Original subtitles

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Downloaded from YTS.MX

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[soft orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- Ladies and gentlemen,

the auction will begin shortly.

Please take your seats.

♪ ♪

- We'll start this one at 180,000.

200,000, 220,000, 240,000, 260,000.

Now 260,000.

And we'll start at 350,000. 400,000, 450,000.

500,000, 650,000, 700,000.

Now 700,000, 750,000, 900,000, 950,000.

So where's the bidder? $1 million

on the telephone here. 1,100,000...

- Art and money have always gone

hand in hand.

- 1,200,000.

- It's very important for good art

to be expensive.

- And 1,400,000, 1,500,000, 1,600,000, now 1,700,000.

Now it's $2 million.

- You only protect things that are valuable.

- The fabulous Frank Stella. - 2,200,000--

- If something has no financial value,

people don't care.

- 3,800,000. - $4 million.

- 4.8 million. - 5 million.

- They will not give it the necessary protection.

- Damien Hirst at 9 million pounds.

We'll obviously get on quick.

$13 million, $13,500,000,

- $15 million.

- Any more than $16 million?

$17 million. 17,500,000.

- At $80 million...

- The only way to make sure

that cultural artifacts survive

is for them to have a commercial value.

- Andy Warhol "Liz #3" at $21 million.

- Lot number 12 is the Jeff Koons.

- $35 million. - Do I have 35?

35 I have. 41 million.

45 million.

The "Balloon Dog" sold at 52 million.

- A masterpiece by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

$98 million. Last chance.

For $98 million.

Thank you, congratulations.

Thank you very much.

[applause]

[quirky orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- Uh, these are all "Gazing Ball" paintings,

but they're being worked on and I don't have the balls on...

- Right. - Some of the--the paintings.

♪ ♪

This is a Giotto painting here that we're working on.

John was just here, uh, stenciling.

You know, it's not the exact same size as the original,

but, you know, it's the idea of this painting

that I've tried to capture.

- As a little boy, you were determined

to be an artist, right?

- I always was.

From the age of, uh, three,

my parents kind of let me know

that, "Oh, oh, Jeff, uh, that's kind of nice."

And that gave me a sense of self.

- Yes. - And, uh, you know,

from, you know, the times that I was young,

I would win awards for, uh, my artwork.

And at college, I would always be showing

in the President's office. And so--

- Really? - Yeah.

- So some of your work is sold for

as much as $50 million at auction.

I mean, let's face it, you're the most successful

artist today in the world.

- Uh, if that would be the case, okay,

it's really quite, uh, humbling, you know?

But, uh, the only thing that, you know, I've thought about,

"Well, why do I make the things that I make?"

And, you know, the only thing I have are my interests.

[soft percussive music]

♪ ♪

- There's no question Jeff Koons changed everything,

in terms of sculpture.

For example, the bunny.

You'd look at it, and it was like Narcissus.

I mean, you look into the water,

what do you see?

You see yourself.

And you see all of the excess.

You know, the wealth reflected

in a Hong Kong inflatable bunny

that had been magically turned into stainless steel.

And it was perfect.

♪ ♪

Great art changes the way artists

perceive what they should be doing.

It's not kind of a single gimmick.

Because, you know, a great gimmick is great

if it, like, takes you from here to there,

if you own the gimmick.

If the gimmick owns you, it's over.

♪ ♪

[birds chirping]

[Beethoven's "String Quartet No. 11"]

♪ ♪

[insects droning]

- This is James Fenimore Cooper country.

- It sure is. - Beethoven's favorite author.

♪ ♪

- So, Larry? - Yeah?

- How do you start to learn how to see?

- You don't. You don't.

You didn't decide who your parents were.

It's the same thing. - What do you mean?

- Well, you don't decide certain things.

You don't decide-- you don't pick your parents,

and you don't pick who-- who you are.

- Was that what it was like for you finding painting?

- Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I tried to--yeah. I wanted to be an artist.

Now, an artist can be anything.

You know, uh, a poet. A writer.

A singer. You know, Hank Williams.

It's what-- you do what you can do.

- What's the relationship between art and money?

- Art and money have no intrinsic hookup at all.

It's not like sports.

Your batting average is your batting average.

You know, that's--that's the bottom line, you know?

Um, and they've tried to make it much like that,

like the best artist is the most expensive artist.

Same thing. - Is that not true?

- How could it be true?

♪ ♪

- There's a lot of money kicking around,

and there is a limit to where you can put it.

[opera music]

To be an effective collector,

deep down, you have to be shallow.

You have to be a decorator.

You want the thing to work with the rugs,

and you want it to work with the furniture.

And I notice different styles of collecting.

There is the, uh, collector

that is the wolf in sheep's clothing,

and then there's the sheep in wolves' clothing.

And everybody has their own style.

- Which are you? - [laughs]

That's good. I can switch, like the Donald.

[laughs] It all depends.

- How do you get this incredible collection?

I mean, what is it-- what was it in you?

- Okay, well, back in the '70s,

Christie's had the Mondrian--

a beautiful, massive, perfect Mondrian.

And I went to the auction house, and I bid it.

I got it at 600,000,

which was the world record for Mondrian.

And everybody wanted to know who that schmuck was

from Chicago who overpaid for that over-painted Mondrian.

And it put me on the map. [soft laugh]

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- New York still is, in terms of the big auctions,

the center of the art market,

because big-ticket items are always sold in New York.

But what has changed is that the art market

has become totally global, and now you have

collectors in all parts of the world

buying art by artists from all parts of the world.

♪ ♪

- There is no Golden Age without gold.

[laughs]

So if you didn't have

100 times more collectors than existed in the '70s,

you wouldn't have 1,000 times more artists making art.

And you-- of course, it's a bubble.

And bubbles make beautiful things,

and let's just try to keep it floating.

Don't burst it.

♪ ♪

- Art fairs are the main events

for the galleries and the dealers.

Now you have quite a few big fairs around the world.

Frieze that we are here for.

Frieze, London.

Art Basel in Basel, Hong Kong.

Miami. You have Dubai, Istanbul.

I mean, I could go on and on.

Hey, hey, Neda, how are you? - I wanna ask you something.

El Anatsui, I want to buy one.

- Yes, I love El Anatsui. - Yeah, yeah.

- And African art is going to go up and up,

and I--I look forward to seeing it.

I've loved Anatsui for quite a while.

[laughs]

- Wow, thanks!

- Who's it by?

- The unknown artist called Basquiat.

He's one of the hottest things in the art market

at the moment.

- Look at this single boob. - Self-portrait.

- The uni--yeah, self-portrait. Uniboob.

"Girl In Bed," that's the maquette for girl--

I've sold that painting twice.

- Have you bought anything today?

- Yes. - You bought some--

- A few pieces--yes. - Wow.

- And I would like some more. I want more.

- It was what? - Always want more.

I would like some more. A few more.

- Wow. Alissa, who made this?

- Francesca DiMattio. And only you get to touch.

- Only I get to touch? - You get to do that.

- Has this piece sold? - It is sold, Jerry.

- For about how much, ballpark?

- About 50. - $50,000.

My guess is she gets 50% of that?

- Absolutely, fair deal.

- [whistling]

- I don't see too many artists here.

- Oh, artists shouldn't come to art fairs.

Or they should, but they don't.

I wouldn't come to an art fair if I didn't have to.

In my part of the jungle, I'm mostly meeting people

who are interested in art.

Up in the higher reaches of the treetops

there's a different ecosystem

where art absolutely is an asset class.

That's essentially what the auctions have become.

- Right. - A trading house for assets.

[cell phone chiming]

Excuse me. Hello?

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Okay, so this is a...

That looks good all by itself.

It's gonna be hard to comp that, actually.

♪ ♪

- So this will be the catalog for the Ames Collection.

Did you land that deal? - Yeah, Steven and Ann Ames.

We don't get things of this caliber very often,

so that makes it special.

There's also a lot at stake.

What's nice is everything in this picture is actually

part of the sale, which is-- - Perfect.

- Does it make you anxious

when a big sale like this happens?

- I'm usually very calm on the day of a sale.

And it's not the part I like the most.

- But your favorite part is what, of the whole thing?

Of this specific thing?

- The chase and the deal, probably.

That's definitely...

- [soft chuckle] - Yeah.

Okay, Condo.

He's a super disciple of Picasso,

so we're trying to figure out how to comp it.

