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No bailout
for Lehman Brothers

meant moving day for most
of the firm's 12,000

employees here in New York.

I'd prefer
not to talk about it.

How long have
you worked for Lehman, sir?

You know, I never thought
it would come to this.

It's just a tragedy.

The worst
financial collapse

since the Great Depression,

and perhaps the end of an
era in American business.

Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen,

a warm welcome to Sotheby's,
and this historic sale,

Damien Hirst, Beautiful
Inside my Head Forever.

When Sotheby's
auctioneer Oliver Barker

opened the bidding for an
extraordinary 223 new pieces

by the artist Damien Hirst,

it seemed the art
market was oblivious

to what was happening
to the stock market.

Contemporary art is
such a headline everyday

for one reason, money.

Oh, 180 million
dollars for a Modigliani,

I mean, it doesn't actually
even feel like news anymore.

I think it just highlights more
of the haves and have not's,

and the numbers are just huge.

The only thing that
is really important

to an artist is making art.

A lot of contemporary
art will be in the dustbin

in 10 years time, I think,
there's too much of it.

The art world,
it's really a religion,

it's a belief system, you
have to believe in this stuff

for it to become 500,000 pounds.

Is the art market perfect,

and does the cream
always rise to the top?

I'd say no.

Everything is an
instantaneous reaction,

you need to buy that,
buy that, don't buy this,

get into that person's market.

It feels like art
is in its golden age.

People love it and
appreciate it more than ever.

Five million, 750.

This show was a real
vote of confidence

from buyers worldwide, I mean,
we had an amazing result

with 181 million dollars
sold tonight.

Who gives a fuck, at the
end of the day, you know,

about how much
something sold for?

Really, is it gonna
change your life?

I can assure you of something,
art has changed my life,

not an auction result.

The question of
who's determining

what constitutes contemporary
art is actually a

hard question to answer,

because there are many different
people who are doing that.

I don't think anyone
worries any longer

whether something is
a photograph or a painting

or a video or some
digital manifestation,

what we think about is,
is it meaningful?

Does it convey some
kind of impact?

And so all those lines
that clearly define

whether something was
a print or a drawing

or a painting have long
since been blurred.

* I need dollar, dollar

* Dollar, that's what I need

* Hey, hey

* Well, I need dollar, dollar

* Dollar, that what I need

* Hey, hey

* I said,
I need dollar, dollar *

* Dollar, that's what I need

* And if I share
with you my story *

* Would you share
your dollar with me *

* Bad times are coming

* And I reap what
I done sowed *

* Hey, hey

* Well,
let me tell you something *

* All that glitters
ain't gold *

* Hey, hey

* It's been
a long old trouble *

* Long old troublesome road

* And I'm looking
for somebody *

* Come and help
me carry this load *

* I need dollar, dollar...

Art is really
all about money,

though that everyone
in the business will try

and tell you otherwise.

It's almost
impossible to escape the system.

That's the thing, we live in
a commodity driven environment,

people acquire commodities,
and that is no different

in the art world.

Insanely
rich people with a lot

of speculative income, you know,
this is one of the places where

that attracts
that kind of money.

You have so many
collectors collecting

because they love art,
others, you know,

are into the social
competitive aspect of it.

There's bragging rights,
I mean, it's trophy hunting

amongst people with
a lot of money.

There are more people
buying art who don't know

so much about art, and so
they don't trust their eye,

and their eye
is not very learned,

and so they tend to go with
brand names that are familiar

that make themselves
feel comfortable.

Much of the art
world has been seduced

by this direction,
and I think it's very dangerous.

It's the
commodification of something

that used to stand outside,

and is now...

fully on the inside.

It's a perfect mirror
of our society,

this sort of American
Apparel ad version

of the art world
is what we're dealing with.

You know,
the contemporary art market,

we are talking about
significant amounts of money,

and there's no way that anyone
could be flippant about that.

When you have
a lot of rich people

who are trying to prove
to everyone how rich they are,

this market gets on fire.

It's become truly global,

it's a parallel world almost
now to the real economy.

The market
is like the weather,

you just have to manage it and
like, know how to deal with it,

you can't ask it to go
away or not be there.

