ArtsEnte
Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Baby Boom' (1982), a stylized family picture painting, heads Christie's 21st-century sale with a $20M-$30M estimate. Formerly owned by Peter Brant, it references post-WWII birthrates.
Where there will be room for improvement is in the middle market, where current geo-political issues, the slowing down of Asian engagement and the tightening of belts in Europe has led to a softening of prices and lower sell-through rates of the day sales at the major auction houses.
She identifies the high end of the market, "which was so pivotal in driving sales out of contraction in 2020", as thinning out considerably, "creating a drag on growth despite more positive performance in some other lower-priced segments."
However, Michael Macauley, Sotheby's head of contemporary art in Europe, says: âWatch this space, we are expecting more to come in before the sale.â The top lot is David Hockneyâs 1968 painting from the south of France, LâArbois, Sainte-Maxime (1968) with an almost Ruscha-esque vibe to the depiction of a building with large umbrella pines in the foreground.