Blue Chips and Bargain Hunters in Bologna

Damien Hirst Tony Cragg Andy Warhol Pablo Picasso Alberto Giacometti Alighiero e Boetti Bill Viola Joan Miro

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This year marks the 33rd edition of Arte Fiera, and the mood inside the Bologna Exhibition Center was generally upbeat, even as exhibitors remained wary of the economic reality. Some speculated that the fair, the biggest event of its kind in Italy, might see healthier returns in an economic crisis than competing events because it includes modern art in addition to contemporary works. And indeed, there were plenty of older blue-chip works on offer. In the first hall ARTINFO spotted a tiny Giacometti statuette at the booth of Florence dealer Tornabuoni Arte; its asking price was €2.5 million ($3.3 million). Tornabuoni was also displaying works by Italian standbys Alighiero Boetti, Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, and Giorgio De Chirico along with Picasso, Miró, and Kandinsky. According to the gallery’s Ursula Casamonti, “Many dealers told me they were selling only half as much as last year, but we sold more.” She said the gallery sold several paintings, each in the relatively lower range of €3,000–4,000.

Italian economist Giovanni Gasparini, who was looking at Futurists and Lucio Fontana, speculated that prices would still be high for artists like Burri and Fontana because they are seen as a more enduring investment than emerging artists. “Certain sectors [of the market] will not be affected, such as the high end,” he said. “There will be a process of natural selection: People will buy what they perceive as viable in the long term, and what is seen as high quality could even increase in price because it will be seen as a refuge for investment. The trendy stuff will go down or remain unsold.”

Such predictions should have boded well for Milan- and New York–based Galleria Lattuada Studio, which was exhibiting Futurists Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, and Umberto Boccioni; the latter’s gorgeous 1915 masterpiece Simultaneous Nude was on offer for €4 million. At the outset of the fair, assistant Monica Fornaciari was optimistic, saying, “We expect to sell well because it is the anniversary of Futurism, which has been our specialty for 40 years.” But by the end of the fair she reported having lots of offers but no actual sales. “It is a long process with such important and expensive work,” she said.

Some visitors expressed surprise that prices were as high as ever. “It seems like Italy is in denial about the state of the economy,” said Roman collector Cristina Cobianchi. “The shops have not increased holiday sales discounts, even though nobody is buying.”

Others weren’t too fazed by the situation. At a brunch at the house of Bolognese collectors Marino and Paolo Golinelli, near Piazza Maggiore, the city’s central square, Milanese collector Davide Blei was overheard telling gallerist Ermanno Tedeschi over the phone that the prices were just as high as last year. That didn't stop Blei from buying a painting by Ryan McGinness, Fool Me Once (2008), from Paolo Curti & Co. for €20,000, however. “I have been wanting to buy something by the artist for a long time and finally found the right size,” he said.

As for the Golinellis, whose house was packed with enormous paintings by McGinness, Michael Bevilacqua, and Christine Streuli, as well as a room-size installation by Lucy and Jorge Orta, Paola said, “We have not had time to look [around the fair], but we usually wait until the end and buy the big ones that are always left.”

Even with prices holding steady, word on the ground was that the fair was a buyer’s market in the sense that collectors were taking their time to look around and consider all their options before making purchases. It’s possible, too, that visitors were slow in coming back to booths because of the confusing new layout of the fair. Previously it was simply two floors, one on top of the other; this year it was laid out in an airport-like arrangement of three halls connected by a confounding network of stairways, escalators, and hallways, which resulted in a maze full of claustrophobic bottlenecks. At times the whole thing felt like a carnival fun house. Some booths reinforced this perception: Milan’s BND Contemporary Art Vision offered ping-pong matches with the likes of Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, and Jeff Koons — or at least with giant likenesses rendered by Russian artist group the Blue Noses.