Last month, London and Paris hosted international art fairs in person. New York just hosted a $ 2 billion “gigakin” and 2,000 live auction lots. Granted, there were hardly any American and Asian visitors to Frieze London and the Fiac in Paris, and studio audiences for the high-tech parties at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips were limited to select guests, but the ” new paradigm ”at the top of the global art market is nevertheless taking shape.

This first real series of blockbuster auctions in the United States since Christie’s Rockefeller sale for $ 835 million in 2018 took place at the end of the year in which the richest 400 Americans saw their wealth. increase by 40%, according to Forbes. Additionally, UBS reports that the rebound in pandemic asset prices has propelled global billionaire global wealth to a new high of $ 10.2 billion. There are now 2,189 billionaires in the world, including 389 from China, according to UBS. On top of that, cryptocurrency prices recently hit record highs.

No wonder then, with all this wealth accumulated at the disposal of the world’s 0.01%, that these New York auctions have reached big numbers, boosted, at times, by live telephone auctions from Asia.

The 35 most prestigious works of the long-awaited sale from the collection of the bitterly divorcing New York couple Harry and Linda Macklowe, presented by Sotheby’s as “the most important collection of modern and contemporary art to ever appear on the market”, sold on November 15 for $ 676 million (with fees), against a high estimate of $ 619 million (without fees). The highest price here was $ 82.5 million for Mark Rothko’s 1951 summary, No. 7, sold to a telephone bidder in Asia.

Christie’s The Cox Collection: The Story of Impressionism auction, featuring 23 images from the estate of Texas oil mogul Edwin Lochridge Cox, came just as the big auction houses had abandoned dedicated night sales to impressionist art. This 19th century material may not be at the forefront of today’s collectors’ taste, but it still raised $ 332 million with fees, well above estimate. high of $ 268 million, based on hammer prices. The remarkable result was the $ 71.3 million donated to the room by London art advisers Beaumont Nathan for Van Gogh’s Landscape in 1889, Wooden huts among olive trees and cypress trees.

And then there was Christie’s and Sotheby’s newly separated owners of mixed modern and contemporary offerings. At Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale, Beeple’s NFT 2021 kinetic video sculpture of an astronaut walking through a dystopian landscape, Human– and the bragging rights that came with it – were bought by Ryan Zurrer for $ 29 million. The tech entrepreneur quickly tweeted about his new acquisition, far from the obsessive secrecy associated with the more traditional breed of art collectors.

Figures like these are reminiscent of the boom years of the art market from 2014 to 2018, when overall sales at auctions and dealers reached an all-time high of $ 68.2 billion, according to the Art Basel report. UBS Art Market. So what’s different this time around?

“The market has been frustrated by nearly two years of Covid restrictions, which have decimated gallery exhibitions and art fairs, and made auctions the dominant selling platform,” said Hugo Nathan, co -Founder of Beaumont Nathan. “The other key factor is definitely financial, with the effects of quantitative easing and so on. “But Christie’s had fresh ‘never before seen’ material, with mega-museum caliber artwork from the biggest names in the business.”

There was also a change in taste. These latest auctions in New York have seemed to reassure the outside world that the works of classic white male names in canon art history remain a top-notch investment, despite speculative multi-estimate prices. paid at auction for “red chip” works by young artists from more diverse backgrounds, and even more dizzying figures for NFTs.

“The Macklowe Collection was a time capsule of the collection from the second half of the 20th century,” says Wendy Cromwell, a New York-based art advisor. “Despite the fact that a paradigm shift has occurred, male masters like Johns, Twombly and Rothko are still masters and still essential to the history of art. Apparently, two paradigms can exist simultaneously.

The demographics that easily identify with the art of the 1950s and 1960s, not to mention the 1870s, are shrinking. Christie’s NFT specialist Noah Davis revealed in a pre-auction essay that he told Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, that Human One reminded him of Alberto Giacometti’s famous sculpture, Walking Man I. Beeple had never heard of Giacometti.

The Macklowe and Cox auctions were celebrated as 100% “white glove auctions”, but each lot was pre-sold via guarantees. Sotheby’s and Christie’s had already “bought” these collections, having put at least $ 600 million and $ 200 million respectively on their owners’ tables. Then the risk was offloaded to third parties on as many works as possible.

Macklowe’s Upper East Side textbook taste seemed dated in today’s market, and the bids, for the most part, were remarkably measured, with nothing crossing the $ 100 million mark. The $ 82.5 million paid for the Rothko, $ 78.4 million for those of Giacometti The nose (bought by Chinese BitTorrent CEO Justin Sun) and $ 58.9 million for a late Cy Twombly have all been offered within their estimates. Auction records for these three top artists were set at least five years ago. Conversely, Van Gogh, the favorite subject in the world for touring immersive experience shows, seems to be a timeless brand. The three small works by Van Gogh in the Christie’s Cox sale each attracted up to five phone bids from Asia. The portrait of 1890 Young man with blueberry sold for $ 46.7 million, nearly 10 times the low estimate.

Ultimately, despite all the importance that the auction world attaches to its activities, art remains a niche investment. Going through Forbes’ list of the richest Americans, it is striking how few art collectors are numerous. The value of the S&P 500 index of US stocks has more than doubled since 2014, while overall global art sales have stagnated. For the super-rich, there are much easier ways to accumulate wealth than buying art, which can be subject to high costs and taxes, as well as price volatility. A recent survey by ProPublica reporters found that American billionaires would rather just watch their stocks rise in value, then take out tax-free, low-interest loans on the value of those assets to pay for their living expenses. .

As Tesla founder Elon Musk, whose fortune of $ 271 billion makes him, according to Forbes, “the richest person in the history of the world,” brazenly admitted on Twitter recently: “I don’t take any money. salary or cash bonus out of nowhere … the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stocks.

But back in this other paradigm of the emerging art market, there are still some spectacular short-term gains, albeit taxable.

In November, the auction of Sotheby’s new format The Now included the 2018 canvas It’s better where it’s wetter, by the British painter of the moment Flora Yukhnovich. This exuberant riff on 18th-century French Rococo painting was estimated at between $ 150,000 and $ 200,000, but to encourage larger auctions, Sotheby’s cataloging usefully included the “market precedent” of the £ 2.3million paid. for the work of Yuknovich. I will have what she has (2020) in London in October. The tactic paid off, with the work reaching $ 1.8 million (with fees).

“There is an optimism and a beauty in his work that really draws people in,” says Matt Watkins, co-founder of the Parafin gallery in London, who until the start of the year represented Yukhnovich, who has since moved to Victoria Miro. The large-scale paintings in Parafin’s groundbreaking 2019 exhibition of Yukhnovich’s work were then purchased for around £ 30,000.

The British Government Art Collection has acquired Yukhnovich’s work Imagination, life is your creation of this show. That touch of rococo now looks like a treat hanging at 11 Downing Street, the choice of Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer and husband of Indian billionaire Akshata Murthy.

The new paradigms of the 21st century can sometimes have a distinctly pre-revolutionary look of the 18th century.