$141M sculpture may ‘point’ to top
This is the art bubble of the millennium.
There are new signs emerging of a massive speculation that could pop in the secretive world of rare paintings, prized sculptures, fine wines and expensive collectibles.
In what some view as another warning of this new frothy top, tongues were wagging on Wall Street with the record $141 million paid at Christie’s on May 11 by hedge-fund tycoon Steven Cohen, the “anonymous buyer” for Alberto Giacometti’s “Man Pointing,” as revealed last week by The Post’s Emily Smith. It’s the world’s most expensive sculpture.
“The high end of the art market in particular has seen significant price increases over the past few years, which in some ways corresponded to the vast increases for the ultra-high net-worth individuals around the world,” Jonathan Yee, an analyst at artnet, an international art data provider.
Yee adds this sobering note: “While it is impossible to predict the timing of corrections, it is reasonable to expect that the art market will one day experience a correction again.”
According to an artnet study, higher-end art has appreciated 200 percent since 2006, while stocks indices have risen 150 percent.
Cohen, founder of Point72 Asset Management in Greenwich, Conn., can afford such princely trophies. He’s worth an estimated $11.4 billion. Cohen previously picked up Giacometti’s 1950 sculpture
“The Chariot” for $101 million at a Sotheby’s auction.
While Cohen is described as a sharp-eyed art and financial investor, some analysts also see the sale as trouble, fearing that once the financial marts inevitably retreat, the global art market will come crashing down from lofty heights, too.
The correlations between the art and the markets are eerie, closely tracking each other, often times all the way up — and then right back down as the artnet chart shows (right).
This could be much more than your plain-vanilla 10 percent to 15 percent “correction,” say other prognosticators who spot negative signals in today’s stock market. Prices could conceivably drop as much as 50 percent or more on some items, some analysts think.
“A bubble has been forming in the art market for quite some time,” said art collector Christopher Tsai, who runs his own hedge fund in New York. “And when liquidity dries up in the art market, it’s gone, so it’s a dangerous area in which to speculate over a long period.”
Tsai, son of the late Chinese-American billionaire Gerald Tsai, told The Post he hasn’t bought any pieces for many months despite an average of 10 approaches weekly by willing sellers.
Christopher Tsai’s collection includes 50 pieces by Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei. “They want to sell me works, pricing 25 percent to 50 percent more than I would [typically] pay,” Tsai said. “I just sit back, and wait.”
But there are plenty of wealthy buyers out there. Many are handing over seven- to eight-figure sums for topline artists, according to Gary Castle, who guides the super-rich on art transactions as a principal at New York-based accountancy Anchin, Block & Anchin.
Castle says the real blow from the next financial upheaval in art will weigh most heavily on the less affluent. “The average buyer spending $50,000 to $100,000 on art is much more subject to variations in the economy,” he said. “The number of people who are able to spend that amount of money is going to be reduced.”