Two weeks of bidding at New York auctions bring in $2.5 Billion
ON the same day that a selloff wiped , Asher Edelman was in the audience at auction house in New York. Million-dollar lots sold in quick succession 鈥 $8.4 million for a Rothko, $15.6 million for a Calder, 鈥 with many selling well above their high estimates.
鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 surprise me at all that we had a great day,鈥 says Mr. Edelman, an ex-financier and the current chairman of the board of . 鈥淚 think most people had pre-decided on a lot of things, and they weren鈥檛 going to un-decide because the market was down. There鈥檚 plenty of cash rolling around.鈥
Six months from now will be a different story, Mr. Edelman cautions. 鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty simple,鈥 he says. 鈥淚n 1989 and in 2008, you had very similar activities. In 1989 the economy began to collapse, and by 1990 no art traded at all. But in 1989 I sold 30% of my art collection by value in the November sales.鈥
In 2008 everyone witnessed the same thing: 鈥淚n May, 2008, we still had , even though people were already starting to get very hurt by subprime mortgages,鈥 he says. 鈥淎nd then six months later the art market collapsed, and it wasn鈥檛 until 2010 or 2011 that you saw it spark again.鈥
This year鈥檚 , Mr. Edelman predicts, will be remembered the same way: 鈥淗ere we are again, going into what will be the most serious recession, probably, since the 1970s.鈥 If that鈥檚 true, the art market has gone out with a bang. In just two weeks, Christie鈥檚, Sotheby鈥檚, and Phillips sold about $2.5 billion worth of art. The biggest winners in last week鈥檚 sales, seen below, brought in $759 million, with works by Monet and Rothko dominating the list. 鈥 Bloomberg
