If anyone should make a comparison with something from it’s beginning to now Spanning 250 years, there is no doubt of significant changes and improvement. The Christie’s is no different. With the international appraisal of artworks and it importance of collecting, one can image the mix of internationally acclaimed collectors bargaining for an artwork in “today’s Christies” as compared to 250 years ago, where we can imaging a large number of wealthy people as usual but mainly English people with a few other rich European collectors. Off course the main purpose for the auction has not change-it is to sell art.
The word "auction" is derived from the Latin augeō, which means "I increase" or "I augment". '.
The auctioneer is of great importance in auctioning, because not only does he have to sell, but must entertain as well, while psychologically analyzing and influencing the buyers, through hokey language. It has been structured as a celebrity ceremony with just a means to convince people to buy. I picture a bunch of brainwashed rich aristocrats who for not only selfish, but also ignorant reasons have been bamboozled to think that their act of buying an artwork elevates their status. To me the statement made by Sotheby staffer “we don’t deal with artist, just the work, and it’s a good thing too……….” Because they are a pain in the ass, really strikes me as a selfish act from all the people involved in auction and I hoping this is not the same with art dealers, museums and galleries.
“The artist is the most important origin of a work, but the hand through which it passes, are essential to the way in which it accrues value” (10). This quote here means a lot and is directly linked to what we have been reading and discussion over the past few days. It is rather appalling that this will be verbally said. More focus is being pointed in the direction of the buyer than the artist who made it. “The right collector”-who is the right collector? Should there be anything like the right collector? Or is it a business term used at convincing the public that art deserves a rightful owner just because they have money to buy it? If there say all art is priceless, why are they so interested in the financial gains the works are going to bring them? According to Thornton, the consensus on a particular work of art or artist is that the super-rich buy art for social reasons. Taste, she argues, is determined by the vagaries of fashion; 'collecting art has increasingly become like buying clothes.
The financial interest in the auctioning has gone on for so long such that even if people are there to buy art for its sake, the purpose is not realized, because all you will hear are people in whose mind are thinking about how much the work will cost in the next 5 year and the social prestige they will gain from buying it. Having looked at a couple of auction video, I realized that the auctioneer does not utter a word about the content of the work, the meaning behind it and why it was made and for what purpose it was intended for. It is art for Christ’s sake not ordinaryauction sale.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Baur II (the most expensive painting auctioned in the Christies NY)
Watch the video of the auction__________ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUcCK74HIY0
A 1912 painting by Gustav Klimt, it depicts the wife of wealthy industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Baur, an avid supporter of the arts and sponsor of Klimt. It was sold at Christie's in November 2006 reaching almost $88 million making it the most expensive painting auctioned in the Christies. The subject of the painting Adele Bloch-Baur is the only model to be painted twice by him.
1 Comment
user-11970