And the idea is you always wanna comparative-image it

with something that becomes it and something that...

- Elevates it. - Elevates--yeah.

I don't wanna be-- it's sort of marketing,

but it's sort of art-- it's sort of

the art-history marketing part.

So getting your comps right is--

it's a way you show you're smart,

but you can't be arrogant and cocky.

George is definitely an artist who's a darling of the market.

[dramatic music]

- I don't really wanna know 100% what I'm gonna do

until it's done.

I just, like, add color very gradually.

My favorite thing to do is get to the edge.

- What was it that started you in the very beginning

wanting to be an artist?

- Well, I wasn't good at anything else.

[laughs]

And, I mean, I--

I could always draw better than everybody else,

and so that was like, "Whoa, look at that."

- Did your parents support you in that?

- No.

- Your photographs of your mother are unbelievable.

- Oh, my mother didn't support me in anything.

[laughs]

- The money has never been a motivation for me.

Oh, that's a no. [laughs]

Especially coming from Nigeria, the thing that really

did it for me was thinking about urgency,

thinking of wanting to be more visible.

♪ ♪

- You know, the market is a sort of--

a separate sort of entity from the actual creation of art.

It doesn't really have anything to do with art.

It's, uh--it has to do with something else.

And I'm not sure 100% what it is, you know.

- I don't have all the details in yet.

- Still being worked on?

- Yeah, but this is actually a person

who has ruby-colored pubic hair.

People come real close to buying them,

and then they know what it is and they go,

"Oh, I don't know." [laughs]

- Really?

- I don't care if they buy them.

I just needed to make them.

And my gallery would like it

if I made much more sellable things.

- So talk to me a little bit about the art market.

- [laughs] It's too dangerous,

you know, to even learn about it.

I don't wanna know.

♪ ♪

- I love artists,

but I don't know that

the marketplace loves artists.

And if we allow the marketplace to determine what is good,

then there is no place for me.

[ripping]

- I always say to artists,

"Don't be an artist unless

you really, really, really, really, really have to."

Because 99.999% of artists don't have money.

It's that simple.

Artists have to make an enemy of envy.

They must do this or it will eat them alive.

[soft orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- People say that the bunny is the most valuable

Jeff Koons in existence.

- Very likely.

- When we saw this, I mean,

we really wanted to have a "Rabbit."

But he only made three plus the artist's proof.

And, of course, they were gone immediately.

But, um, Stef always had his eye on it,

and we had the opportunity-- when would you say?

'90-something? - I bought it in 1991 for 945.

- 945,000? - Yeah.

- And it was a time that was--the market

was not really very strong,

and everybody was saying, "Oh, you're crazy.

You're crazy paying that much for it."

But Stef and I, we just felt so right that

it was the right time to do it and the right time to buy it,

and no matter what the value, it was going to belong to us.

And that was what-- the most important thing.

- What--what would it be worth now?

- $65 million. - Yes, yes, yes.

So we snapped at it. [laughs]

♪ ♪

- This is a Warhol skull. - This is Warhol's "Skull."

So there are certain code things that happen.

One, it has to be juicy.

You see the juice that he had here?

And the other thing, the direction of the skull

has to create a baby face.

See that profile of the baby face?

That is the important part of--

- How do you find--I mean, important, says who?

- Important to the art world, to the values.

- To the--to your eye. - To the feinschmeckers.

[laughs]

[insects buzzing]

- There are no rules about what is gonna be good

and what is gonna be bad.

Art doesn't give a shit.

It never has.

[Bach's "Sinfonia" from "BVW 42" playing]

♪ ♪

Why don't you go in first? Show everybody, and...

♪ ♪

Just--follow Paula. Yeah.

- [soft chuckle] - It's good advice.

[chuckles]

♪ ♪

- Is this all one continuous piece of canvas?

- Yeah, I've painted that way since 1971.

Yeah.

I'm just working on this basically the whole thing

all the time, and, you know,

putting stuff on.

And now we're painting this. [chuckles]

Most people think it's like putting makeup on.

You know, you gotta be careful.

Get close to a Rembrandt,

and you see how quickly things were done.

Flicks. Flick, flick, flick.

Little flicks of color.

- So when I say to people,

"I wanna interview Larry Poons."

- Mm-hmm.

- Some people say--

- Why the fuck you want to do that?

Yeah. - Well, what happened to him?

Where--where is he? - Yeah, I know.

They think I'm dead. Yeah.

They thought-- a lot of people have thought

I was dead for a long time.

You know.

It's not my fault.

My only defense against fate is color.

[lively classical music]

♪ ♪

- All of these images that are in this room, you know,

are connected to art history, and they're created through

systems that I'm responsible for each and every mark.

Having the correct color there,

and everything numbered and using the maps so that

when we look at this, everything--

I'm completely responsible for.

- So it doesn't matter that you don't physically

touch the canvas with a brush?

- Well, uh, I am, in a way, physically doing it,

but it's physically through all these systems.

But it's like articulating your fingers and, you know,

your mind is telling the finger to do this.

So at the end of the day, that mark is as if

I would sit here and do it myself.

Now, if I would do this, the only thing

that I'd be able to accomplish next year

would be just creating this painting.

I wouldn't be able to do anything else.

♪ ♪

- 8 to 12 million.

Okay, so this is a really interesting picture.

This, we just hit it. This is like a money shot.

When you have the painting you're selling

and then a picture of the artist

standing in front of the painting.

- [laughs] - Bill de Kooning, winner.

- Holy Grail of comps. - Holy Grail of comps.

That's as good as it gets.

I don't like these comps.

Comp can't overwhelm the image.

Like this, the fantastic Matisse.

Yeah, boy, you wanna know what that would be worth today?

- Oh, my--yeah, what would that be worth?

- Forget about it.

A couple hundo. A lot.

- A couple hundred million? - I'm thinking, yeah.

Yeah, definitely. - Sure.

- Like, pricele--"priceless,"

and then you sort of work backwards, so...

- Are there still masterpieces being made today?

- Oh, I gotta believe. I mean, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I have to believe there are.

I wouldn't even question that. What kind of question is that?

It's like a--that's like, "Do you believe in the future?"

That's what you just asked me. Do you believe in the future?

No, done, we're done. Let's just go. We're not--

Yeah, of course I believe in the future.

Of course I believe great things are being made today.

[cell phone chiming] London calling.

This is the time of day where London calls.

Hey, Alex.

How late can I call you?

[soft dramatic music]

- In the end of the last century,

uh, we sat around at Christie's trying to think what the hell

we were gonna do next, because frankly...

[indistinct auctioneering]

Supply of old masterpieces wasn't just limited.

It was diminishing.

And almost all our markets and all our businesses

were getting smaller.

- ...million dollars.

- Thank you very much.

- With new collectors coming into the market

trying to build collections,

younger people enriched beyond imagination

with a thirst for the new and the loud,

where were they gonna go?

[David Bowie's "Fashion"]

♪ ♪

In terms of contemporary art,

there was a lot of production going on,

and the supply issue wasn't gonna be a problem.

♪ ♪

You know, the supply was almost infinite.

- ♪ I don't know its name ♪

♪ ♪

- I don't think anyone really understood just how important,

um, contemporary art was going to become.

But it would basically overshadow almost all other

collecting areas in the art market.

- ♪ Fashion! Turn to the left ♪

♪ Fashion! Turn to the right ♪

♪ Ooh, fashion! ♪

♪ We are the goon squad and we're coming to town ♪

- The money is

an inevitable consequence

of demand and supply.

And so there's a temptation for the artists

to overproduce and to push.

♪ ♪

- [vocalizing]

♪ Fashion ♪

♪ ♪

[vocalizing]

- My brain feels tapped out since my last show.

Um, but I don't want to just make an exact replica,

because it just will be too boring.

So I tried to change the colors,

but even that is not enough to keep me engaged.

My production is very low.

Um, so, in a good year, I make 12 works.

Um, in a year like this where I just had a baby,

I might end up making six to eight works.

If I'm thinking of wanting these works to be seen,

there's a temptation to get them out fast.

But if I speed up the production of the work,

it will take away from all that behind the scenes

that makes the work as rich as it is.

- I'm thinking...

Big. All right.

[Little Walter's "You Better Watch Yourself"]

Ooh, forget how these things break.

I throw these things out like that.

