The mythical home of the old Whitney Museum goes to Sotheby’s. End of an era

The historic museum of American art moved in 2014 to the Meatpacking District designed by Renzo Piano. The old headquarters was first rented to the Metropolitan Museum and the Frick Collection, a building created to exhibit will become an auction house where whoever buys the works will hide them from the world

The sale to the Sotheby’s auction house by the Whitney Museum of the historic concrete block at 945 Madison Avenue, at 75th Street, will say nothing to most, but for the Manhattan-centric world of contemporary art, the news is a shock , an earthquake and perhaps a catastrophe, in short the end of an era. An era in which museums made a difference in an artist’s creative and economic career. Money doesn’t make you happy, but as that comedian said “those who don’t have any are pissed off like beasts”. This consideration is very true when it comes to the art system: artists, gallery owners, collectors and curators. Success increasingly coincides with tax returns and real estate. It used to be different, not necessarily better though slightly more romantic and sexy. The turnaround, with museums starting to lose power to private galleries or biennales starting to lag behind art fairs, started soon after the great economic crisis of 2008. Since then the money has started to flow in rivers and the prices of works of art, even of very young strangers, to rise recklessly. Auction houses are king.