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  1. Wealth
September 27, 2012

Record-Smashing Auction Prices Are A Bubble

By Spear's

For a confluence of reasons, we are in the midst of a tsunami of demand for art that is pent up like a horny teenager

Don’t shoot the messenger. When art equals money, passion and connoisseurship take a backseat, so to all my artist friends, sorry, call this a disclaimer. For a confluence of reasons, we are in the midst of a tsunami of demand for art that is pent up like a horny teenager.

The feeling of feeding the voracious appetites of “collectors” (that moniker is obsolete; maybe art market practitioners is better – as 99.9% of buyers sell) is like being stuck in the viscous undertow of desire.

Leon Black, who forked over $120m for The Scream, I doubt did it as act of vanity fair (or fare). What does that say? A stronger buy (buy, buy) sign I couldn’t fathom.

The upcoming auctions in London next week will, I’m going on record as stating, will produce a few startling results. And the bigger sales in NY in November will amount to a golden fall, a plethora of falling auction records in a booming market in times of unprecedented world uncertainty and strife. Rather perverse, isn’t it?

Greatest bubble of them all in the making? Free money and scarce assets – art market set for new records and massive absolute number? I hope it doesn’t portend another kind of fall in the not too distant future. Two good (very good) years seem within reason in the light of current momentum.

Read more by Kenny Schachter

Read more on art and auctions

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