It's always astonishing
to many people

that something
that has no intrinsic value

could have these incredibly
high, you know, monetary values,

this seems, you know,
ridiculous, you know, of course.

I remember years ago,
probably 30 years ago,

when the Metropolitan Museum
of Art paid a million dollars

for an old master painting,

it was the front page
of The New York Times,

million dollars seemed like
a huge amount of money,

today a million
dollars for a work

of art doesn't
seem extraordinary.

So we're in a moment where
there's been a big bump up again

in the amount of money
that's being spent on art,

and the prices that works
of art are realizing,

but this is not
a new phenomenon,

it's just another dimension
of an older phenomenon.

It's quite a lovely
Jackson Pollock, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

What does it say to you?

It restates the negativeness
of the universe,

the hideous,
lonely emptiness of existence,

nothingness,
the predicament of man

for us to live in a barren,
godless eternity,

like a tiny flame,
flickering in an immense void

with nothing but waste,
horror, and degradation,

forming a useless,
bleak straight jacket

in a black, absurd cosmos.

What are you doing
Saturday night?

Committing suicide.

What about Friday night?

Right now there's a lot
of noise in the art world,

but art is something
that's been traded

for a very long time,
and patrons of the arts,

commissioning art existed
since the time of the Medicis.

So a patron model
would be like,

what you would have
in the renaissance,

where this family
would support you

and you would sort of
create all your art,

but this requires artists
to sort of know a patron,

and to always be in their
good graces and please them.

If you look at
the long history of art

in culture and civilizations
and metropolises,

they were always invested
in commissioning art,

bringing artists to
the center of cities

to make great works that
would hopefully last

into the future.

It certainly used to be,
in Manet's time,

that the collector was,
in a certain sense,

beholden to the taste of Manet,

to the genius of this
particular artist.

And he was almost sort of
a supplicant before an artist.

Most of us have this, still
have this 19th century image

of art, which is that
art is about beauty.

Somewhere in the 20th century,
it became contemporary,

it became abstract,

it was not
necessarily beautiful,

and you had to work
out your own meaning.

I love these, I mean--

These are kind of cool.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind having
one of these in my house.

Nooses of neon.

I mean, what even is neon,
it looks like liquid.

What it is,
it's an inert gas that.

Some of my friends in the
diamond business loved art,

but they were loving
a different art to me,

it was an artist called Warhol,

it was an artist
called Keith Haring,

and they're all buying
these for nothing, you know,

and I said, "I wouldn't have
that trash on my walls."

I remember, it was an
exhibition of electric chairs,

he showed me around, and I said,
"Well, how much is that?"

He said, "Well, that's
one and a half million,

"and that's two million,"
I said,

"You're kidding,
I don't believe this."

I could buy a Renoir,

or I could buy an
impressionist painting.

He said, "Well, you know,

you should really
get involved in this."

By the early '80s, really,
things exploded here,

where a new generation
of American artists came

to the fore, people
like Julian Schnabel

and David Salle,
and then little by little,

the world became
broader and more global,

and the boundaries, really,
just were broken down

so that there is no more
simple center of the art world,

and pretty much
the market follows.

Contemporary art,
for the first time, really,

in history,
has been enormously popular

amongst a very wide demographic,
a global audience

that is leisurely, that has
access to like, easy travel,

and has an appetite
and wants to have a bit

of this sort of
lifestyle, actually.

If you bought this
painting behind you,

this Bacon, even 15 years ago,

it was around three
million dollars.

We're now offering
it with an estimate

of 75 million dollars,
that shows the huge potential

that's built into this art,
and it will continue to rise.

The art market of the
moment is never a perfect gauge

of who is going to be recognized

for making
a long-term contribution

20 and 30 years from now.

The key thing that
any artist wants is validation.

Validation comes in
many different ways,

and the first stamp of approval
is often the art school.

So coming from
the right art school.

That could be UCLA, it could
be Yale, it could be CalArts,

it could be
the Royal College in London.

A provincial art school
where nobody actually even

attends the degree
show is unlikely

to have the same impact as
one with an art world nearby.

