Summary
Art fairs in Paris and Milan experience mixed outcomes amid ongoing protests and unrest. While both cities are bustling with art events, the atmosphere is marred by recent riots and looting, particularly in Paris, where the situation remains tense. The hosts reflect on the recent Frieze fair, noting that while some smaller galleries reported sales, many did not meet their costs, revealing a disconnect between reported success and actual sales figures.
Attention shifts to Art Basel Paris, which has faced challenges due to the protests. Despite the turmoil, the fair has reportedly performed well, with significant sales of high-value artworks, including pieces by Modigliani and Picasso. However, the fair's organizers decided to close early due to safety concerns over anticipated demonstrations, raising questions about the financial implications for galleries and the event's future.
Galleries express varying sentiments about the current state of the art market, with some noting a shift in focus towards Paris as a key destination for American collectors. The hosts discuss the emergence of smaller fairs and alternative exhibition formats that cater to different audiences, emphasizing the need for galleries to adapt to the evolving landscape. Overall, the art market appears resilient, with strong sales reported despite the surrounding challenges.
Show Notes
This week, Georgina is reporting from a Paris, a city currently rattled by protests, and from Art Basel Paris, which pulled off a remarkable commercial week, despite announcing they are closing early in the face of the city’s student protests and riots. Georgina explains how Art Basel strong-armed the historic FIAC out of its October slot, the mounting tension between a tens-of-millions art bubble, what the dealers thinking of it all, how it compares to Frieze last week, do Americans now prefer Paris to London, can Basel in Switzerland can survive its Parisian cousin, and is stuff actually selling? Plus, Georgina visits the inaugural Post Fair, and looks at the rise of art shown in lovely Parisian apartments... Enjoy! _________________________________________________ ✉️Email questions at [email protected] _________________________________________________ Follow or Subscribe for weekly episodes exploring the global art market, its players, and its hidden dynamics.
More from The Art Market Podcast
This week, Georgina and Tom hit the road together, racing around London during Frieze Week to take the temperature of the city’s art fairs, from the biggest behemoths to the scrappy upstarts. They start at Minor Attractions, a young, trendy fair held in a Fitzrovia hotel, where co-founder Jacob Barnes makes the case for the hotel-fair model and building a year-round community rather than a once-a-year event. Then to Frieze London itself, where CEO Simon Fox reveals a surprising truth about where the fair’s money really comes from, and Tom and Georgina ask whether, in the Ari Emanuel era, Frieze has lost its edge. Along the way, they visit the glossy new London Invitational in a five-star Mayfair hotel (and whether anyone there knows it’s happening), the energetic Latin American newcomer Paraíso, and Fair Play, a “gallery-free” fair whose promise to help artists Tom and Georgina put firmly under the microscope. A whistle-stop tour of who art fairs are really for, and whether Frieze still deserves its crown. Enjoy! ___________________________________________________ ✉️Email questions at [email protected] ___________________________________________________ Follow or Subscribe for weekly episodes exploring the global art market, its players, and its hidden dynamics.
For our Silver episode-iversary, Georgina and Tom sat down with Katharine Arnold, Christie's Vice Chairman of 20th/21st Century Art and Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe, to go behind the scenes ahead of Christie's major October sales during Frieze Week. Katharine takes us inside the run-up to the sale of the Peter Simon Collection, and pulls back the curtain on the machinery of a major auction, and how she has seen the art market shift over sixteen years. Next, the discussion moves to the importance of education, the rise of millennial and women collectors, prints as the gateway to collecting, why you should buy with your eyes, not your ears, and how speculating on art is a one-way path to losing money. Enjoy! _______________________________________________________ ✉️Email questions at [email protected] _______________________________________________________ Follow or Subscribe for weekly episodes exploring the global art market, its players, and its hidden dynamics. _______________________________________________________About Katharine Arnold: Katharine is Vice-Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art at Christie’s in Europe. Her areas of special interest include artists: Gerhard Richter, David Hockney, Henry Moore, Jenny Saville, Peter Doig, Barbara Hepworth, Bridget Riley, Francis Bacon, Paula Rego, Tracey Emin, Lucian Freud, Cecily Brown and Michael Andrews. Katharine works with artists, collectors and institutions advising on sales and acquisitions both privately and at auction. She is also actively involved in Christie’s Art Finance. Katharine is closely connected to philanthropic endeavours including fundraising for Great Ormond Street Hospital, Recovery: Pinchuk Rehabilitation Centres, Ukraine, Maggie’s Cancer Centres, Camden Arts Centre, Association of Women in the Arts, TKE Studios, National Portrait Gallery, Mimosa House, South London Gallery, Gallery Climate Coalition, Blue Marine Foundation, and the Royal Drawing Schools. Katharine began her professional career on the equities’ trading floor at Merrill Lynch in 2007. She holds a first-class bachelor’s degree from the University of Oxford (2003-2006), MSc from the London School of Economics (2006-2007) and MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art (2009-2010). She joined Christie’s in 2010.
This week, Georgina and Tom dip their feet into the massive topic of the art market in Latin America. They are joined by Maria Sancho-Arroyo, art market specialist, lecturer, and author of ¿Inversión o pasión?: Una guía para navegar por el mercado del arte, a guide to navigating the art market. Freshly back from ARTBO in Bogotá, Maria reports on Colombia's homegrown collectors and artists, and why so much Latin American collecting happens not at home but in Miami, New York, London, or Madrid. They explore the punishing import taxes that keep markets like Brazil largely domestic, and the national-treasure laws that stop works ever leaving Mexico. Plus, the role of Tate and MoMA's acquisition committees in building visibility. Enjoy! _____________________________________________________ ✉️Email questions at [email protected] _____________________________________________________ Follow or Subscribe for weekly episodes exploring the global art market, its players, and its hidden dynamics.
This week, Georgina and Tom are joined by journalist Vivienne Chow, for a look at the Korean and wider Asian art markets. They discuss Frieze Seoul after 5 editions, and how perhaps now after the boom in 2022, galleries are increasingly playing the long game, opening spaces, hiring local teams and staging pop-ups rather than parachuting in to sell. Vivienne also reports from the Gwangju Biennale, and the row over the naming of Taiwan's pavilion that led China to withdraw. And finally, quiet spread of Russian galleries into Korean fairs... Enjoy! Check out Vivienne's new Substack, Cultural Fulcrum, where she is making sense of the forces shaping art, culture and power, with Asia at the centre of the global conversation. _______________________________________________________ ✉️Email questions at [email protected] _______________________________________________________ Subscribe for weekly episodes exploring the global art market, its players, and its hidden dynamics.
Episode 22 is the the show's first city deep-dive, and Tom and Georgina chose Belgium, to answer question: is Belgium really home to more art collectors per capita than anywhere on earth? Tom went to Brussels for Brussels Art Week to understand why through conversations with the Belgian heads of Christie's and Sotheby's, gallerists, collectors and fair organisers, he unpicks what makes Belgian collecting distinctive and the harder truths - the "lasagna" of overlapping language-based bureaucracy, a nightmare in public cultural funding. Our conclusion. Brussels is perhaps one of the most undervalued art city in the world. Enjoy! Link to 'Brussels City Guide for Art Lovers' ______________________________________________________ ✉️Email questions at [email protected] _______________________________________________________ Subscribe for weekly episodes exploring the global art market, its players, and its hidden dynamics.