♪ ♪

- ♪ You better watch yourself ♪

♪ ♪

♪ You better watch yourself ♪

♪ 'Cause I've got my eyes on you ♪

♪ ♪

♪ You can steal my love ♪ - He's very persistent.

- This particular fella? - This guy.

He's always sort of there

as a kind of alter ego.

- There are people out there who say, you know,

"Well, for the market, it'd be better if George Condo

did a little less. He does so much."

- I think that people say that all the time to living artists.

"Oh, man, you know, you're doing too much."

But, you know, if you think about a guy like, you know,

whose work you really like, you think,

"Are you--would it have been great had Monet done, like,

3,000 less paintings?" You know?

Or Picasso had done 500 less, or...

You don't have to, like, sell everything you do.

It's not about that.

It's just about making sure that you never sort of

deprive yourself of an inspiration as an artist.

- ♪ 'Cause I've got my eyes on you ♪

♪ ♪

- Right now we have-- we have five Condos.

- You currently have five-- - Five Condos.

By having parameters, my life is a lot easier.

- Which parameters?

- Well, 200 works, 40 artists.

- That's it? - That's it.

- Arbitrary rule? You just came up with it?

- No--well, yes, it's sort of arbitrary,

but when I try--I mentioned that to a very important

hedge fund guy about five, six years ago, he smiled.

He hadn't been doing any collecting

but is collecting now.

He says, "That's interesting.

My analysts can only follow about 40 stocks."

And the other thing helps is to know

what you really need in a way, you know?

I needed these lemons, I needed these birds,

because now if I'm gonna do Rondinone,

I have to have a little garden here.

And then the clown shoes, I paid 270 for them.

I traded. - How does that work?

- I exchanged it for another work.

- You don't write checks? - I try not to.

[laughs] - So you don't use money?

- Usually an official exchange, and it's all done,

uh, with paperwork. - Hmm.

- You know, some people think that, uh,

that Uncle Sam is not getting his cut,

which is probably true.

But that's also true in real estate.

And as long as the laws are there to do it,

it's a good way to, uh, build a collection.

That's the art of the deal.

Well, let's try what happened in '16.

[mouse clicking]

Oh, oh, '16 was really busy.

Glenn Brown, Maurizio Cattelan, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince.

All the usual suspects.

- What did you buy from Jeff Koons?

- Jeff Koons was the Courbet Sleep.

- Oh, the "Gazing Ball"? - Yeah, the "Gazing Ball."

- What--what did the "Gazing Ball" cost?

- That was-- they were $2 1/2 million.

They were modestly priced.

[quirky orchestral music]

- If you look here at the "Gazing Ball,"

it's reflecting us right now, right here.

So this is the right here, right now.

Then there's, like, this interface where

the painting is reflected into the ball.

You kind of enter into the painting,

then you go into the realm of the eternal.

You go into this type of connectivity of the past.

It's telling you everything it can about where you are

in the universe right at this moment.

It's generous.

And it comes back to how you interact

with yourself and how you interact with others.

It's all metaphor. Metaphor.

Everything's metaphor.

♪ ♪

- Gazing is essential in looking at visual art.

And the notion to have a ball in the backyard that you can

gaze at--maybe smoke a pipe and gazing at the ball--

is absolutely how you enjoy art.

You gaze at it.

You can look at it, but gazing is somehow

nobler than just gawking.

♪ ♪

This is the irony.

I can look at something that's totally contemporary

and people get ticked off because,

what am I looking at?

And that's a real question. But never mind.

I have a Courbet. [soft chuckle]

So I have the guilty pleasure of enjoying something

which would be very mundane.

You know, a knockoff doesn't get you a lot of credit

as an art collector, because anybody can do that.

But put a gazing ball on it, and presto.

[chuckles]

♪ ♪

- I don't like this man's relentless and honest

and bold stare at me.

Someone said to me once, you know,

"The work of art is not the artist,

but the artist is the work of art."

And that's a very mystical saying,

but what I think that means is only Rembrandt

could have made this picture.

This is an aged artist who's showing us his flesh

and his world--worldly scars and beatings he's taken,

not just as a person, but as an artist.

It makes you think about life in the raw, you know?

And I think that paintings, when they're at their greatest,

are making demands on us

and it's easier for us to just walk away.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have this

in one's house and how irradiated one would feel

as one sat down for breakfast

with the sports page and Special K, you know?

It would just be a--such an overpowering, sacred presence.

[somber piano music]

♪ ♪

I don't even, um, try to contemplate

what these things would be worth.

♪ ♪

The--the pricelessness that makes for price in the world.

♪ ♪

This Vermeer, for example, has got it all over,

every evaluation, professorial or commercial,

that could ever be put upon it,

because it deals in what used to be called

in times less defeated, uh, than ours, "the soul."

♪ ♪

But it's a pie in the sky to believe that this is

to be separated out from a culture that values things,

that values materials, and that even can put a value

on that which is immaterial, like light itself.

[dramatic orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- I gotta think about this really hard.

I think we're not making virtue enough of the red.

So-- - Yeah.

We were playing around with the idea of, like,

a shaft of light.

Something with, uh, how it's-- - Caravaggio-esque.

- Yeah. - This is a masterpiece.

It could be sort of something va-va-voom, sexy.

Richter's just got it. We could just--

Everybody knows this is greatness.

There's two in this collection of,

I would say, equal caliber.

This is where Richter's really like Rothko.

Because this one is, like, exuberant and alive and sexy

and, like, juicy and life-giving.

And then the other one in this grouping,

which I'll find in a moment...

Oh. - Mm-hmm.

- I mean, this picture is, like, so moody

and psychological. - It is so dark.

- Like, it is such an interior mental--

- Really dark. - Well, this one is body.

The big red one is body. And this one is soul.

So then that reminds me of Rothko because Rothko has

paintings that are very physical and bodily

and some that are more psychological and soulful.

In his case, it was a dark soul.

- Rothko? - Yeah.

As are most people who commit suicide

at one point or another.

Um, yeah, I mean, this--

living with a picture like this could change your life,

if you let it.

- How could it change your life?

- I mean, very few of us live with such majesty.

Truly.

Gerhard Richter is probably

the greatest living European artist.

I mean, these are very-- these are very, very important

pictures to come for sale.

- It's incredibly exciting to have these two...

- It's cool, right? - In the sale.

- We should invite him to the sale.

- You should. - Believe me, dude,

dude, he is not coming, okay?

Like, I'm sure of that, okay? He's old guard.

He doesn't like this sort of thing.

He doesn't like the selling of his works.

This is the detail of this Richter called "Ziege,"

which means goat.

That's the detail of that painting,

and this is a very famous painting

called "Police Gazette,"

which is a de Kooning from 1955.

- Wasn't that de Kooning

in the Scull auction? - Right.

A very important defining event in the birth of

the contemporary art market as we know it

was the Scull sale.

Robert Scull, who was

a player in the New York art world

in the '60s and '70s-- he was sort of like

an original financier in the art market--

decided to do a sale from his collection of living artists.

- How are you, baby? - All right, darling.

[both kiss] - How's everything?

- Record numbers of art dealers, collectors,

and connoisseurs filed into the Parke-Bernet Gallery

for what was billed as the most important auction

of post-World War II American art,

all from the collection of taxi fleet owner

Robert Scull and his wife, Ethel.

- Robert Scull was the personage,

and everybody talked about him.

He was a guy that-- he was a bargain hunter,

that he wanted to always bypass

the dealers and start doing

business with the artists directly.

- I'm--I think it would do some good, Leo.

I think it's going to be-- - Yes, sure.

- He was a rainmaker in the art world, in that sense,

where people that respected him decided that

if he liked something, it was worth liking.

I mean, we're lemmings. [laughs]

In the art world, there's a lot of followers.

A few leaders and a lot of followers.

And--which is okay if you follow the right leader.

[laughs]

- When your husband would come home with some of these,

uh, peculiar things, didn't all your friends

laugh at you and think you were crazy to have them?

- Yes, they--they considered us freaks.

You know, we were always pointed at.

The museum, at dinner parties.

You know, "Those two people,

they collect that terrible art,"

you know, and we just ignored them.

- Ownership is involvement.

Ownership is-- acquisition is involvement.

And with art, it's probably the most, uh,

exciting kind of involvement.

Of course, owning a nice share of IBM is an involvement too.

[indistinct chatter]

That Poons, you've never seen it.