An artist, yeah,
if they're successful,

it's like becoming a movie star,
you're rising through the ranks.

You know,
you start out of school,

a lot of them do master's
degrees in fine arts.

And then being
picked up by a dealer,

a credible one, and often,
a younger, smaller dealer,

one known for having a good
eye for emerging talent.

Being put in a group show,
let's say,

by a curator who's seen
to be going places.

Being put in a biannual,
not just like the big biannuals,

but something like Made in LA,

which is
the Hammer Museum's biannual.

Then you'll have a solo show,
then you'll move up

through the different
tiers of galleries.

And at some point you got
taken on by day auctions,

and then evening auctions,
and you sold well,

and so you became a regular
at evening auctions.

Sold, 600,000.

You usually want all of
these things to get put in play,

and all of these
qualitative endorsements

to take place before
a spectacular,

crude, financial one.

$8,000 with Laura.

Thank you guys.

Thank you, back, double O94,

that was sorted,
there it is, to you, sir.

$170,000.

Thank you, sir.

Art is supposed
to be critical,

and it's supposed to be critical
socially and culturally.

When the North Star is money,
then the headline is,

you know, how many
zeros are attached

to a particular work of art.

That criticality sends
a fall away pretty quickly.

Damien Hirst
is no stranger

to celebrity or to controversy.

The bad boy of
British art is in line

for the biggest payday
for any living artist ever.

You saw
Damien Hirst in 2008

in a much reported event,
bypassing his dealers

and taking 200 of his works
directly to auction, and saying,

"I don't need the branded
auction house anymore."

That was described as the sum
of all fears for auction houses.

At that time,
he probably

became the most famous
living artist in the world.

Hirst was the most
significant artist, post-Warhol.

He had the sense of
the back-story to art,

that art was not what it was,

but it was what you thought
it was, it was what you saw.

Hirst is a really
remarkable character,

and I think a remarkable artist.

And if you look back to 1991,

it's amazing what he produced
in that year.

The formaldehyde shark,
a butterfly room,

all sorts of sheep
and other mammals,

his cabinets with
pharmaceutical boxes in them.

He also had fun
playing with the media,

he was a certain kind
of enfant terrible.

His work plays
perfectly into the game

of trying to do things that
will push the envelope.

I think he was
transparently involved

in the market
for structural reasons,

he was critiquing the market,

and that was
the reason for his work.

Hirst produced the 12 million
dollar stuffed shark.

This shark was about life
and death, when you look at it,

the shark looks
alive when it's dead,

dead when it's alive,
it reminds you

of the end space
between life and death,

it reminds you of your
mortality, 12 million dollars.

I really like Damien when
he first started exhibiting.

He was an artist who was
making work that looked

like work that had never
been presented before.

Over time,
the subject matter kind

of got replaced with money.

I don't think about what
things cost, I just don't.

As the work has
commanded higher prices,

I have been able to make choices
that feel more autonomous.

At this point, I can keep
those things extremely separate

from what I do.

The only thing that
is really important

to an artist is making art,

and it's sort of a privileged,

lucky thing that actually,
I mean, I'm always surprised

when I actually
could pay for dinner.

* Everybody knows that
the days are loaded *

* Everybody rolls with
their fingers crossed *

* Everybody knows
the war is over *

* Everybody knows
that good guys lost *

* Everybody knows
the fight was fixed *

* The poor stay poor

* The rich get rich

I was alone a lot
when I was a kid,

and it always seemed
that I was able to draw,

so I was an artist
since I was a child,

I mean, I never really was
gonna be anything else.

Everything I've got to
say is in my paintings,

the rest of this is just,
you know, chit chat.

My father said to me, "How come
you painted her eyes out?"

And I said,
"So you'd look at her chin."

I mean, the guy's a genius,
but by being a genius,

he's been a genius
at too many things,

from being a businessman,
a property developer

to a filmmaker to a painter.
If he will have just stayed

as a painter,
he could have been one

of the best painters
in the world.

I probably paint
like a jazz musician,

I know where to begin but
I don't really have necessarily

an idea of how the
thing's gonna turn out.

