Almighty painter

Chapter 622 Art Power
"A memorable historic meeting should be held at a memorable historic occasion."

Salma crossed her hands in front of her chest and looked at the dolls next to the theater, as if she was a believer praying to God.

"16 years ago, a wealthy man bought Damien Hirst's work "Lullaby Spring" at a Sotheby's auction. The buyer was Princess Sheikha Mayassa Al Tiani of the Qatari royal family."

"Her bid set a new record for the transaction amount of living painters in the first decade of the 1900st century, doubling the previous figure to $2009 million for a single work. A year later, Damien Hirst and Sotheby's teamed up again, and in , they held a major auction in London."

“The auction took place at Sotheby’s London headquarters, four blocks from the West End.”

The woman turned and pointed to the corner.

"At the time, the media used the slogan 'Unprecedented Super Auction', and Sotheby's investment analysts assured the newspapers that they were confident that the single-session transaction volume would exceed 5000 million pounds."

"There are many different opinions about the specific process of the auction. According to rumors, Gagosian was angry that Hirst bypassed his gallery and disrupted the triangular business ecology of 'painter-gallery-collector' that has lasted for half a century, and braved the world's disapproval to cooperate with the secondary auction house."

"But at the most critical moment, he still allowed his buyers to enter the market with huge cash flows, thus stabilizing the confidence of investors."

"As for the final result of the auction, both of you are the most successful top masters in the industry, so you must be familiar with it."

Martha looked at her companions.

"Finally, the hammer fell, and the auction was completed at 1.1 million pounds, which was equivalent to million U.S. dollars at the exchange rate at the time. A legend was born."

"For the first time in human history, a living painter has earned more than $140 million in a single auction. The transaction amount is only a paltry $ million away from the $ million mark. If the auctioneer had been more enthusiastic, or if Hirst had added one more piece to his auction list, then perhaps the $ million mark would have been crossed."

Salma said with a calm sigh in her tone.

"When he created this miracle, Hirst had just celebrated his 40th birthday. People speculate that if he is as productive and long-lived as Picasso, he can continue to work efficiently for another half a century. By then, how terrifying will his net worth be?"

"Some critics believe that Hirst's works carry a playful attitude towards the world and a profound perspective on society that his predecessors did not have. Other critics say that Hirst is just one of the countless third-rate art speculators in human history who has superb luck. His appearance just fills the emotional gap when the industry hopes to see an artistic direction different from "Pop Art". He is a myth created by capital, a lucky guy who stepped on dog shit."

Kazunari Sakai already knew what the other party wanted to express.

From today's perspective.

The story did not turn out as smoothly as many collectors imagined.

But whether you are a fanatical fan of Hirst, or think his work is pretentious and dismissive of him.

All must be acknowledged.

In the summer of 2009, Hirst was the most popular figure in the entire art world.

Leaving aside those painters who were emperors or powerful officials, let's simply talk about the amount of money the creators earned from painting and selling their paintings.

He may be the most successful of all successful painters from 2000 BC to 2000 AD, and the luckiest of all lucky painters from ancient times to the present.

Kazunari Sakai is already a top master among thousands.

But as early as fifteen years ago.

At a similar age, Hirst's earnings from a single auction were more than the total income he had earned over the years.

Keep in mind that was $00 million in the 1.98s.

This auction was held even at a time when the economic crisis was sweeping the world and all wealthy collectors were either broke or spending money extremely cautiously.

In the minds of many wealthy people, 2009 is not the most appropriate time to spend money on art investment.

In this situation.

Hirst, a young and middle-aged artist, sold his works for 200 million yuan in a single auction. It is no exaggeration to describe it as a "miracle".

"If the New Era Muse Project a while ago represents the determination of Oil Painting Magazine to integrate the market, it has the potential to become the market legend of our generation." Jane Arnold said, "Then the market legend of the 70s was Picasso, the 80s to the late 90s was Pop Art, and from the late 90s to 2010, the superstar in the European art market was Damien Hirst."

"Yes, I had just started my business when the auction ended. I still remember clearly that the headline on the front page of The Times that day was "A New Era Has Arrived!" It even pushed the news that the Greek government, an EU member state, was considering declaring bankruptcy because its public debt accounted for more than 107% of its annual GDP to the second page. "

Salma sighed and smiled.

She looked at the golden sign of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in front of her.

"The British once had Shakespeare, Queen Victoria, Newton, Oscar Wilde and Francis Bacon, but they always felt that they couldn't hold their heads up high in the field of art. In Western society, the center of art before World War II was on the banks of the Seine in Paris. After World War II, the center of art was in Manhattan, New York, but it had nothing to do with the British. The most essential parts of the collections in the British Museum were all taken from Asia and Africa, such as the dazzling Egyptian and Chinese pavilions."

"Even in continental Europe, although the British dislike the French, they themselves are embarrassed to compare themselves with them in terms of artistic background, not to mention France, they may not even be able to compare with Italy, Russia, Germany, Austria or even the Netherlands. They put their most famous Turner on the pound, but Turner is just one of the many painting stars in the 19th century."

The woman's tone was a little harsh.

"In the first half of the 2009th century, Turner might not have been the most important painter. If the time scale is extended to the entire th century, the British would continue to be beaten by the French with their numerical advantage. However, in , at that historic moment, the British finally felt that their chance to be proud was about to come! Hirst and the art group he formed were conquering the entire European market like Napoleon and his old guard!"

