| Investing in Art | Financial Firm ING to Sell Work From Its Collection
AMSTERDAM—The Amsterdam-based financial-services company ING is selling works from its art collection for the first time since it was begun in 1974, reports Bloomberg.
The firm, which got a €10 billion ($14 billion) bailout from the Dutch government in October, boasts a collection of about 25,000 artworks, including pieces by Karel Appel, Michael Raedecker, and Diego Rivera, on display in 1,300 locations. It will sell about a tenth of the works, valued at an average of €200.
ING posted a loss of €478 million for the quarter that ended September 30, 2008, its first in 18 years.
The company will sell 50 artworks every week on eBay through the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage. A portion of the proceeds will go to ING Chances for Children, a social-development program founded with the help of Unicef.
Annabelle Birnie, head of the collection, says that ING will continue to buy works for the collection but will “of course, take into account ING’s current financial situation” and spend “modestly.” Volgens Persbureau Bloomberg gaat ING (voor het eerst sinds 1974) een deel van de kunstcollectie verkopen.
ING (ING Art Mangement) heeft ongeveer 25.000 kunstwerken in bezit waaronder werken van Karel Appel, Michael Raedecker, en Diego Rivera. De bedoeling is om ongeveer een tiende deel van de totale verzameling te verkopen op eBay, in porties van 50 stuks per week. Het Geheugen van Nederland (Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage) verzorgt de verkoop, een deel van de opbrengst gaat naar het ING Chances for Children een organisatie onder de Unicef paraplu.
Volgens Annabelle Birnie van ING Art zal de ING gewoon doorgaan met het aankopen van kunst, maar gezien de huidige situatie op de financiële markten op een bescheiden manier. | A Second Tulip Mania
The prices of contemporary art works have risen to astonishing levels in recent years. Insiders say it’s because we have been living through a golden age of art. Nonsense, argue Ben Lewis and Jonathan Ford, it is a classic investment bubble
Ben Lewis - Jonathan Ford
(Source Forbes.com, Prospect Magazine)
The bubble in contemporary art is about to pop. It has exhibited all the classic features of the South Sea bubble of 1720 or the tulip madness of the 1630s. It has been the bubble of bubbles—balancing precariously on top of other now-burst bubbles in credit, housing and commodities—and inflating more dramatically than all of them. While British house prices took six years to double at the start of this century, contemporary art managed it in just one, 2006-07. (Over the same period, old masters went up by just 7.6 per cent and British 17th to 19th century watercolours actually lost value.) Contemporary art in the emerging economies did even better. The value of its sales in China increased by 983 per cent in one year (2005-06). In Russia they rose 2,365 per cent in five years (2000-05), while its stock market increased by "only" about 300 per cent.
Even these numbers understate the incredible tulip-like increases in the value of the hottest artists. The Chinese painter Zhang Xiaogang saw his work appreciate 6,000 times, from $1,000 to $6m (1999-2008); work by the American artist Richard Prince went up 60 to 80 times (2003-2008). The German painter Anselm Reyle was unknown in 2003; you could have picked up one of his stripe paintings for €14,000. Now he has a studio with 60 assistants turning them out for about €200,000 each. Any figures for the whole contemporary art market are guesswork, though Christie's chief executive, Ed Dolman, recently estimated that it had grown in value from $4bn a year to somewhere between $20-30bn in the past eight years.
But this bubble is now deflating. Sotheby's share price has lost three quarters of its value over the past year, sinking from its peak of $57 in October 2007 to $9 in early November—close to its 1980s low of $8. The latest round of contemporary art auctions in London has gone badly. In October, the Phillips de Pury sale made only £5m—a quarter of the minimum estimate; at Christie's almost half the lots didn't sell; and an air of denial hung over the Frieze art fair like a fog. Upmarket dealers Matthew Marks and Iwan Wirth claimed to have clinched many big deals, but the reality was surely different. A leading New York gallerist was said to have sold very little and a well-known German dealer not a single work.
Some dealers have blamed the poor quality of the works in the London sales. "Just wait for New York in mid-November," one said, "and you'll see the art market is still doing well." But New York has been no better. This should have come as no real surprise. If you consider the market as a purely financial enterprise, rather than one in which aesthetic quality has any bearing, then the boom in contemporary art has the hallmarks of a classic investment bubble.