He went off focus making movies,

and all this sort of thing,
great,

but as an artist, as a painter,
if he's just stayed with that,

everybody would know who
he is and what he does.

Obviously I've had
some success in my life,

and there have been other
moments where people

kind of forgot about
whatever I was doing.

You have a good sized ego.

It's been said, definitely.

There's nothing wrong
with having a big ego.

No, but you know,
would you ask Marlon Brando

if he had a big ego?

Probably.

I mean, you know,
you have a big ego?

No, not me.

I'm sure you do.

I remember Clement
Greenberg saying to me

at an airport in 1982,
"Early success never lasts."

I said, "Well, how could
I listen to you, I'm a kid."

He's not the greatest
editor of his work.

A lot of male artists just
like to get bigger and bigger

and bigger, and it doesn't
necessarily get better.

It's interesting,
it's very hard

to find a woman
artist who does that.

To be a performance
artist these days,

you have to be a warrior,

you have to kind of fight
for your territory

and you're to conquer
your territory.

I have such a strange
position in art,

because, you know,
I have been a few times

in the number one,
number two of the top list

of other art reviews
in England,

but at the same time,
I uh, you know,

my work doesn't sell that much,
and would never probably sell,

because people can't really
place me on the art market

because they don't know
what I'm actually doing

with, is the performance,
which is some kind

of immaterial form of art,

how you can actually
put the value on this?

Her career
has managed to

blossom through spectacle.

Portals of naked people at MOMA

and folks passing
through them, you know,

is a significant way
to scare up interest.

I think
that good pieces of art

have to have so
many layers of meaning,

and the different societies
can take always one layer

as they need it at the time.

So that good pieces
of art can have long life,

and can always kind of
come back and come back.

And the ones who just
in the moment, you know,

popular or fashionable,
they have very short life,

and this is,
what is there to say?

And she's become
very good at grabbing headlines

and basically making
herself into a celebrity.

You know,
the artist as celebrity,

that has happened
with Marina Abramovic.

It is really important
in moment of an artist

to know when to
stop and how to die.

It's as important as living.

It's very sad story that
if you sell something

for, I don't know, 155 million,

you never could see
this painting anymore

in its true value,
because everything you're going

to always look is this
money which somebody paid.

Like, soap was
something that people

with more sensitive
skin would use,

so I started thinking about
this idea of sensitivity.

And then it became
an art material,

a material for me to molest
and participate with,

draw with, melt it down
in these large vats.

And then as you poured
it onto a surface,

it would begin to harden,
and you'd have this opportunity

to scrawl in it,
change it, redirect it,

and I thought of it as almost
creating a new topography,

like a landscape.

I try to be patient
as an artist,

I try to make what
I feel like I need to make.

And once I get into,
you know, this room, everything

that is outside of this space

no longer has
significance to me.

It's not about what people want,

what people are
gonna say about it.

I honestly don't feel
a lot of pressure.

My work is produced,
created, conceptualized,

everything, in a vacuum,
it's truly me and my studio,

and that's it.
There are no outside voices

until the work is made,

and it's always
been that way for me.

There's always a lot
of confusion with my work,

where people think I am making
a critique, and I'm not,

I'm making an acceptance of
ourselves and our own history.

Koons is the most
expensive living artist

at auction the world
has ever known.

He produces beautiful things,
he would today qualify

as the best art marketer
of any artist in the world.

There are moments
of real genius in his work.

I love the equilibrium series,
which is the work,

where we have the basketballs
floating in tanks.

His basketballs,
pieces that are some

of my favorite art ever,

I think that some of the coolest
objects ever made.

He has made an art of acuity,

and it's not just any acuity.

It's the kind of acuity
that is perfectly filled,

filled to the brim

with notions of financial value.

His work is the kind of thing

where the first reaction
I have is, okay, next?

There's nothing deep there.

Certain of his series have
tended to become trophies

of a particular class of people,

and that...

status tends to
override their other meanings.

Jeff Koons has
a series which is based

on Popeye and Olive Oyl,
you may remember,

Popeye was a cartoon
character in the '50s.

Koons produced
a series of sculptures,

because he said that
the transformative power

of spinach on Popeye is the same

as a transformative power of
contemporary art on the buyer.