That Poons I bought, I don't think you remember it.

Excuse me.

That Poons knocked me out.

I've never seen it stretched since the--

I bought it. - You're kidding.

- No. - Oh.

- I had never been to an art auction.

In fact, I've only been to one,

which was the Scull auction.

I just couldn't believe this.

I mean, it was, uh-- the idea that

art was being put on the auction block

like a piece of meat.

It was just extraordinary to me.

I mean, this auction had very high prices

for the first time for contemporary art.

And I remember that Rauschenberg was there.

Uh, and he, uh-- he was really incensed,

because the artists got nothing out of this.

The artists got the $600 they were paid in the first place.

It was totally p-- totally, totally,

totally pivotal moment.

Suddenly there was the realization

because of the prices

that these works of art by living artists got

that you could make money by buying low and selling high.

[Stephen Emil Dudas and Mark G. Hart's "All in Time"]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Reset your soul remind your mind ♪

♪ ♪

♪ You just keep searching for signs ♪

[indistinct auctioneering]

- ♪ You will find ♪

♪ All in time ♪

- $135,000...

$130,000. Now 180.

At 180,000.

[gavel bangs] Sold, 200,000...

[applause]

- I have been crying.

- Robert Rauschenberg. Let's go.

- For Christ's sake, you didn't even send me flowers.

- Send you flowers? Nothing happened to you.

- Or something. - Where, for what?

I should have anyway. - There was a great markup.

- You're right, you're right, you're right.

- I've been working my ass off for you to make that profit?

- How about yours that you're going to sell now?

I've been working for you too. We work for each other.

- Okay, let's make a deal. - Oh, stopped you cold.

[laughs]

- These are still around. Jim Dine, di Suvero, Guston,

and Johns.

Franz Kline. "Target."

There it is. $125,000.

The surface is to die for, because it has everything.

It has sprittzing. It has all the collage stuff.

Very rich. I bought it for ten.

- For 10 million in '97? - Yeah.

- And what would this piece be worth now?

- $100 million.

- Seems crazy amount of money.

- Seems like a crazy amount of money.

- Do you think it's worth it? - Well, let's see.

The stretcher is probably worth 80 bucks.

[laughs]

And we have some high-quality canvas.

I don't know about the cost of the paints.

There's a lot of people that

know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

[laughs]

So apply that. [laughs]

Let's see, one of the early purchases was an Oldenburg.

Poons. Don't see much Poons anymore.

- What--what happened to Poons?

- He slipped off. He slipped off the ledge.

[laughs]

And just for whatever reason.

The art world is capricious

and not clear as to

what the reasons are for some artists losing traction

and others, uh, sailing into the sky.

[stapler clacks]

[dramatic string music]

[stapler clacking]

♪ ♪

- I was in that group.

My dot pictures were in that group of the '60s

that were recognized.

You know, made me one of the boys.

I mean, Jasper sold his first paintings for about

what I was selling my first paintings.

You know, $1,000 was big deal.

- You showed with Leo Castelli, right?

And he was-- - Sure, sure.

I moved up from the Green Gallery

to Leo Castelli's gallery when the Green Gallery closed.

Sure. - Mm-hmm.

- But then all this success, all this, like, sameness

at the time finally began to look like sameness.

I said to a guy in a gallery

when I had a show, like, in the works,

I asked him,

"What do you think I should do, you know?"

"You know, give me some advice."

And what he said to me, he didn't mean.

But what it meant to me, I'll tell you.

He said to me, "Oh, you don't have to worry about that.

You're Poons."

And that repelled me.

You see what I mean?

That to me meant, "Oh, you mean I should just

paint the same way I've been painting."

Yeah.

I--I didn't know what I was looking for,

but I knew that isn't what I wanted to be.

You know, I mean, I--I wanted more.

You know, I wanted to be...

you know, Beethoven.

[Beethoven's "String Quartet No. 10"]

The thing that I'm certain of...

♪ ♪

I don't think I'd be alive today

if I had gotten rich back then.

♪ ♪

- I love Larry Poons.

I got to sit next to him.

It was the opening of the Frank Stella show

at the Whitney, and he was one of my--

he was on one side of me.

And I said to him, I said, "Oh, Larry Poons.

You were one of my favorite painters for a while."

And he thought that was funny, I guess.

He thought it was funny.

Most of the artists that I've shown from the beginning

have gotten very expensive.

And there's a lot more money in selling something

the second or third time, usually, than the first time.

I sold my first Jeff Koons at $700 to the Rubells.

- Tell me a little bit about Jeff Koons.

- He's a wonderful guy. Wonderful.

His studio was above the old Barneys,

you know, on 17th and 7th.

It was amazing to go into this room 'cause it was covered

with these plastic mirrors, and then he had Velcro

and these inflatable toys stuck to the mirrors.

And this is, like, 1978.

He starts talking to me like, "Well, you know,

you have to have-- everything has to be new."

Like, you know, like, when they have cereal,

they don't change the cereal.

They just put "new" on it.

So this is the new.

And it foreshadows a lot of the whole thing about branding

and what people attribute to Andy Warhol.

Jeff knew all of that just by instinct.

- And he probably would have created...

- Around '79, '80, all these people

would say to me, "Hey, have you met Jeff Koons?

You've gotta meet Jeff Koons. He works on Wall Street."

Of course, Jeff was working in a bucket shop,

like, out of "The Wolf of Wall Street."

So someone told me the story that one of the legends

of Wall Street comes in one day,

and all the salesmen are enthralled.

You know, "You're amazing."

And this guy says, "You think I'm good?

Wait till you see this guy, Koons."

- You mailed in my company a postcard a few weeks back

requesting information on penny stocks

that had huge upside potential with very little--

- Jeff gets on the phone,

and they're listening to him.

- It is perhaps the best thing

I've seen in the last six months.

- And everything stops,

and they watch Jeff Koons,

in one phone session,

go from getting the lead, softening him up,

and closing it in one conversation.

They were just in awe. They'd never seen this before.

- How'd you fucking do that?

- This natural American salesmanship

infuses everything he does.

- You know, the first time we were asked to, um,

to guarantee a Jeff Koons work,

they said, "Well, you know, it's an addition of four

with an artist proof." And I said, "What do you mean?

There are five of these things?"

And surely that should reduce the value of this work of art.

But, in fact, it's completely the opposite.

I mean, actually made it more desirable in the marketplace.

He was also the first artist that I became aware of

that there was a sort of futures market,

that he would sell you something that he hadn't made

for three years' time, at a price,

and then that-- that promise became traded.

[Beethoven's "String Quartet No. 10"]

♪ ♪

- Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Let's go.

♪ ♪

So, what would you like from me?

- Uh, really, for one, we just wanted to show it to you.

Also just to find out, is it a finished work of art?

- I didn't bother to paint on it anymore,

and for some reason, it was discarded.

- Hmm.

Well, I'm a huge fan of your work,

particularly your early minimal work,

so I was so excited when I saw the picture.

It was only when it arrived here that we thought

it wasn't quite right.

- You see, when I stopped painting dots like that...

- Uh-huh. - Or paintings like that,

you know, all my old friends, they stopped talking to me

'cause I--I changed.

The only guy who stood up was Frank Stella.

- Interesting.

- Yeah, he--he was all for it. - Yeah.

It's pretty amazing how art meant that much to people

in a way that I don't think is the case today.

You never hear about--

- How do you mean, "meant so much"?

- Well, the fact that artists cared so much

about what they did and what people are creating

that, if a style changed, they would consider it

betrayal, and they would stop talking to you, you know...

- Well, no, wait, wait, it's a betrayal

of the career charisma.

"You're doing this for a career, buddy," you know?

And that was easy, you know, for me to deal with

because I wanted to be like

Mozart or Beethoven, you know?

The first piece ain't looking like the last piece.

I didn't wanna paint like that, you know, forever.

- Can I ask one request of you? - Sure.

- Can I take a picture with you?

- Sure.

- You are one of my, uh, artistic heroes.

- Really?

But you said you only like the early stuff.

- No, no, I like the early stuff best because I just--

that's my aesthetic, but no,

I love your later paintings. Absolutely.

- It's okay. - No, I really do.

- That's all right.

- I also ride a motorcycle. - Oh, yeah?

- So, um-- - What kind?

- Uh, it's a Yamaha Road Star.

It's 1700 CC, so yeah, it's like a Harley wannabe.

