Less Is More at This Year’s Frieze

Damien Hirst Edward Ruscha Anselm Kiefer Anish Kapoor Franz West John Baldessari Subodh Gupta Richard Prince

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It was almost night and day compared with a year ago, when the world financial crisis and global equities meltdown was fresh enough to kill any semblance of commerce. This year, the mood felt better, and a slight aroma of optimism was even detected in the air.

But forget about a complete recovery — or a firm belief that the market has hit bottom. The yellow caution light is still flickering, and the old, (and some might think) glory days of the contemporary bubble are still a thing of the past.

“There’s a much broader spectrum of cautiousness,” noted one wary observer, who also expressed surprise at the seemingly quiet atmosphere at the 11 a.m. preview for first-rank VIP visitors, which traditionally gives them a nice head start on the less fortunate (or less prominent) ones admitted at 2 p.m.

That kind of mind-the-gap delay would have been deadly during the boom times, but no longer. It really seems that people are taking their sweet time to pull the trigger.

“I haven’t bought anything yet,” said New York private dealer Alberto Mugrabi, standing outside the big Gagosian Gallery booth. “I’m waiting.”

Mugrabi said he liked Behenoyl Choloride (2006), a 108-inch square Damien Hirst spot painting hanging in Gagosian’s stand, but it seems he’s only willing to put so much money where his mouth is. “They’re asking $900,000, and I made an offer of $600,000 and it didn’t happen,” he said. “We’re trying, but it’s still in between the bid and the asked [price].”

Hirst has gotten massacred in the British press for his debut of new, solo-produced paintings at the Wallace Collection, but that didn’t bother Mugrabi, who found them “just great.”

Philip Hoffman, head of London’s Fine Art Fund, was also taking a hard-nosed bargaining approach. “Everybody is looking for discounts, and I’m still finding the prices a bit high,” he said. “Dealers are saying, ‘Well, make me an offer.’ ”

Surprisingly, there seemed to be plenty of Americans about, certainly more than last year, though some of that spike has to do with the draw of the top-name museum openings for Ed Ruscha at the Hayward Gallery and John Baldessari at Tate Modern.

Chicago über-collector Stefan Edlis was an early arrival, as was Connecticut hedgie David Ganek, who strode the halls with New York–based adviser Sandy Heller.

Mumbai/London collector and former Christie’s CEO Christopher Davidge was also in the first tranche of tire-kickers, passing by Anish Kapoor’s gold-plated and stainless-steel Turning the World Upside Down (2009) at London’s Lisson Gallery, priced at £475,000.

Fashion legend Valentino took a quick look at Sigmar Polke’s mammoth 2005 painting With Potemkin Through the Villages, priced at €2 million ($3.2 million) at the booth of New York/Cologne gallerist Michael Werner, while New York investor Glenn Fuhrman sped past the White Cube booth, where Anselm Kiefer’s mural-sized photograph Kathedral (2007), from an edition of six, had already sold for $750,000.

At London/Zürich/New York gallery Hauser & Wirth’s booth, another Indian artist was making brisk waves. Three of an edition of 10 (plus two artist proofs) of Subodh Gupta’s 9-inch-high Et tu Duchamp (2009), a mini-version in black bronze of the larger work on view in the gallery’s Old Bond Street space, had sold in the opening hour or so for €120,000 each.

Back at Gagosian, a number of advisers and collectors were eyeing the new, porn-inflected Richard Prince paintings, Mumbai After Dark and Tijuana after Dark, both being offered in the $400–500,000 range. The gallery had already sold at least two Franz West aluminum sculptures in the $170–200,000 range and a modestly scaled, untitled Cicely Brown painting from 2009 in the $100–150,000 range in its “back room” salon.