"A week ago, at Sotheby's in New York, Maurizio Cattelan's solid gold toilet hammered for $10m, a smidge over its gold spot price of $9.8m. A case, then, of an artwork literally being worth its weight in gold. Or thereabouts. It is probably one of the only examples of pricing in the history of the art market that makes quantifiable sense. Usually, art valuation is a far more nebulous concept."
"Take David Shrigley's piles of old rope, which are currently on sale at Stephen Friedman Gallery for £1m. It's an installation about how we value art beyond the cost of base materials, about how much some old rope is worth when you factor in other elements such as an artist's reputation, historical context and a sense of humour. At the time of writing, Shrigley's installation had not yet found a home,"
"Dealers will always say collectors should only buy art they want to live with for a long time, but why then is so much it kept in freeports around the world? The Geneva Freeport alone is estimated to hold $100bn-worth of art. Geneva is considered the world's largest storage facility, but there are around 3,500 freeports currently in operation around the world, meaning the scale of art kept locked behind reinforced doors could easily outweigh that which is on show in private museums and homes."
Maurizio Cattelan's solid gold toilet sold for roughly its gold spot value, illustrating one quantifiable art price. Other works, like David Shrigley's piled rope priced at £1m, show how reputation, context and humour inflate value beyond material cost. Vast amounts of art remain in storage rather than on display; the Geneva Freeport holds an estimated $100bn and thousands of freeports operate globally, concentrating concealed holdings. Recent Deloitte and ArtTactic research finds long-term art returns are steadily declining, undermining the rationale for treating art as a strong standalone investment asset.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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