In his book, Manias, Panics, and Crashes, Charles Kindleberger observed that manias typically start with a "displacement" that excites speculative interest. It may come from a new object of investment or from the increased profitability of existing investments. It is followed by positive feedback as rising prices encourage less experienced investors to enter the market. Then, as the mania gets a grip, speculation becomes more diffuse and spreads to other types of asset. Fresh assets are created at an ever faster rate to take advantage of the euphoria and investors try to increase their gains by borrowing to buy assets or using derivatives. Credit ultimately becomes overextended, swindling and fraud proliferate, and the mania ends in panic as investors seek to liquidate their positions.
The art market has adhered spookily to Kindleberger's model. By 2004 it was clear that a boom in contemporary art was well underway ("The price of art," Ben Lewis, Prospect, October 2004.) At the Armory show, New York's trendsetting contemporary art fair, dealers sold $43m worth of art in four days, nearly twice as much as the previous year. There were huge price rises at auction, too. A 1996 sculpture of a stuffed horse hanging from a ceiling, Ballad of Trotsky, by the fashionable and witty Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, sold for $2m at auction in May 2002. It had increased in value tenfold in two years. Gerhard Richter's paintings quadrupled in value between 2000 and 2004. Even then, buyers were paying $1m to $3m for a work by Hirst, Warhol, Basquiat or Koons. Those sums now seem quaint—last year a Koons went for $23m, a Hirst for $20m and a Basquiat for $15m.
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| The Chinese Art Market Outlook 2009
CHINESE ART MARKET
(Source Art Radar Asia, an Experts Opinion)
Why there are opportunities in Chinese 90s-made art and Chinese photography and how Western museums are impacting this market are some of the topics in the interview between Anders Petterson, Founder and Managing Director of ArtTactic and Larry Warsh, Founder of AW Asia.
Buying opportunities - 90s art and photography
AP: Where do you see buying opportunities in the Chinese contemporary art market in the short and long-term?
LW: In the short term-the next 12 to 18 months-there will be good opportunities to buy works by top-tier artists in both painting and photography. By top-tier, I mean the 40 or so who have gained art-historical recognition, have been internationally exhibited, and are being acquired by museums in the West as well as Asia. Historical works by these individuals -the first generation of Chinese contemporary artists, from 1989 through early 2000s-are relatively scarce and will continue to gain value. The global downturn has yielded some attractive pricing, particularly in comparison to top contemporary artists in the West, creating smart buying opportunities. In fact, art funds focusing on Chinese contemporary art have been formed to take advantage of this moment. Museums are also acquiring for their collections.
Chinese contemporary photography is a buying opportunity. It’s still undervalued relative to painting, which was the focus for collectors for many years. Quality works will become increasingly scarce, particularly as China develops as a consumer society with its own collector base. The Chinese audience with disposable income is growing, and a consistent percentage of those people will become art advocates and collectors.
The Chinese economy may be slowing down, but it is not in a recession. China will remain among the world’s most attractive investment destinations, and art will continue to parallel this direction. The result is that Chinese contemporary art will weather this economic downturn and will come out as an even stronger player. Read Article...
http://artradarasia.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/chinese-art-market-outlook-2009-arttactic-awasia/ | "La peau de l'ours"?
C'est celui d'une association fondée en 1905 par André Level, avocat et amateur d'art.
La " Peau de l'ours", était donc une association d'amateurs d'art qui décidèrent de constituer ensemble une collection en achetant des oeuvres d' artistes alors plus ou moins inconnus tels Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Van Gogh etc..Ils le firent donc, et entre eux se répartirent les oeuvres qui restaient propriété de tous.
