ArtTactic Looks at the May NY Sales

ArtTactic has posted two items to there website, one is a 6 page review of the May art sales in New York City (only an intro with highlights is available without a subscription), and also a podcast (free) with Bloomberg art reported Katya Kazakina. Over the past several years I have posted many times from Katya's Bloomberg art reports.

An interesting point ArtTactic makes is that the  contemporary art market (usually more speculative than other sectors) is now only 5% below its peak from 2008.  Although we have reported on many of the numbers, ArtTactic does a nice overview of the sales results.

ArtTactic reports

Contemporary art market only 5% below previous peak in May 2008.

The overall auction total for the three Post-war and Contemporary Evening sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury came to an impressive $633,795,000 against a pre-sale estimate of $528,550,000 - $740,070,000. This was the second highest Post-war and Contemporary Evening sales total ever, and came in 37% higher than May 2011 and 14% more than November 2011.

The average auction price for the three sales was $4,559,676, which is the highest average price achieved for a New York Contemporary Evening sale, and was 24% higher than the peak of the market in May 2008.

Content:
-  Overall Auction Sales Volume: 2006 - 2012
-  Volume by Auction House (Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips de Pury):  2006 -2012
-  Average Auction Price by auction house 2006 -2012
-  Auction Indicator by auction house (measuring the price-to-estimate ratio)
-  Top 10 lots
-  Top 10 surprises 

Source: ArtTactic

ArtTactic reports on the Kazakina podcast

In this edition of the ArtTactic Podcast, Katya Kazakina, art market reporter for Bloomberg News, joins us to recap the May New York Contemporary auctions. First, Katya shares with us the market's reaction to Mark Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow" selling for a record $86.9 million. Then, she speculates on the reasons why the art market continues to thrive despite significant economic uncertainty, especially in Europe. Lastly, Katya details how the market responded to the plethora of works at auction by Gerhard Richter and Cindy Sherman, both of whom are the subject of recent major retrospectives.

Click HERE to listen to the Podcast with Katya Kazakina