Gursky’s 99 Cent: Hardly a Discount
Sotheby’s London
Andreas Gursky, 99 Cent II, diptych
Estimate: $1.8 million–$2.4 million
Price fetched: $3.3 million
Warning to readers: I feel a rant coming on. As you may have read in an earlier post, I was incredulous when Andreas Gursky’s mural-sized 1999 photo 99 Cent sold for $2.2 million last May at Sotheby’s, nearly four times Gursky’s previous record. I was further floored when, just seven months later, hedge funder Adam Sender convinced Phillips de Pury auction house to chase that aberrational price and put a $2.5–$3.5 million estimate on his Gursky: a 2001 diptych of the same subject (also in an edition of six, meaning that there are a dozen works of this title and subject matter out there on the market). Phillips, which paid Sender an undisclosed guarantee up front, somehow squeaked off the sale at $2.48 million, on the strength of only a single bid.
So then what happens? Some even loonier buyer in London this February shells out $3.3 million for another of the 2001 99 Cent diptychs, setting a world record for a photograph at auction. The previous record ($2.9 million) was set only a year ago by Edward Steichen’s rare and historically important 1904 Pond—Moonlight.
Does anyone hew to the concept of fair market value any more? Or have the contemporary art auctions just become places to strut and swagger? Frankly, many buyers seem more interested in showing how much they can pay rather than their understanding of how much artworks might really be worth.
Yo, big dogs! This is not the Mona Lisa. This diptych edition is now only six years old, and history has not yet weighed in on its true value and resonance. I will grant that it is a large and fetching commentary on our consumerist culture. (Yes, that means you too, art gobblers.) And I’ll admit that the buyer has just gained membership into a very elite club (which is, let’s face it, what it’s all about for many collectors). According to E-Photo Newsletter editor Alex Novak, prints of 99 Cent are owned by the Met, MoMA, Steven Cohen, David Geffen and Jay-Z. But….hello! It is not a singular creation. It’s a multiple—one that Mr. Gursky can, as we have seen, decide to revisit and create yet another edition of at any time.
And I need to bring up the topic of condition, which contemporary art world insiders are loathe to broach, lest they dampen the current spending fever. The reality is, large-scale color photographs are subject to fading. I know one veteran collector who sadly gave up her Gursky to a museum for the tax write-off after the reds became so fugitive that the work no longer “looked right.” And she hadn’t hung it on a sunny wall with the shades open, either. The scion of a major American collecting family, she was highly conscious of her responsibilities to the work from a care and conservation standpoint. Needless to say, she was deeply disappointed when the photograph lost its original coloration. No matter how much money you can throw at the problem, color fading is one conservation issue that is impossible to reverse.
I hope that once the rush of breaking records and joining an elite club fades, that the colors on the prints don’t. Imagine this photograph without the punch of the reds—not good. Of course, that’s assuming the big-dog paddle wielders actually want to live with the work, have the wall space to exhibit all eleven feet of it, and don’t just have plans to flip it when the next auction season rolls around. The stock market jolt that hit not long after the London sale is a reminder that markets don’t go up forever, and folks may not be as quick to break the bank for yet another 99 Cent retread. Will there be buyer’s remorse? Stay tuned….
