The Frieze-Week Auctions

LONDON—In this au courant, white-hot market, the concept of “undervalued” is close to extinction. There’s simply too much demand hoovering up the contemporary supply lines. So what’s a collector to do?

Most likely, bite the bank account and pay beyond retail, whatever that might mean.

Taking that strategy to the auction rooms means adding an additional 30 percent, thanks to the buyer’s premium and taxes. And if you’re shopping with U.S. dollars in Europe or the U.K., where exchange rates are historically ridiculous, that formula gets downright ugly.

The only way out of this economic conundrum is to consider what a work of art might bring in six months time. If the market remains buoyant, sticker shock will subside and that recent purchase at whatever-the-market-will-bear price might appear as a prudent, even visionary acquisition.

But if the bubble pops, as many eventually do, well, you’re sunk anyway, so hopefully the work in question gives you other kinds of pleasure apart from investment value.

Given that scenario, the most difficult question to answer is: How much is too much?

ARTINFO has scouted and analyzed the deluge of offerings coming up at auction in London during Frieze week of October 8. Alas, as the pitchman for the onetime New York wholesale emporium Crazy Eddy’s used to scream, “Prices are insane.”

Click on the photo gallery above left to continue reading “Overvalued/Undervalued: The Frieze-Week Auctions.”

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art & Auction magazine.