|
|
 |
|
| Feature |
Winning the Bidding Wars
Robert LaFranco
04/01/2007
|
These stratospheric prices are also spurred by the auctioneers
themselves. Christie’s president Marc Porter says the company attracts sellers
by broadening its worldwide reach. Auction houses can open branches all over the
world, which gives them an advantage that dealers and galleries can never match.
"We have committed to the internationalization of our primary departments,"
Porter says. "About five years ago, we realized this and reorganized from being
a regional business largely in London and New York to being a global business
with sourcing worldwide." In the past five years, Christie’s has added sales
offices in Beijing, Dubai and Madrid.
Flaschen knows firsthand the power a middleman can wield in the
process of selling art. "If anyone is going to do what I did, I would tell him
to hire a professional to do it for him," Flaschen says. "Richard Polsky more
than earned his fee, from negotiating the terms of the sale, to how they were
going to approach it, display it and where it was going to be shown in the
gallery. You don’t want to try to become an expert on one painting; you want to
hire an expert to do that for you."
Not all collectors hold dealers in such high esteem, however,
forcing Polsky to prove himself again and again. He says he earned a fee from
Sotheby’s that was equal to what he would have made if he had sold the work
privately for $1 million. But today he finds fewer and fewer opportunities for
such high-priced private deals.
"I used to make money by going to collectors I sold things to
years before, telling them that their stuff is worth a lot more money now, and
would they consider letting me resell it," Polsky says. "Now everyone thinks I’m
making all this money because of this booming art market. I’m not. These same
people now say, ‘Richard, you’re a great guy, and thanks for selling me these
wonderful things, but I’m going to auction.’ I can’t blame them. There is kind
of a trophy-hunting mentality out there."
Scare Tactics
Indeed, auction houses are moving in on terrain once held
exclusively by dealers and galleries by increasingly bypassing them and
marketing more directly to individual collectors. "Twenty years ago, dealers and
professionals comprised most of the audience in a typical sales room at
Sotheby’s and Christie’s," says Lark Mason, a Sotheby’s employee for 25 years,
who in 2003 bought the company’s online auction business and renamed it iGavel.
"I remember my first auction in London in 1973. It was six people sitting around
a semicircular table, and an auctioneer at the podium," he recalls. "A porter
would hand each lot to the gentlemen at the table, who would one-by-one pass the
item around and then go on to the next lot. Every single one of those men was a
dealer." Mason says this method intimidated anyone from outside the tight
circle. Now, he says, auction houses produce more programs and materials
designed to lure private collectors directly into the sales rooms. "Since there
are so many more of them with so much more collective buying power, the auction
houses are catering to them—and not to the professionals who have been the
historical clients of the auction houses."
Today, these backroom deals continue. What is different is
that auction houses do not necessarily invite professionals, but instead select
groups of private collectors. These individuals negotiate estimates and reserve
prices (the minimum price a seller will accept), possibly leaving collectors who
are unable to gain access to these discussions at a disadvantage. While today’s
art market is seemingly more transparent—websites such as ArtNet.com or
Artprice.com provide price tracking—insiders still control important
decision-making processes. "The auction houses and databases do provide information, but it is really just price history and other general information,"
Valentine says. "Using them to value a painting is like trying to value a public
company by looking at its sector. If I am looking at Apple stock, I want to know
how Apple is doing, not the computer sector."Valentine says the value of a
piece of art that an auction house wants to sell is determined, as it always has
been, by what he terms a "spitball" approach divined by a small group of
experts.
As far as Valentine is concerned, these cadres must like what
they see. Today, he says, he fields more calls from auction houses aiming to
entice him into deaccessioning some of his favorite pieces. He has yet to accept
any offers—although, he admits, what might just persuade him is a "fat
guarantee."
Do Not Disturb
While auction houses are ramping up their
efforts to lure collectors into the sales arena, the high prices
fetched by art
today are not lost on speculation-minded private
collectors. Norman and Norah
Stone, who own some 300 contemporary
pieces that they display in their
properties in San Francisco, Napa
Valley and Hawaii, often receive calls from
individuals intent on
buying their art. "I personally don’t like it when we open
our home to
share our collection and someone calls us later to ask if we want to
sell a particular piece," Norman says. "There are a couple of people in
particular . . . but they stopped calling because I simply did not
respond. It’s
been happening more in the last three or four years, but
we very rarely sell anything."
Robert LaFranco is a freelance writer based in Santa Monica,
Calif. Additional Information
 Block Busters
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