- Right, how long you been riding?

- Uh, since high school. - Me too.

[motorcycle engine revving]

[answering machine beeps]

- Hi, Larry. It's Dennis Yares.

Uh, could you give me a call when you have the chance?

I'd like to set up a time for me to come to the studio

so we can look at the paintings

for the New York exhibition.

Take care, bye. [answering machine beeps]

[classical string music]

- Larry has the capacity to destroy his market constantly.

And he's very--he's, like, a genius at that.

♪ ♪

And, of course, you know Larry's deaf.

Occasionally, he remembers to put in hearing aids;

usually not.

And I said, "Well, Larry, I guess,

"you know, you can choose.

"You could be either Beethoven or Goya.

They were both deaf." [laughs]

And--and Larry's been living on the edge

for I don't know how long. Nothing's happening.

Nothing's happening, and all of a sudden,

people are looking for his paintings.

And it's kind of weird, um, because you know

they do a calculation. It's sick.

Uh, and the calculation is, who's the most

undervalued painter?

'Cause it's a stock market calculation.

It's a completely perverse, uh, and upside-down art world.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[camera shutter clicks]

- These ones?

- So these--this was your return to painting right here?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

- What about when these paintings suddenly

come up at an auction, and you see people--

- Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

Okay.

[stirring orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- Do you have any sense of what value

you'll put on these?

- 20 to 30 million each.

- What is it that makes a Gerhard Richter painting

worth 10 million, 20 million?

- Quality. Rarity.

The confirmation and consensus that that is

a particularly excellent work by

curators, market people, critics, et cetera.

I mean, there's a reasonable consensus among varying people.

Listen, great things tell you they're great.

I mean, when you see something really great,

everybody knows it.

Even laypeople can feel something.

- When you have a picture like this--

- Yeah. - Do you hope it finds

the world of somebody who will be able to live up to that?

- I try not to get, like, into that part of it,

'cause, like, I don't really... - You can't decide.

There's some-- within your question is

a moral qualifier about are good people--

are there good people or bad people in the world,

and don't you hope a good person gets this?

- I know what Richter wants.

I mean, there's what he said he wants.

- He wants people who are deeply moved by them

to live with them and love them?

- He wants museums. - Museums.

Oh.

I mean, museums are great. We love them.

But they're also...

I mean, if they have too many, they'll never come upstairs

and see the light of day. So then it's like a cemetery.

Why do you want your things in a cemetery?

You know, they're buried underground somewhere.

So museums for him, that's just

a very socialist democratic way,

like, of avoiding...

having to deal with, like...

rich people who want them.

- What's the sort of estimate for the total sale?

- Like, $100 million.

- And is the Ames a large portion?

- No, no, that's the Ames. - That's just the Ames?

- Yeah, the sale will be much bigger than that.

[dramatic piano music]

♪ ♪

[elevator beeps]

- Oh, thanks. - You're welcome.

♪ ♪

- I really resent that so much of this work

wishes to define all of life as

a glittering compromise with commerce.

So, what is it? A diamond from the sky?

♪ ♪

[distant sirens wailing]

The perfection of this is what I resist.

The work is pristine, but makes me think

it's made by someone who has the grime of the newspaper--

the business section-- the, um, stock printouts, um,

on his fingers and wears that as testimony to

his involvement in a real world that I will never know.

It would be easy for me to hurry back to Rembrandt

or Vermeer and live in my pocket or pillow

of beautiful, invisible, rarified self-reflection

and share that with a few other souls,

but those days, this sculpture wants to say, are over.

You know how it makes me feel?

I feel like I'm in one of those old Ray Harryhausen

adventure movies from the '60s like "Sinbad"

or "Jason and the Argonauts."

And I'm--I'm like Jason and this is one of the beasts,

the sort of momentous mythical creatures that

I've been called upon to slay.

But when the scene is over, this thing gets

the star's bathrobe and flies to its private island

and I, uh--

I'll go have a chicken sandwich at my picnic table.

And I guess all I'm saying is, uh, I surrender the keys,

but I don't give up.

[dramatic orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- What is fascinating is that while the art market overall

goes up and will continue, of course, to go up,

taste changes constantly.

Even the way we look at old masters,

taste is constantly evolving and moving on.

And I can definitely tell you what we consider today

to be the most important and the most expensive

will not be so considered in 50 years from now.

♪ ♪

- I remember the first time I saw one of

those extraordinary formaldehyde pieces

of Damien Hirst.

It was the Sensation exhibition.

♪ ♪

The Chris Ofili Virgin Mary,

the Marc Quinn blood-filled head,

the Tracey Emin tent.

It was all about a way of living now, you know,

and a confrontation with death.

When this new category of art was proposed to

the directors of Christie's,

there was a massive objection

from the people who worked there.

And, in fact, we were not allowed

to take the art into the Christie's building.

[indistinct auctioneering]

- Well, art is provocative. - It is provocative.

Should it always be? - No.

- But it often is.

- Art is different, and, uh,

we all have different tastes.

And now it's, of course, it's all about

conceptual art, so this is conceptual art.

And sometimes it's provocative. Sometimes it's beautiful.

Sometimes it's super dark.

A few of my friends have this piece,

and of course, in Russian tradition,

if a few people have it, everyone else must have it too.

It's a very, very popular piece.

Everyone loves it.

Shall we proceed?

So this is the first piece we ever collected.

Damien Hirst.

My husband gave to me for my birthday.

We were in Art Basel Miami, and we came there

just to have a good time.

When we walked through the fair,

I was completely bored.

And then I turned around and there was, like,

a piece of, um, pink--

pink oval on the wall

with butterflies on it, and it moved me so much.

So, so emotion.

And I said, like, "Wow." That's how it started.

- And that was a Damien Hirst? - That was a Damien Hirst.

I didn't know who it was.

- What moved you about it so much?

- Colors.

It was just so beautiful together.

I just--

- I bought this. It was in Venice.

It was 5 million when I bought it.

It's not worth that now. Damien's prices have gone down.

But I really wanted one of the pieces that he represented

as a breakthrough idea of having an animal

in formaldehyde, which is a big question mark.

Is it art?

But it's certainly fascinating, and I'd seen

a couple of his works before.

It was all sealed in, ready to go.

And there was snot coming out of the nose of the sheep.

It was just dripping-- white stuff dripping out.

So I said, "Okay, we'll have to unseal it."

We emptied halfway out and we got it delivered here.

And then, for six months, I was grooming that sheep.

It's now at four years and nothing has come out,

so it's stable.

- It's done? - No, it's done.

There's nothing really-- what you say--

conceptual about it.

I don't consider this conceptual art.

It's--these are real objects

that you can relate to as a real person.

This is a candle that you burn.

But once you start it, you have to keep burning it.

But when it's all burned down, you could recast it,

but it'd cost you money.

The first time I saw candle figures,

I said, "This is stupid. I mean, you know,

why would you destroy your own art?"

This is another one. - That's Fischer, too?

- That's Urs Fischer, yeah.

He built a whole house of bread.

A full-sized house made of loaves of bread.

- Mm-hmm. - [laughs]

I don't know, is it art?

Go--ask me. [laughs]

- Is it? - Is it?

- Is it art? - Well, it's not food.

[both laugh]

- When Pollock finished his first drip painting,

he asked his wife, "Is this a painting?"

He made something that may not even fit

in the very large category we call art.

He didn't know.

The interesting thing about Pollock

is he only dripped for about 48 months.

I would ask any artist, any skeptic, any cynic,

if you invented fire, which Pollock did,

are you strong enough to stop making fire

and go back to Hell 48 months later,

go back to Hell and try to make something new again?

How many people have done that?

Pollock tried to change.

By 1956, he wrapped himself around a telephone pole

out on Springs, Long Island,

totally alcoholic in the car.

[Little Walter's "Sad Hours"]

♪ ♪

- You know, Keith Haring, he asked me once,

"What's more important, art or life?"

And I said, "It's a hard question.

"I mean, you know, we're in our 20s.

"At this age, I would say art,

because at least it lives forever."

♪ ♪

These are oil sticks, but they're not really

the kind of sticks that Jean-Michel was working with.

- Basquiat? - Yeah, Basquiat.

- How'd you meet him?

- Uh, when I first got to New York,

the first guy I met was Jean-Michel.

It's a real tragedy that he died so young.

I love Jean-Michel's work, and, uh--

and I really-- I really loved him.

