Art will be cheaper
ARTinvestment.RU   16 декабря 2008

The head of Christie's, Edward Dolman said that estimeyty selling works of art will be reduced not less than 10 per cent

Auction house Christie's plans to reduce estimeyty put on the auction of works of art no less than 10 per cent. It was reported in interview to agency Bloomberg CEO Edward Dolman (Edward Dolman) during his visit to Hong Kong. He also noted that lowering the appraised value of some works may be more significant.

According to him, even with the current situation in the market of outstanding works continue to set records. As an example, he led the sale of paintings Yaei Kusama (Yayoi Kusama) No. 2 (1959) is estimated at a maximum of 3.5 million dollars for 5.8 million dollars at auction works of contemporary art on Nov. 12. This amount was a record for the author's works, while the total proceeds from the auction was much smaller than the expectations of the organizers

Christie's, like its rivals Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury, recently announced that sellers will stop issuing so-called safeguards in order to reduce losses due to the products, buyers are not found. According to Dolmana, this year's auction house has been paid to the guarantees in the total amount of 800 million dollars, which is 15 percent more than last year. Representatives of Sotheby's in November reported that after payment guarantees on lots at auction in London, Hong Kong and New York missed 47 million dollars. From the comments about the loss of Christie's Dolman abstained.

«We have no plans to offer any guarantees, yet not be able to better assess the situation on the market, because the current situation is quite different from what happened just six months ago», - said Dolman. However, the denial of guarantees can still be broken - if auctioneers get some really outstanding work.

«next year or two years we will do the breathing. And we hope that the market will begin to grow again », - said Dolman.

In general, plans to auction houses to reduce estimeytov is not such a novelty - the logical step was quite predictable. At an informal level, is also aware that the future of Russian bid leading auction houses (in particular, Sotheby's and Christie's) is also planned adjustment estimeytov downwards by 10-20 per cent. Experts predict the imminent onset time collector - a period when good work can be purchased at very attractive prices.

material produced Catherine Onuchin

Source: bloomberg.com , artinvestment.ru