a record year (with the bubble risk) – Corriere.it

For the art market, 2022 will be an impossible year to forget. Twelve months in which the story of stellar growth took place. The major auction houses achieved exceptional sales. While 2020 had gone with the handbrake (due to Covid) and 2021 had enjoyed the masterpieces preserved from the previous year. The enthusiasms and cascading records of the last few months have excited the trading system to the max. Yet, among the secret corridors of art, someone murmurs that perhaps we are close to the bursting of a bubble. And that those who have not sold masterpieces this year will eat their hands in the coming months.

Evolving market

The widespread trend speaks of an increasingly difficult and complicated market. At least for the masterwork segment. While the horizon of medium-sized works will continue to widen the audience of buyers. Affecting very little on the annual totals of the majors. But in detail what were the best awards of 2022? It starts from an iconic, bewitching gaze. Sweet eyes and voluptuous eyelashes, made eternal in pop trappings by Andy Warhol. Marilyn Monroe, whose Shot Sage Blue Marilyn portrait sold at Christie’s in May for $195 million. the most expensive work ever among those made in the twentieth century. The second in the general classification, behind only Leonardo’s Salvador Mundi (450 million, Christie’s, 2017). so called because of some gunshots (fired by Doroth Podber, a messed up who attended the Factory) that hit the work. The painting embodies a stratified symbology that starts from Marilyn’s status as an icon and arrives at the broken promises of the American dream.
The million-dollar masterpieces of the Paul Allen Collection follow. Christie’s sale of the paintings collected by the Microsoft co-founder was the most expensive collection ever. The threshold of one billion sales (actually 1.62 billion dollars) has been exceeded. The ranking of the best auction results of the 19th and 20th century masters has been rewritten. Among these Georges Seurat with Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), sold for 149 million dollars. Paul Czanne with La montagne Sainte-Victoire (137.7 million). Vincent Van Gogh with Verger avec cyprs (117 million). Paul Gauguin with Maternit II (105.7 million).

Giants of our house

Moving on to the giants of our home, updated top prices for Alighiero Boetti (8.8 million) and almost Giorgio Morandi (3.4 million euros, a record 3.6 million), both sold at Sotheby’s.
The Bolognese painter was the protagonist at Farsetti, on 2-3 December. His still life made 1.4 million. While a Bianco Cretto by Burri costs 321 thousand and a Concetto spazio, Attesa by Fontana costs 972 thousand. Excellent result for Carlo Carr’s The Swimmers (912k). In the similar Blindarte auction, on 30 November, a Jannis Kounellis card from 1961 did 167.5 thousand euros. Boetti’s tapestry also did well, rising from 50 thousand euros to 87.5 thousand. A work by Nitsch is also hotly contested, estimated at 22-26 thousand euros but sold for 37.3 thousand. Success for a painting by the contemporary German artist Norbert Bisky (81,000). At Il Ponte, Fausto Pirandello with delle Bagnanti del ’39 raised his personal best with 300,000 euros.

Latest deals

But before Christmas there are still sales to follow. On 21 December in Milan Wannenes presents the last auction of the year. With an intense Marino Marini, Notte della Luna (40-50 thousand). A painting Knight with landscape by Antonio Ligabue (35-45 thousand) and the sculpture Faith and Light by Arturo Martini (35-45 thousand). The views, on the other hand, are both by Salvo. One green and voluminous (35-40 thousand) and the other covered in snow and silent (30-40 thousand). Closes, in religious silence, two almost Czannian Apples by De Chirico (30-40 thousand). Last chances for collectors to get hold of a piece in an extraordinary 2022. Perhaps truly unrepeatable.