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PARIS, Sept. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

Unsurprisingly, the Art Market posted a significant contraction in H1 2020,

although less severe than in 2009. The number of lots sold at auction fell by

-21% and auction turnover dropped -49%. However, the blow was definitely

softened by the solutions implemented by the major auction houses to continue

trading and maintain at least some of their prestige sales afloat.

According to thierry Ehrmann, President and Founder of ArtMarket.com and its

Artprice department, "During a chaotic first semester, Sotheby's has proved

there are other ways of keeping the Market alive, notably by mixing online

sales and physical sales, a so-called "Bricks and clicks" approach. Patrick

Drahi's company has thus managed to maintain 70% of its turnover, and kept a

very low unsold rate of just 25%. Sotheby's ended the first half of 2020 with

$1.5 billion in turnover from Fine Art versus $1.03 billion for Christie's.

The immense gap in digital culture that the Art Market was still facing a few

months ago is on the way to being caught up. The global Covid-19 pandemic has

accelerated an inevitable process described by Artprice for the last

twenty-five years. The dematerialization of the Art Market is finally effective."

The health crisis hasn't stopped a number of artists from posting very good

performances. In some cases their markets are perfectly adapted to online

sales, in others, demand is so strong for their high quality works that nothing

seems to dampen collectors' enthusiasm.

Artprice looks at the markets of five artists whose prices have been maintained

or have continued to climb during the health crisis.

1. George Condo (1957), a dematerialized global market

George Condo is the most successful Contemporary American artist at auction at

the moment. Demand is so high from all corners of the globe that his works sell

just as well online as they do at physical auctions. In the first half of 2020,

fifty-seven of his works were auctioned generating more than $22 million,

including two new records.

His canvas Antipodal Reunion (2006) generated Sotheby's first-ever online

result north of the million-dollar threshold on 21 April 2020. Two and a half

months later, his painting Force Field (2010) fetched a whopping $6.9 million

at Christie's in Hong Kong: a new auction record for the painter.

Nor has the lockdown/health crisis stopped George Condo's production. As of 5

November, a solo show titled Internal Riot will present the works he produced

during the lockdown at Hauser & Wirth in New York. This will be Condo's first

solo exhibition since he joined the prestigious Swiss gallery earlier this year.  

2. Amoako Boafo (1984), success that cuts both ways...

Completed in early 2019, Boafo's canvas Bathing Suit appeared at auction eight

months later, just before the health crisis and having already changed hands

three times. On the last occasion, it was collector cum advisor/speculator

Stephan Simchowitz who put the work up for sale at Sotheby's in London.

Estimated between $40,000 and $65,000, it reached the astonishing price of

$881,500, i.e.13 times its high estimate.

Originally from Ghana, Amoako Boafo settled in Vienna, Austria, but is

represented by the Chicago gallery Marian Ibrahim. He has told Bloomberg he was

wary of such a sensational auction result. If he had the choice, he said, he

would prefer to see his works acquired by a major museum or in a large-scale

solo exhibition.

Since the health crisis began, 21 other paintings by Amoako Boafo have been

offered at auction and they have all sold above their estimates... without

exceeding the remarkable record set for Bathing Suit.

3. Kengo Takahashi (1982), an auction debut in the middle of lockdown

On 14 May 2020 during a Sotheby's online sale of Contemporary art, Kengo

Takahashi's auction debut sculpture Flower Funeral Deer (2018) was acquired for

$100,000. A veritable technical accomplishment in cast aluminum, this work is a

unique piece that has already been shown at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in

Paris and at the Kanazawa Museum of Contemporary Art.  

With this sale, the Japanese artist scored the world's best auction debut since

the beginning of the health crisis... and he certainly wasn't alone; in fact,

since March of this year, Artprice counts 356 artists who made debuts. The

second best result in this ranking is for a work by Maria Farrar (born 1988)

whose canvas Baguette (2017), sold for $69,500 at Christie's on 28 May 2020.

4. Claire Tabouret (1981), a charity sale pinches her market into life

A new talent on the French artistic scene, Claire Tabouret defends a figurative

style of painting (mainly portraits) with palettes of colours that are

sometimes sober, sometimes flamboyant, but which always manage to impart a

powerful emotional charge. Her painting Les debutantes (2014) was the flagship

of a charity sale organised in Paris to support healthcare staff in the midst

of the Covid-19 crisis.  

A protégé of Almine Rech (in Europe), Perrotin (in Asia) and Night Gallery (in

the United States), Claire Tabouret subsequently recorded an auction record of

$452,000 at a Phillips sale in Hong Kong (9 July 2020) for a painting titled

Les déguisements (2015).

5. Lucas Arruda (1983), melancholic and dazzling horizons

Started in 2010, Brazilian painter Lucas Arruda's series Deserto-Modelo

attracted a lot of international attention. He was discovered by the Menes Wood

DM gallery, but subsequently joined David Zwirner's stable in 2017. His small

landscapes, flirting with abstraction, have already seduced a number of art

institutions, including the Fondation Beyeler and the Francois Pinault Collection.

The first auction appearance of work from this series took place in November

2019: a small oil-on-canvas executed the previous year which fetched $312,500

at Sotheby's in New York against an estimate of $80,000 - $120,000. This year,

seven of his paintings have already been presented at auction, and they have

all found buyers.

Copyright 1987-2020 thierry Ehrmann www.artprice.com - www.artmarket.com 

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