3141
(you may need to register to view results)

Image: “Untitled” by Subodh Gupta

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.