The last time I saw him, he was in a very negative,

kind of depressed mood, and I said, "What's wrong?"

And he said, "I'm all washed up in this town."

Like a kind of Frank Sinatra line

or something, and, uh, something

he would write on a painting.

And I said, "Why?

What are you talking about, man?"

And he says, "Well,

nobody in this town wants to show me."

And I said, "What about Leo Castelli?"

I said, "You just--" You know, he said, "No.

Leo doesn't wanna show me."

I said, "What about this guy? What about that guy?"

And he said, "None of them want to show my work anymore.

Nobody's interested in showing my work."

I think that he felt he was the token black guy

that came out and, you know, was it really his art

they appreciated or was it the sort of fact that he was

African-American and that he had sort of

broken into the white system?

♪ ♪

You know, like, that's the kind of subject

that takes you out of what you're painting.

It's just gonna cause, you know,

the painting to get all screwed up.

[laughs]

♪ ♪

All right, you know what?

I've gotta get rid of this entire section

of the painting now.

- So when you see Jean-Michel's paintings

going last year for-- - Yeah.

When you see them going for $50 million today,

it is sad.

The irony is that, if he were around,

who knows if they would sell for that kind of money.

♪ ♪

- I've really never made any money until recently.

But I always got by.

If you have something to say, it will be seen.

You just might not be alive. That's the sucky part.

You might be old or dead.

And if you're female, you're bound to be old.

Or dead.

[rousing orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- So, on that deal, the client is interested

in taking it but wants to improve the deal a little,

the economics of the deal.

Can you get it a little higher?

♪ ♪

- Do you have any sense of who might buy these paintings?

- I think about who would buy each of them.

If I didn't have people in my mind,

I would be ill-suited for this job.

So, you know, we have to think about that all the time.

Like, how commercial is it? Who's gonna buy it?

How--what are the factors of getting

that person to buy something?

- I'm no longer buying at auction, if I can help it.

- This is relatively new. - I'm done.

Yeah, relatively new. - It's relatively new.

He's in a phase. - With exceptions, you know.

- He's in a phase, Stefan.

Okay, what do I love in this sale?

I love-- that, for me, is stunning.

- Yeah... - Stunning.

- Yeah, what do you get for that?

- 20 to 30. - Yeah, 20 to 30.

- Okay, now look at this one, Stef.

This is a good little picture.

- Red is always good. - Red.

- So the early rules: red is better than brown,

brown pictures are unsalable,

and don't buy any pictures with fish.

- Brown is hard.

Green is not always great.

de Koo-- this is de Kooney

in front of the painting I'm selling.

- Ooh.

You don't have to be an art collector

to be able to buy a de Kooney.

You look at this and listen to her,

and pretty soon, you know,

"Okay, that's something I can buy."

Whether you need it or like it, it's a good investment.

And there's a lot of investment buyers out there.

- A lot. - A lot.

They have asset allocations, stocks, bonds,

art, real estate... - Right.

- That sort of stuff. - There's a lot of people--

- But you know why they're buying it.

Not because they have a passion for de Kooney.

- Well, passion is, like, hard to measure, always, you know...

- Oh, especially a lot of them end up in storage.

- Oh, that's crime, of course. We don't like that.

- I haven't seen much Jeff Koons

in any of the shows this fall.

- The real estate people

started thinking of Jeff Koons as lobby art.

- They did. I know.

I went to a meeting the other day at Astor Place,

and there's the swan.

The red swan is in the building.

- Yep. - That was a kiss of death.

- And this guy-- and the guys in Florida

having the sitting ballerina. - Yeah.

- Yeah, that really is gonna hurt him.

- That's gonna hurt him. Lobby art.

- Lobby art. - Context is really key.

Like, if you see it in a lobby,

it just kind of disappears. - Yeah.

- And then you never get out of the lobby once you're in there.

- Yeah, yeah.

[motorcycle engine revs]

[thunder rumbles]

- What was the first piece that you fell in love with?

- Like, beyond something I made as a child

that I loved, or, you know, like, something that was

real art in that way? - Yeah, that you saw, yeah.

- My hometown museum has this Giacomo Balla painting

that's very famous.

And it's a dog-- a little kind of, like,

long-haired dachshund, like, wagging it's tail

and, like, it's feet are going, and a woman's dress is moving.

And it's that movement,

that very futurist movement of Balla.

It's a famous picture.

Masterpiece, loved that.

I thought that was just so amazing.

Want me to show you a picture of it?

- Yeah.

- Super famous painting

at the Albright-Knox in Buffalo, New York.

It's such a masterpiece. I loved that painting.

Look at it, how great it is.

The dog's just magnificent. I happen to love dogs.

I wanna-- I'm gonna screen-capture this

so I can look at it on bad days.

- It's great. - When I'm having a shitty day,

I'm gonna look at that painting.

That's great.

[thunder rumbling]

- I write about rich people. I'm a journalist, okay?

And I write novels and articles about rich people

all the time because I find them fascinating.

They're incredibly insecure and incredibly neurotic.

- Are you a rich person?

- I, um-- - Yes, you are.

- I-- - Yes, you are.

- Okay, I-- - Yes, you are.

- I live on Park Avenue in Manhattan, okay?

I've been to a lot of apartments.

There are apartments on the sixth floor,

the eighth floor, and the tenth floor

of certain buildings that have the same piece

by the same artist on the same wall.

I think that is a craven, horrible, distasteful way

to enjoy art, because everyone else has one,

and you get to buy one too.

- Could I just say something? - Yeah.

- Just, I'm gonna interrupt just for one second.

Okay, I think there's three kinds of people in this world.

Those who see,

those who see when they are shown,

and those who will never see.

This is a work I want you to look at.

You're gonna die because this is so Holly Peterson.

Okay, so this is an artist you don't know.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby.

She makes these works that are very similar

to Rauschenberg in process and technique.

- Like Silly Putty. - Yeah, exactly.

So on his body are all these African women,

like brides standing with the family--

- Oh, my God, wonderful. - On his body.

And look at that hand on his chest, how tender that is.

Can you stand that? - Wonderful.

Maybe she's--loves him.

- Also he's in this kind of,

like, supine position, right?

With his back a little arched.

- No, it's totally beautiful.

I want it. I want it for my wall.

- I think it's really heartening to know that

the work is connecting the way it does.

Um, where the anxiety comes in or saying it's scary

that I'm getting all this attention is,

how do I keep evolving this work?

How do I keep changing it?

How do I not stagnate, especially when you feel like,

"Ooh, I've stumbled onto something pretty cushy.

"I could just cruise and ride this out

for the next 20 years."

- Well, I think the art world is a very brutal place,

especially for young artists.

I think it can be really, really tough.

And when the market, you know--

sometimes people are very seduced and they--

it just becomes about production and the money.

And I think you have to know that the work is gonna

continue on in spite of all the noise around you.

This really rapid rise in the art market is artificial

and can, of course, you know, go away over time.

It's hard; it's really hard to be an artist, I think.

- How do you stay sane under that white heat?

- What is the white heat?

- When your paintings go for a million dollars at auction.

[laughs] And you're still alive.

That white heat is really dangerous for artists.

It's hard, it burns people out all the time.

Just made them crazy.

At least in my generation, or the generation

that's going on right now.

You know, there's major success.

Although Jeff is right up there,

and he still makes great art.

It's really a long game. It's a long-haul game.

[Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre"]

♪ ♪

- It is only when you go completely close up

that you actually realize that it's painted.

I definitely feel that Marilyn Minter is an artist

to go for if you like it, because I don't think you

should ever buy something that you don't personally like.

But there are plenty of people who buy with their ears

instead of buying with your eyes.

Of course, you ought to use

your ears a little bit as well.

But, still, do focus on your eyes.

♪ ♪

This is a key gentleman in the art world,

Mr. Serge Tiroche.

He is focusing really on global art.

- So just approximately how many billions do you think

the art market is annually?

- 56 billion in the last report, I believe, right?

- When I started in the art market,

banks would not view, uh, the art market as something

they would want to even recommend to their clients.

Now it is automatically a part of something they would speak

to their clients, in terms of diversification.

- What--What makes a Gerhard Richter so valuable

and, say, a Larry Poons not so valuable?

Who decides?

- You know, the simple answer would be supply and demand.

The real answer is, uh, I think...

I don't know how to put this elegantly.

