Urban Art Association

I have a crisp £300 in hand and am after a nice Grin Reaper. Any takers?

Act now before it drops to below cost!

How about the other side of the coin, 80% of all art on show at Frieze was sold on preview night. So it would seem that people are putting their money into new work more than established artists. (source from my wife who as part of her job with the Courtauld had a curator from frieze give a guided tour to her members).

To me that is good news, as money that previously was going on buying the prestige works of the select few (and very often dead), was only lining the pockets of collectors. Now it seems there is a big push to invest in up and coming artists too. This is good news for the up and comings, as it gives them much needed money to focus on their art with more time and freedom, although admittedly a lot of well established artists sold a lot of work too.

Tate have acquired a large amount of new space (not sure where), this was the interesting part of frieze for me. To fill it they are expanding their eastern european collection, virtually every large piece of installation art (often awful) from the region seemed to have been bought by them at the show.

Amen to that, uksnowman.

As ever, Laz sees things a little differently:

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Graffiti works by Banksy and lower- priced Western art by Gerhard Richter and Matthew Barney sold at or above Sotheby's top estimates in London yesterday, indicating continuing demand by collectors who haven't lost money in the financial markets. Italian artists Giorgio Morandi and Alberto Burri also beat their top estimates.

...

"I have customers in the media and luxury businesses, so I haven't been affected by the fallout in the City,'' said Banksy dealer Steve Lazarides, who bought three of the artist's pictures yesterday.

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aGHxTdOwclwQ&refer=muse

Why was there never any criticism when they were plugging and hyping up the art market for the past 5 years. Is it because all yo uguys benefited too? Say something negative or simply "rational" and you get the ire of the whole forum.

It's ok though because it might mean an end to flipping ;D isn't that what every one wants? A world where prints don't sell out in seconds because of the profit motivator? I don't get you guys? You hate flippers but any language that doesn't talk up the price of your prints you rag on. Catch-22?

I think a lot of these new galleries and print shops are going to really suffer when people stop buying every SOS or BRP print or whatever because they might not be able to resell it for profit. Also if people can't resell their Banksy for thousands in profit they won't have all that extra money for secondary artists too.

Do you really think the hundreds of "cheap" galleries and print shops that opened up in the past 12 months would exist if they didn't ride the wave of Banksy and the profits too?

Can somebody tell me, is anyone except for Laz buying the Banksy stuff at auction?

Or is it Laz simply creating an artificial price level for the work. For an analogy, it might be a band manager, say Malcolm McClaren, going round buying round buying loads of Pistols singles to get them in the charts.

Any thoughts?

¨

Yep, The great contemporary art swindle ! been thinking it for almost a year.. classic ! Doesn't take anything away from the pistols or banksy..

I think your CAPS LOCK key s stuck type?

The funny thing is you guys keep screaming about doom and gloom, me I think it's a positive thing if the art market cools off, get rid of the flippers, makes prints more affordable. Whatever. It's all how you want to see things I guess

And you think the timing is coincidence between the high end and the current ebay dips? I guess it could be. ?

Thanks for the neg though

No one is making you or anyone read this. Anyway you can interpret it as doom or gloom, as a positive or as BS. I don't care. Just don't blame your inflections on me.

Personally I think it's funny how many people "complain" about the "complaining." Pot calling the kettle black looks like to me.

You complain about people talking about money and then what do you talk about? Bragging about some painting you got for $1000 instead of talking about the artist. And you won't talk about the artist because you want to keep your prize to yourself. Who cares.