“The traditional art market has always been a very poor market. The money that the Starbucks on the corner makes from selling coffee every year exceeds the transaction volume of the entire art industry. Artists who sleep on street corners, have unshaven beards, and whose sweaters are covered with holes burned by cigarette ash are the true portrait of most people in this industry,” said Salma.

"It just so happens that all those few who are eventually swept away by the waves and can stand in the spotlight are not poor. But even if they are not poor, traditional arts have an obvious industry ceiling."

Jane Arnold shrugged noncommittally.

If we talk about income alone, the art industry is indeed not profitable... To be more precise, it is not as profitable as many people think.

Sir Brown's Muse Project is so important and looks extremely high-end and classy, ​​but the total initial investment is only about 2 billion US dollars.

This is an unprecedented large investment in the art industry, but the money is not enough for an energy company like Petronas to build a new floating drilling platform in the Indian Ocean.

It's not just traditional art.

The entire literary and artistic field, including those who make movies.

It seems as if the whole society is bombarded with intensive news about the entertainment industry 24 hours a day.

The box office of "Avengers" has broken through X again, and X star X has received a sky-high salary of 2000 million US dollars for a movie. It seems to be very lively, and the whole industry is shining with gold, absorbing amazing wealth every second. However, if you are an investor in the industry who pays attention to relevant data reports, you will know clearly.

On the surface, it seems so prosperous and bustling, but in fact the whole pie is only worth a few hundred billion US dollars.

One hundred billion dollars sounds like a lot.

This is the entire world, the North American market, the Asian market, the European market... all the markets added together, the millions of practitioners added together, the total is a hundred billion US dollars.

In fact, for most low-level film and television practitioners and art practitioners, it is good enough to be able to make a living.

On earning power.

Many so-called "diaosi enterprises" are much stronger than the art industry.

Someone who sells paintings certainly cannot make as much money as someone who sells coffee, and someone who sells movies certainly cannot make as much money as someone who sells hamburgers.

This is a fact.

Not to mention compared with some national-level infrastructure investments.

In recent years, Dongxia has helped African countries with their infrastructure projects, or the sovereign funds and vision funds of the Middle Eastern royal families. Any one of them is so large that it can easily surpass the arts industry by many times.

There is no need to be secretive.

To a large extent, the Western art investment market has more or less the meaning of a pastime for the rich.

It is just a small vine clinging to the big tree of wealth.

"Painting Review" is the most famous art review magazine in the UK. It is also the perennial runner-up in the art review circle in terms of history, authority and influence, second only to "Oil Painting".

Painting Review has had a tradition since the 1960s.

It regularly selects an "Art Power List".

Just like the buyer's guide of Oil Painting magazine gives stars to artists and gives different levels of investment recommendations, Painting Review will also list a dynamic list to select the most influential "key godfathers" and "art queens" in the art world today.

Different from "Oil Painting".

This list is not only about artists, but also includes curators, gallery owners, collectors...almost all people related to the art industry.

The editorial department will rank the winners based on their influence on the art industry in the past 12 months.

Kazunari Sakai was ranked 136th on this list last year.

Jane Arnold would be even higher, having been ranked as high as 67, the highest of all living illustrators.

Generally speaking, the top ten on the list are all super gallery owners and art critics such as Gagosian, Nicholas Logsdale, and Mashi III, and the directors of Oil Painting magazine. The second place on the list is basically taken by Sir Brown or Gagosian in turn, depending on the situation.

Today, on the official website of "Painting Review", the top spot on the list of powerful people, the position of "Queen of Art" belongs to Miss Elena.

After the European Art Annual Conference.

She jumped directly from twelfth place to first place.

Before Anna.

The princess of the Qatari royal family has been in this position for 103 months.

In the past 30 months, the Qatari royal family has spent more than $ billion on purchasing art, including Andy Warhol's "The Men in Her Life", Picasso's "Child with a Dove", Paul Cézanne's "The Card Players" and a series of other blockbuster works.

(The picture shows Lang Shining's new-style painting "Autumn in the Apple Field", which was purchased by the Qatari royal family at the Hong Kong auction in 2000 for 1764.5 million.)
Including last year's World Cup, it is also an important stage for the Qatari royal family to showcase their extensive art collection to tourists from all over the world to enhance their political influence and international image.

A ranking of powerful figures in the art world compiled by an authoritative art review magazine.

Art creators and great painters often don't even make it into the top ten.

As for the top of the list, whether it is Anna Elena now or the Qatari princess before, they are not actually artists in the strict sense.

Even though their daily work is to attend auctions to buy art, or to attend art exhibitions to write reviews.

But if there is no art in life, the Qatari princess is still a princess. Miss Irina is still one of the top ten richest people and a big landowner in Austria.

They are not “powerful people in the art world”;

The prefix "art" can be completely omitted.

They are the real power holders.

Their wealth is inherited from generation to generation, not earned from art investment or writing art reviews.

By the time Jane Arnold and Kazunari Sakai reached this point, they had already touched the heavenly canvas that belonged to pure traditional artists.

The ceiling is very high.

But they have already vaguely sensed that the ceiling of the entire industry is just ahead.

The works of the top living painters can only be sold at such a high price. It has nothing to do with whether you paint well or not.

The meaning of ceiling is "top".

Want to go further.

Either they break through the ceiling like Hearst did, or they must learn to find another way.

(End of this chapter)