Um, financial interests of certain parties.

- [soft chuckle]

- No doubt.

There's an interest in keeping prices at a certain level.

No doubt. - Yeah.

It's--It's part of the rules of the game.

♪ ♪

- Uh, well, I started some time ago,

and the world of art and commerce

was not nearly so complex as it is now.

- How has it changed?

- Um, they are like Siamese twins,

money and art right now.

And, uh, you cannot separate them.

And so the purpose of art

has, um, morphed,

become perverted or mutated.

And I think art itself is

having a hard time finding its way out of this situation.

Listen, I'm in the middle of it,

and I'm busy making money myself.

So I'm not criticizing; I'm just

observing my own environment.

Um, I think we are...

Without doubt, everybody knows it;

we're careening toward some edge or some end.

- So the reckoning hasn't begun?

- Uh, I'm not sure.

I think I can smell smoke.

♪ ♪

[indistinct radio chatter]

♪ ♪

[flushing]

- The reckoning has begun.

This is the end of empire.

- Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's

bold, irreverent work

skewers social complacencies

and reimagines cultural icons.

Cattelan's toilet offers a wink

to the excesses of the art market

but also evokes the American dream

of opportunity for all,

its utility ultimately reminding us

of the inescapable physical realities

of our shared humanity.

♪ ♪

- Well, what can you think of a golden toilet?

I mean, it's a--it's an insult.

And, I mean, Maurizio Cattelan is a part of this world

of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, of sensationalism,

and it's promoted, you know.

It's the fashion designers. It's Prada.

Uh, it's Pignot. It's Arno.

It's people who are involved in luxury brands.

And that is what contemporary art has become.

It is a luxury brand.

- Actually, the cost was 250.

Guess what. I wrote a check.

No trade. [laughs]

I just real-- [laughs]

- This is for which piece, now?

- That was "Him."

- It's called "Him"? - Yeah.

"Him," you know.

They always talked about "Him."

It's like, in Europe my mom would never say cancer, Krebs.

It was C.

It's the polite way to deal with it.

So he was known as "Him."

And we know it's going to be a, um,

key work, without a doubt.

You know the recent auction record on that?

- No, what is it? - $17 million.

Maurizio Cattelan is like Duchamp.

He's an important player in the history of art.

Christie's displayed it. They had him facing out.

I said, "No, that guy has to face a wall."

You have to face reality. - Hmm.

- And then I found an old book from--

that my sister gave me 40 years ago.

It's called "Psychopathia Sexualis."

[laughs] By Krafft-Ebing.

So I figured that's-- that's what he's looking at.

I'm not sure that he had a lot of sexual thoughts.

- Who?

- Him.

- And you hear--and you heard him speak when you were--

- I heard him speak. I was, uh--

he was a very charismatic speaker.

He--he spoke a little bit like Trump.

Without notes,

started very slow, and built up.

- You left. You escaped.

- We left, uh, legally, April '41.

My mom was a widow. I was 15.

I was a German national.

I still have my German passport.

- You do? - Oh, yes.

You wanna see it? - Yeah, oh, yeah.

- It is expired. [laughs]

- It's expired? - Yes.

It does have a J on it.

Jew. [laughs]

Stefan Theodore, which is then Israel Edlis.

And I was a student.

And that's my picture in 1938.

- What's it like for a Jewish collector

to have this Cattelan?

- Well, this is the question that's always been asked.

Uh, it's a, um--I think it's a fair question.

It's also irrelevant.

Because art is art.

[distant birds calling]

[answering machine beeps] - Hi, Larry.

It's Dennes Yares again.

I'd just like to set up a time for me to come to the studio

so we can select paintings for the New York exhibition.

Take care. Bye.

[stereo clicks]

[Weber's "Clarinet Concerto No. 1"]

♪ ♪

- He was a contemporary of Beethoven's.

- Von Weber? - Von Webern.

- Von Webern.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- Yeah, to me, that looks like a finished painting.

They just finish themselves off.

I can't imagine anything I could do

except ruin it at this point.

[snickers]

Lunch time. [laughs]

[pensive music]

♪ ♪

- I have not done my best work.

I want to achieve that.

I want to create something that's spectacular.

♪ ♪

I remember I was invited to Sweden to meet a collector

to see if I had an idea for a sculpture for their estate.

You know, and a steam engine came to mind,

that I would have a large crane, and then

hanging from the crane, uh, I'd have a big steam engine.

And when a train functions, there are pistons there.

So every time it comes in, it's like a human being.

It's a metaphor. [inhales sharply]

[exhales sharply]

[breathing sharply]

So it's what we do. It's breathing.

But each time, it's a puff of steam.

[puffing]

[breathing sharply]

And it would follow this bell curve

and eventually be going faster and faster and faster.

[mimics train whistle]

- What would it cost to do?

- Uh, I mean, I think that I can make it anywhere between

25 to 50 million. - Hm.

- But, uh, it's just power and excitement.

Even--you're right underneath the cow catcher.

The cow catcher's 30 feet off the ground,

so you can stand right underneath it,

and you can yell, you know, "Hey,

Mom, Dad, look at this," you know?

[stirring music]

♪ ♪

- Has Trump been good for the art market?

I think there's been a fairly good feeling

among the art collectors this week.

Fundamentally, the underlying opportunity here is that

there's just a lot of really very wealthy people,

and they have a lot of capital to deploy.

- Well, I think it's definitely a robust market.

Definitely tremendous depth of bidding,

particularly for masterpieces, for contemporary works of art.

This is a very attractive asset class.

- Are you getting good stuff to sell?

- Yes, we're starting to see artists who have very little

depth of trading, very little traction,

selling for enormous prices if there's confidence

in that artist's work.

♪ ♪

- It's totally amazing.

It's just extraordinary.

I spent about five days researching her life,

and her mother died, and what's going on in Nigeria,

and what's going on with the Nigerian diaspora

in this country, and I like supporting women.

Recently, I sold some things, and now I have a little excess,

and I'd like to take that excess

and buy this very, very much.

- Your limit is the estimate, of around $300,000?

- I'm gonna try.

I mean, I think the gallery's nervous.

They're concerned because there's 12 people who want it.

And once you're playing with sharks,

it's just--it's a whole different ballgame.

You know what they say about sharks?

They have to keep moving, or they die, right?

And I'm not gonna play that game.

'Cause I don't want to really be a part of

the kind of jerk who, like,

goes so high and kind of outprices the artist

and contributes potentially to

a crash-and-burn situation for that artist.

[pensive music]

♪ ♪

- This show that's coming up is wonderful.

You've waited, in a way, a long time for that.

- No, I haven't waited for it.

♪ ♪

[door buzzing]

♪ ♪

[lock buzzing]

[stapler clacks]

[knocking on door]

- Hello. - How are you?

- Dennis? - Yes.

Hey, good to see you.

I was looking for this one-- this one.

Is this here?

- Uh, yes, everything's here.

- 'Cause this is the other one

I really like, too, for the show.

This is--I love this one. - Okay.

Images from the same one-- - But this one--

This one I really like, Larry.

- How soon do we need to have them chosen?

- Right--well, today. - Okay, let's do it today.

- Oh, yeah, that's gorgeous.

- Isn't it great? - It's gorgeous, gorgeous.

Gorgeous.

What do you think? Oh, I love it.

- Oh, yeah? - Just like this.

- Okay. - Mm-hmm.

Maybe the square one.

- Can we get-- - The square one's a show-off.

- Then why don't we include this for the show?

That one, and then we'll look at the whole mix.

It doesn't mean we have to install all of them.

- Right. Okay. - We can have it on hand.

- New York's gotta see it. - New York's gonna see it.

That's why we're here. [chuckles]

If you look historically, this dialogue between

artist and dealer brings to life the art.

And unless you have that right mix,

you can be forgotten.

It's no different from a great pianist playing

with the right orchestra under the right conductor.

And sometimes you just miss it.

He just kind of missed, but not anymore.

He's found. [laughs]

- Cool, just again... - Love it.

- Yeah. Let's go eat.

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

- So I'm resting my head. It's, like, a way of relaxing.

- Stressed? - No, just tired.

I'm not really stressed.

It's gonna-- it'll be a good sale.

♪ ♪

They're gone?

Can I--want me to-- oh, they're taking it down now?

That's it?

Bye. Look it.

There it is, 653-1, Richter 1988.

