Lot 9: Hirst’s “Black Sheep” to the slaughter?
Pass the formaldehyde and sacrifice your cows and sheep as propitiatory offerings to the capricious artworld gods. Today, apprehensive art-lings, is the day when Damien Hirst goes for broke and, some believe, may take the contemporary art market along with him.
You can watch Slaughter on New Bond Street from the comfort of your own computer via Sotheby’s live webcast, here at 2 p.m., New York time. (It’s a 7 p.m. sale in London.)
If I had linked to all the articles in the past several weeks that have fretted and obsessed over this three-catalogue, 223-lot, two-day sale, this blog would have been “all Hirst, all the time,” instead of “all Campbell, all the time.” I do have my priorities.
The first article that I’ve linked to in this post is Carol Vogel‘s “Damien Hirst Goes for Broke at Sotheby’s,” online yesterday on the International Herald Tribune’s website and, I would assume, to be published in this morning’s NY Times (some time after this post and CultureGrrl go to bed). The artist declared to Vogel that “even if the sale bombs, I’m opening a new door for artists everywhere” (bypassing dealers by consigning new work directly to auction). But what artists would want to chance it, if the strategy proves unsuccessful in this high-profile outing?
The second link above, from Bloomberg, proposes that the outcome of the Hirst marathon (which begins today and continues tomorrow) may be “crucial to the overall confidence
of the contemporary art market.” I don’t buy it. I think this is an anomalous and unorthodox sale that says little about the overall picture. If we do have a Hirst Burst, it will not necessarily say anything meaningful about a general market bubble.
But the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and its possible domino effect? Now that’s something that could well rock all markets. The effect this crisis of economic confidence could have on art prices is the least of it. Hirst’s “recurring nightmare” which he described to Vogel, of a bidless sale is not likely to have included a general financial-industry meltdown in its surrealistic scenario.
One thing seems certain: This is a very dicey day on which to hold an already risky auction.