Contemporary art

Every fortnight Artprice provides you with a new or updated ranking in its Alternate-Friday Top Series. The theme of today's TOP article is the top ten auction results for artists under 30, so far this year

The 4th edition of the Contemporary Drawing Fair of Paris, from 25 to 28 March 2010, is the ideal opportunity to take the pulse of the ninth art... how well has it survived the crisis? Which segments and artists are doing the best today?

In the contemporary art field, sculpture, and particularly the offshoot known as 'installations', is currently enjoying a high level of market interest. At the top end, collectors are now paying tens of millions of dollars for monumental works by the likes of Koons, Hirst and Murakami. Artprice takes a look at this high profile segment of the market occupied by young artists, all born after 1945.
In less than a year, the number of 7-figure (sometimes 8 ...) auction sales involving three dimensional works has substantially increased. In 2007, 14 works sold for over a million dollars; in the first six months of 2008, we are already at 18...

This month the European art market will gyrate to the rhythm of the contemporary art fairs, with the Frieze Art Fair starting 12 October in London and then the Paris FIAC on 26 October and Art Cologne on 1 November. At the same time, the auction houses will capitalise on these events by organising major concurrent sales of contemporary art.
Before the fall season begins, Artprice here provides a brief overview of the ebullient contemporary art market so far this year.

The 8th Contemporary Art Biennial in Lyon is open to the public from 14 September to 31 December 2005. Entitled "Expérience de la Durée", this year's event exhibits the work of 61 artists and includes 25 pieces commissioned by the organisers. This collection will essentially be displayed at 5 different locations: La Sucrière, the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Institute of Conteporary Art at Villeurbanne, le Rectangle and fort Saint-Jean.

Against the backdrop of the Venice Biennale, Artprice has compiled an original ranking of the contemporary artists who have generated the largest volume of turnover on a country by country basis. To this end, Artprice has identified the contemporary artist (born after 1940) who has generated the highest revenue at auction in each of the world's principal art markets.

This year the month of June is offering art collectors and dealers an extremely busy schedule of artistic gatherings across Europe. The key events are the Venice Biennale, and the Basel Art Fair.
The 51st Venice Biennale will open to professionals on 9 June and to the public on 12 June. In 2003, the 50th edition of this magnificent exhibition of contemporary art attracted more than 260,000 visitors.

On 9 May 2005, François Pinault abandoned his plans to turn Renault’s old factory site in Boulogne-Billancourt into a contemporary art foundation. Worn down by bureaucratic obstructions, he opted instead to take his collection to Venice’s Grassi Palace. It was one of precious few cultural projects in France not to rely on public subsidy and would have created a rival for London’s Saatchi gallery and a great opportunity to promote French contemporary art.

The Armory Show 2005 will open its doors on 10 March to professionals and between 11 and 13 March to the general public. The fair will take place at Twelfth Avenue at 50th & 52nd Streets in New York.
This year's Armory Show, "the International Fair of New Art" will present 162 international (50% European) galleries of contemporary art. Forty thousand visitors are expected to attend the fair.

Between 2003 and 2004, total revenue from fine art auctions worldwide rose 37% to close to USD 3.5 billion. With a number of major sales in the modern art segment, 2004 was above all a very successful year for contemporary art which doubled its revenue of the previous year. According to Artprice's econometric data, prices on the contemporary art segment rose 17% over the twelve months of 2004 with the segment accounting for 6.4% of total art revenue compared to 4.4% the previous year.

During the last 15 days of October, London, and then Paris, will host two of the largest contemporary art fairs in Europe. A week before the Paris fair, the second edition of London's contemporary art fair - baptised Frieze - hopes to capitalise on last year's success with yet more visitors and more galleries participating. With London only three hours from Paris by Eurostar, the more enthusiastic art buyers will undoubtedly be visiting both, thus resulting in a fierce competition.

The evening auctions of contemporary art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in London on 23 and 24 June 2004 echoed last month’s good results in New York. Both auction houses raked in near to GBP 14.1 million, with more than 90% of lots sold at each session.

Artprice surveys the rising stars of a generation of artists that are as likely to send a frisson through the auction rooms as Picasso, Renoir or Van Gogh. Sometimes now topping a million dollars, the prices commanded by young generations of artists, have recently begun to rival those of established auction stars —"young" in our classification means born after 1960.

The contemporary art market has been doing fairly well of late, and the last big auctions of the year have reaffirmed the trend. The wealthiest US investors are continuing to support new art. Record after record has been falling in New York, and not only for American artists.

The market for contemporary art may be shrinking everywhere else, but in Italy both value and volume sales are booming. In the first half of 2003, Italy accounted for 5% of the market by value and 19.6% by volume, with 1,085 lots generating sales worth EUR 2.2 million.

FIAC, France’s biggest contemporary art fair, runs from 9-13 October 2003, with 174 galleries and an estimated 70,000 collectors expected to attend. With doors due to open in a few days, Artprice takes the pulse of one of the market’s most volatile segments.

Since it reformed its auctioneers, France has increased its share of the auction market from 7% of worldwide turnover in 2001, to 8.6% in 2002. Yet growth in the wider sector has done little for the contemporary art market. France only generated 4.5% of the proceeds from contemporary artworks in 2002.

The prices commanded by young generations of artists have recently begun to rival those of established auction stars, reaching all time highs in the last three years.

Excellent results from the contemporary art auctions in New York on 13-14 May 2003. After a worthy but slow start as Sotheby's turned over USD27.4 million the first evening, Christie’s hosted a hectic sale the next day that brought in USD68.8 million.