Documentary Film on the Contemporary Art Bubble

Variety has a brief article on a documentary film by London Art Critic Ben Lewis on the contemporary art bubble. The film details how prices are manipulated by backroom deals, auction theater and public relations maneuvers being used to increase the value of collections. The film is entitled the Great Contemporary Art Bubble and was recently viewed at the Palm Springs Film Festival.

The pic argues that auctions are theater, the prices absurd (with multiyear payment plans negotiated by the houses in secret), and much of the buying is done by those who already own an artist's work, hoping that higher prices drive up the value of their entire collection. That last point is perhaps the most controversial, with Lewis confronting two unusually candid megacollectors on the subject: Aby Rosen and Alberto Mugrabi (who owns so many Warhols that, as Lewis points out, if art were regulated, his 9% stake would amount to cornering the market).

Though art-world entrepreneur Charles Saatchi helped trigger the outlandish prices commanded by Hirst and his fellow Young British Artists, he warrants only a brief mention in a film aimed at the period between 2003 and 2008, when an influx of oil money, Russian investors and speculation in recent Chinese art drove the prices in Sotheby's and Christie's contemporary sales up by 800%. With a finite number of impressionist and modernist paintings available, these new investors turned to work by living artists.

Are top sellers Hirst, Koons, Takashi Murakami, Anselm Reyle and Zhang Xiaogang the best artists of our age? Though Lewis reserves judgment, he appeals to those already skeptical of modern art's value, and is more than happy to reveal several reasons why such work dominates auctions: Today's richest collectors have large lofts to fill, and these artists' work comes big, often in multiples, produced by teams of assistants and blessed by powerful gallerists and collectors alike.

In Lewis' most outrageous stunt, the helmer attempts to confront Hirst dealers Jay Jopling and Larry Gagosian (the Rogers to his Michael Moore) with a leaked inventory of Hirst's unsold works. Lewis' access to artists proves more successful; he pays visits to Reyle's and Zhang's studios, where he asks the pros how they feel about the commodification of their work, and even tracks down the wealthy Asian businessman who purchased Zhang's record-setting Bloodline painting.

Click HERE to read the full article.