Just off the wall here.

♪ ♪

- And there's a lonely, lonely woman, yeah.

- De Kooning. "Woman in Landscape."

- Is that what it is? - 1968, yep.

- Where's the woman, where's the landscape?

- I'll tell you-- I'll give you a hint.

That little green in the corner,

that's the landscape, okay?

Bye.

Bye!

♪ ♪

- Oh, auctions, auctions, auctions make me sick,

only because what I'm doing in those showrooms is saying

good-bye for the rest of my life

to every work of art I'm seeing,

because all of it is now too expensive

for any institution to buy, except maybe the Getty,

and they can only buy one thing a year.

I kind of wish that collectors would give back,

but I don't know that I would give back.

So it's gonna hang in some apartment

in London or Shanghai or New York,

and I won't see it again for my natural life.

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,

and a very warm welcome to Sotheby's.

My name is Oliver Barker, and I'm delighted to be

your auctioneer for tonight's sale of contemporary art.

And we start with our great privilege,

with the triumph of painting,

the Steven and Ann Ames collection.

And we'll start with this evening's George Condo,

"The Woman on Brown Chair" from 2007.

I'm gonna start the bidding at 300,000.

350,000, 400,000. George O'Dell at 600,000.

650,000, 700,000.

800,000 in a new place.

It's your bid, sir. Thank you.

And we'll move on to the "Woman Landscape," $1 million.

1,100,000, 1,300,000 now.

1,500,000, 1,800,000,

2,350,000. Lot number six.

Gerhard Richter paintings, the "A B, St James."

And I'm gonna start the bidding here at $16 million.

17 million, $18 million, 19 million now.

$20 million now, fair warning.

[gavel bangs] It's yours, sir.

Thank you very much indeed.

We go on to lot number 30,

the wonderful "A B, Still" painting.

Start the bidding here at $14 million.

$15 million, $16 million, $17, $18 million,

$20 million here, $21 million,

$22 million now, $23 million,

$24 million, $25 million,

25,500,000, 26,500,000. $27 million.

27,500,000, $29 million, $29,500,000.

$30 million now. Fair warning now.

The very last sign at $30 million.

Sold to you, Galas. Thank you very much indeed.

And we have the Crosby here from 2012, the "DROWN."

And I'll start at 100,000, 120,000, 150,000

180,000, 200,000-- Thank you, Amy.

250,000, 300,000, 350,000 now.

At 350,000. Try 4, sir.

400,000.

♪ ♪

Amy, against you now.

400,000, Leslie's now. At 400,000, 450,000,

500,000, 550,000. So your bid, madam, is 600,000.

650,000.

700,000 now. 750,000.

800,000 now.

850,000. There it is at 850.

It's 850,000. 900,000 now.

At $900,000.

It's with Alex at the desk,

and I'm gonna sell it this time.

Fair warning, at $900,000.

Thank you, Alex. L0075. [applause]

And thank you, Amy, to your bidder as well.

Thank you very much indeed.

[applause]

- Hmm.

[exhales, soft laugh]

"DROWN" was sold at a show from a few years ago,

and the person who bought it resold it.

- They brought it to auction? - They brought it to auction.

Um-- - They flipped it, basically.

- Yeah. - Is that--

That's what happened? - That's what happened.

- I see. - Yeah.

- You, so-- - [laughs]

- So a flipper bought it. - A flipper bought it.

When I'm just thinking of

what success means for me... - Yes, yes?

- I'm very interested in the long term.

Um, so it's not about making a lot of money

in the next five years

and buying a beautiful house in LA,

although that would be good,

but that's not my driving force.

I'm very--because it's-- I keep thinking long term,

long term, long term.

Um, what matters in the long term?

The institutions you get into, the shows you get into.

- So you want your work in museums?

- Yeah, museums are, for a lack of a better word,

the gatekeepers of culture, to some extent.

I mean, you walk into-- once you cross that threshold

of the door, you're walking in,

and in your mind, you're thinking,

"These are works that matter."

Not just for our generation, but for future generations.

So maybe things happen and I fall out of favor

in a number of years.

It'll go into storage.

But someday, maybe in 50 years,

maybe in 70, maybe in 150,

it could come out.

It doesn't just vanish.

[soft music]

- Now to a landmark donation

for the Art Institute of Chicago.

The museum says

it's the largest gift in its history.

42 iconic pieces of contemporary art.

It's estimated to be worth about $400 million.

The gift includes nine works by Andy Warhol,

including "Twelve Jackies," "Flowers," and "Liz #3."

The President of the Art Institute said in a statement,

"We are so grateful to Stefan and Gael

"for the extraordinary gift.

"It allows us to build one of the richest narratives

of art under one roof."

♪ ♪

[loud beep]

- Oh, too close, too close.

It's so beautiful, this sculpture.

The heart shape that it makes.

[loud beep]

[beeping]

- You have to come close to see the glitter.

There's glitter in there.

- You've given this incredible gift to the museum.

Why?

- Well, the simple answer is no grandkids.

We had had conversations with the museum, and I said,

"You know, I'm gonna give you a picture, and it's gonna

end up in storage. That's not good enough."

So they said, "We're gonna clean our existing gallery,

"and it'll stay up like you want for 25 years

"in the gallery, and another 25 years mixed up,

but still up."

- Seeing it here today, do you miss it at home?

- All our walls are full.

[both laughing]

No more room at the inn. - No, it's nice to see it--

- No, we'll make sure that we don't miss it.

If we really miss it, we can come down

and have another look.

- Now, tell me about the Liz.

- That's the only partial gift.

Well, I gave the Liz at 10%

because I just got it.

I'd like to live with it.

You can have it for six months,

I'll have it for the rest.

Meanwhile, get me a poster, get me something.

And then Gael came back with an exact copy,

including the wrinkles in the canvas.

[laughs]

So we're happy with the copy.

Let them have the real stuff.

It's amazing what technology can do now.

- Doesn't this raise a little bit of a question, though, too,

about even, what is-- what is a piece of art

if it is reproducible like that?

- You're--absolutely, you put your finger in the wound.

That's it. What is a piece of art?

Absolu--that's a question. I can't answer it,

but I will-- I certainly agree with you.

♪ ♪

Looks good there, doesn't it?

Makes you feel like you've done something.

Everybody would like to think, in life,

that they've done something.

♪ ♪

- I'm sad that too much of their conversation

has been about the money,

the shiny thing that's easiest to talk about,

but nobody's thinking about that.

Except you. Not you.

The collective you.

So you can hate us.

Everybody should make fun of the art world.

Is it absurd?

Yes. Is it necessary?

Probably no more necessary than religion, I would argue.

You need to eat. You need not to be killed.

You need to have some measure of freedom.

So I'm not here to tell you art matters more than freedom,

but I am here to say that art is part of being alive

as much as Mozart is.

[strumming guitar]

- It's called "Pictures From Life's Other Side."

♪ In the world's mighty gallery of pictures ♪

♪ Hang the scenes that are painted from life ♪

♪ There hang scenes of love and of passion ♪

♪ There hang pictures of peace and of strife ♪

♪ Pictures of love and of beauty ♪

[orchestra accompanies]

♪ Of old age and the blushing young bride ♪

♪ They all hang on the wall but the saddest of all ♪

♪ Are the pictures from life's other side ♪

♪ There's the picture from life's other side ♪

♪ Someone has fell by the way ♪

♪ Life has gone out with the tide ♪

♪ That might have been happy someday ♪

♪ It's a pearl old mother at home ♪

♪ She's watching and waitin' alone ♪

♪ Just longing to hear from a loved one so dear ♪

♪ Just a picture from life's other side ♪

Hey. - Hi.

- Nice to see you again.

♪ ♪

Hi. - So great.

- Really good. Really.

- It's a magnificent color.

- The paintings are incredible.

- Eh, thank you. - Yeah.

- Beautiful stuff, thanks. - Hey, thank you.

- Thanks a lot, man. - I love this new work.

The color's incredible.

- You are incredible. Never change.

- Thank you. - It's wonderful.

♪ ♪

- It's--it's the paintings that motivate everything.

[stirring orchestral music]

♪ ♪

[Little Walter's "Off the Wall"]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[beeping]

- At 400 million,

Leonardo's "Salvator Mundi" selling here at Christie's.

$400 million is the bid.

And the piece is sold. [gavel bangs]

[cheers and applause]

[bright tone]