Dès l'origine était prévue une limite à l'existence de l' association C'est ainsi qu'en 1914, à la veille du conflit mondial, eut lieu à l'hôtel Drouot à Paris, une vente aux enchères dite de "La peau de l'ours" qui fut un succès marchand international et une date importante pour l'histoire de l'art et des artistes à "l'avant garde" de l'époque. L'immense bénéfice qui résulta de la vente permit non seulement de rembourser largement l'investissement des collectionneurs associés mais aussi d'aider financièrement les artistes qui s'en trouvèrent ainsi doublemennt bénéficiaires. | Fine Art Investments (originally "Antiques For Interiors"), is a professional brokerage service specializing in the sale of authentic old Tiffany Studio lamps, antique Tiffany art glass, and American and European paintings by well known artists. Competence, honesty, integrity and ethical practices are the core principles upon which our firm was founded. Established in 1972 by Dennis R. Tesdell, we cater to an established and select list of private buyers and avid collectors | New Chinese Art was established in 1999 as a centre for contemporary Chinese art. The website is a good resource for people worldwide to view art by Chinese artists. New Chinese Art allows Chinese contemporary artists to display their art for free.
New Chinese Art aims to make contemporary Chinese art accessible to a global audience. Whether you are just browsing or interested in purchasing, New Chinese Art presents you with portfolios by over 100 contemporary Chinese artists, and we are continually adding Chinese artists’ works. | Dismal Scientist - Recession Watch
The U.S. economy contracted late last year, and may spend the first half of 2008 in recession. Moody’s Economy.com tracks the data every day to determine how long and how deep the downturn will be—as well as its effect on the global economy. | A&B aspires to be the world's most successful & widespread creative network. We help business people support the arts & the arts inspire business people, because good business & great art together create a richer society | Slap on the wrist for fraudulent antiquities dealer
By Jason Edward Kaufman | Posted 04 October 2007
NEW YORK. Manhattan dealer Edward Merrin was sentenced on 17 September in a federal case that charged him and his son Samuel Merrin with defrauding their clients William Ziff and his wife out of millions of dollars. The case against Samuel Merrin continues.
Edward Merrin was sentenced to one year’s probation with eight months of home confinement, ordered to pay the government a $3,000 fine, and to pay restitution of $44,455 to the victims. Mr Ziff, who died in 2006 as the case was proceeding, built the Ziff-Davis publishing empire which the family sold for $1.4bn in 1994. In light of the scale of the allegations, the sentence is being seen by some as a “slap on the wrist”.
According to the 2005 indictments, filed separately against Edward and Samuel Merrin, the dealers entered into an oral agreement around 1989 to sell the Ziffs’ antiquities according to a “cost-plus agreement”. This meant that the couple would pay the Merrin Gallery’s cost of acquiring the art plus an agreed commission ranging from 10% to 20%, depending on various criteria. From 1989 to 1999, the couple paid the Merrins “over $63m to purchase [hundreds of pieces of art, approximately half of which (by value) was purportedly covered by the cost-plus agreement”. The indictment alleges that by misrepresenting the gallery’s acquisition cost, the Merrins fraudulently increased both the “cost” component and commission component of the prices they charged the couple. | | | | Nixon Art Associates, Inc., founded in 1987 as an independent art advisory, is a complete curatorial service offering the expertise of a professional staff trained in comprehensive collection management. Working with private and corporate art collections, Nixon Art Associates offers a full range of curatorial services. In addition to art advisory assistance, the firm works closely with clients in art acquisition, documentation, framing, installation, liquidation, valuation, restoration, appraisal, exhibition, archiving and other activities as requested. | Financial and Art Advisory Services F&A is an independent firm offering a full range of services to private clients and the corporate market for the development and management of modern and contemporary art collections.
The complexity of today’s art world and recognition of art as an investment, have emphasized the need for new and experienced collectors to be well informed and advised on every aspect of building and maintaining a collection, with aesthetic and commercial values.
Through a unique approach combining art advisory and financial expertise, F&A creates personalized strategies that offer the client significant opportunities to anticipate and capitalize on rapid growth and changes in the art market. | IAI ( International Art Investments) finds and internationally promotes and deals with the best investment opportunities in the contemporary plastic arts, specializing in artists from Latin America. We dedicate ourselves to ensuring that the works offered have appreciable cultural, artistic and financial value and we operate through a group of independent investors and Associate galleries. We also act as brokers for the sale of contemporary and modern artworks from the region. | | | | | | |
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