What Makes Art Valuable?
What makes a work of art worth tens of millions of dollars at auction? A lot of things, but not always what you would expect. BBC’s World’s Most Expensive Paintings With journalist Alastair Sooke visiting collectors, venues and auction houses at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, chronicling the ten most valuable paintings in the world that Link these magnificent works of art together.
One of the more interesting phenomena dealt with in the film is the concept of provenance, whereby a piece of art has added value beyond what it should have been based on the prestige and/or wealth of its previous owner. A painting previously owned by David Rockefeller, an example in the bottom half of the top ten list, can and will sell more than a similar work without the same ownership record. Well-known art dealer Arne Glimcher said:
The whole art and money thing is ridiculous. What a painting is worth at auction is not necessarily what a painting is worth. This is the value of two people bidding against each other because they wanted the painting so badly.
The values of the works covered range from a “low-priced” Rothko that sold for $72 million to a Picasso that sold for $106.4 million in 2010 after 50 years of obscurity. There is something bright about the world where these two things changed hands in such fabulous fashion. He took us on a tour of the auction rooms of Sotheby’s and similar auction houses, showing us the process by which buyers (often art buyers on their lucrative incomes) can acquire art of this caliber.
Christopher Burge is an auctioneer with one of the most impressive resumes in the industry, sharing many stories and guiding us through the sale from his perspective. Suker even casually hosted a “small” auction himself, with Birch overseeing it. One of Burge’s many inside stories tells of a Picasso sold in 1990 amid a global financial crunch, somehow overcoming tax concerns that would otherwise dry up many other markets.
