Hirst`s 100 Fish Fetch $2.8 Million as Pinault, Arnault Browse
Baku, November 1 (AZERTAC). A sculpture of 100 fish by Damien Hirst was snapped up with a price tag of $2.8 million. A Takashi Murakami painting of a Chinese lion dog and two works by Louise Bourgeois were also hitting the $2 million mark in Paris.
Dealers at FIAC were sipping Champagne at the VIP preview last night, relieved that the art market was holding up as the French and German governments continued talks on the sovereign debt crisis. Billionaires including Francois Pinault and Bernard Arnault browsed the fair, as did L`Oreal honorary chairman Lindsay Owen-Jones and Martine Aubry, the French Socialist Party presidential contender defeated in primaries last weekend.
“The fair has a zip to it this year,” said Matthew Armstrong, the New York-based curator for Lightyear Capital, a U.S. private-equity firm.
Million-dollar sales will help art-market confidence shaken by financial volatility. Rich collectors from around the world are looking for works by established names as dependable investments as economies falter.
Hirst`s 1993 cabinet “Where Will It End,” featuring fish in formaldehyde, sold on the morning of the preview to a European collector on the booth of White Cube, which was among 33 galleries either returning or showing for the first time at France`s biggest fair, known as the Foire Internationale d`Art Contemporain. The 38th edition brings together 168 galleries from 21 countries in the Grand Palais.
It started three days after Frieze, which focused on contemporary artists, and where some buyers were taking their time over purchases.
“I look for a sense of liveliness at a fair, and I find more of it here than at Frieze,” the New York-based adviser Todd Levin said. “If dealers exhibit at both fairs, the quality of the booth tends to be a notch higher here in Paris.”
Unlike its U.K. rival, the Paris event combines pieces by emerging names with big-ticket works by Pablo Picasso and other 20th-century modernists.
The presence of older works such as a 1960s Picasso “Musketeer” painting on the booth of Gagosian, priced between $6 million and $8 million, encourages exhibitors to bring higher- quality contemporary pieces, said dealers.
The 9 foot (2.7 meter) 2011 Manga-style Murakami painting of a dog reclining on a pile of skulls was priced at more than $2 million on the booth of the Paris dealer Emmanuel Perrotin. Its sale to an unidentified European museum was confirmed on the morning of the preview.
New York dealers Cheim & Read sold a 2004 fabric torso and a 2006 suite of 24 drawings by Bourgeois for about $1 million each to Saudi Arabian and Moroccan buyers.
Some exhibitors were incensed to discover that France`s premier art collectors, Christie`s International owner Pinault, and Arnault, chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, had been given a private tour the previous evening while they were attending a charity dinner at the Musee d`Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Visiting galleries can spend as much as $100,000 on their booths and related expenses in the hope of meeting such billionaire buyers.
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