Modern art: a safe haven or a speculative good?
Damien Hirst, Impossibility
At a time when the financial crisis is shaking the whole economic world, modern art seems to be pretty healthy. We are still very far away from the announced art crisis. While it is clear that classic art is and will remain a safe investment, what is it with modern art? Buyin modern art means always taking a risk. Because one does not know how the monetary value of a modern piece will evolve. And with the insane rise in prices in the last few years, all art specialists have been warning for a crisis in modern art. Well, this is not for now.
At the middle of the financial crisis, this week British contemporary artist Damien Hirst, one of the most controversial artists nowadays, was selling 300 hundreds of his new creations at Sotheby's. Not only are its creation provocative (see here, an article in French in Rue 89 about its last exhibition), but the very fact to get directly to the auction, without selling its pieces through his galierist (the Gagosian Gallery) was a provocation in itself. But the businessman Damien Hirst was very aware of the risk he was taking in doing that, and was very happy to shake, once more, the artistic world.
In the end, the first of auctions itself hit a record. £70,5 m in the first day only. Far far away from the problems encountered by the Stock Exchange a few miles away only. Damien Hirst could not have foreseen that, but he could not have chosen a better day for his provocation. (read here and there)
So it seems that art buyers have not been shaken by the crisis. I have three explanations for that, I guess the three carry some part of truth:
- people go on investing in the arts, because it's something material, like real estate, so at least you have soething you can touch and look at. ANd because it's a Damien Hirst, it can't be such a bad deal.
- Damien Hirst like provocation. His audience does too. So if he decides to sell his art at Sotheby's, people would just abide by the provocation and go
- rich people, the few happy ones who can afford buying a piece by Damien Hirst, go on being rich, whatever happens at the Stock Exchange. Rich people always richer, poor people, the one who had invested the little money they had saved in the Stock Exchange, steadily poorer...
And, for the unsold, more auctions are planned in New Dehli and in Bridgehampton.