One of these comes
up for auction

and it's purchased on
a single bid by Steven Wynn

for 28 million dollars.

Two weeks later, it pops up,

it's got a price tag on it,

for sale, 60 million dollars.

It went from 28 million
dollars to 60 million dollars

in 14 days, not a single art
world reporter editorialized

on this and said,
"This is insane."

The world has reached
a point where that's accepted,

it's insane,
but it's interesting.

For me,
it's all about the future,

it's about becoming,
and I want to become the artist

that I can become.

It's hard to not
think about Koons' work

in relationship to
the people who own it,

and it's almost like provenance
has overtaken the work.

You know, whether his work will
be revered 50 years from now,

I have no idea,

but he's a great art marketer.

The kind of work that
Damien Hirst makes,

that Jeff Koons makes,
is celebratory of,

you know, the big
sloshing money pit

that the art market has become.

Each of them are what I
would call a production artist.

Rather than work alone
in a studio making things

and limiting their production
by what they can master

with their own hands,
they have teams of people

that make things for them.

Sometimes,
if you're not in control of it

or you lose control of it,
or you lose a sense of scale,

you can put too much out there.

What matters is the work,
if the work is interesting,

how it got to be made isn't
necessarily questionable.

In renaissance times,
they had helpers, apprentices,

all that matters is
what the work's like,

how it gets to be done is,
well, it's not what you see,

you see the result
of how it was done.

They mean nothing except money.

You know, it's really, really
hard when you're a dealer,

because you do have
the responsibility

to take on an artist
and help build their career.

They're really
wanting to support artists,

they're wanting to actually
help artists to get along.

The gallery owners, 90% of them,

all about making a profit.

A gallery makes
a living for the artist first,

and makes a living for
the gallery staff second,

and activates the whole
energy of creation.

They have to take care
of museums.

Top collectors that
support their gallery.

Top collectors that
support their artists.

I think they've got
a really tough job to do,

because they can't
please everybody,

yet they're asked to do that.

The people who
are selling the art,

they all have this gloss,
this incredible veneer

of intelligence and
academia and respectability.

They often speak five languages,

they may have, you know,
very exotic sounding last names,

and it's all part of the gloss
that goes with the paintings,

but it is just that,
a gloss covering up something

that is much less attractive.

The dealer still is the
one who is holding the key

at the primary
level to the artist.

Primary market refers
to a painting being bought

for the first time, and that
is probably the most opaque

of all of them, because
dealers really want

to make sure they're under
complete control of the price,

and that's really, in part,

to make sure prices
never go down.

So what they do is they just
make sure no one ever knows

what anything is bought for.

They're not
transparent about prices,

because if they're not,
well then,

if you walk until a store
after I walk into a store,

they can quote you twice
as much as they quote me.

The reason they tell me they
don't put the prices front

and center is that
the artists want the art

to be looked at
as an exhibition,

and secondarily as
a sales opportunity.

Art is strange insofar
as who owns it impacts

on its meaning and reputation.

Primary dealers are
very careful about

where they place the work,
because they know

that that owner
will either enhance

or detract from
the credibility of the artist.

The whole success of
this enterprise relies

on the aura and
the glamour and the mystique,

and the apparent
inaccessibility of this world.

They're in
the business of selling art,

so you would think they'd
have someone standing

in front of the desk
welcoming you to the gallery

and asking if you'd like
to speak to a salesperson,

or learn more about the art,
but there is an aura

that galleries want to project,
and a mystique.

I hope that here
we're not guilty,

I mean, it's a common
criticism of galleries.

I hope that we're
not guilty of that.

If you're new to
the game and you've got a pile

of posters on your wall,
and you've just come

into a quick bit of money,
and you're like,

"I'm gonna buy a real
painting for the living room."

You may not find
yourself first in line

for a much coveted
artist's work.

The clever dealers will
deliberately make it tricky

for you, you're gonna overpay
if you're just thrilled

to be at the table.

Listen, I've been a dealer,

I understand why these
things are done, you want,

you know, your artist's
work to wind up at MOMA,

and if a trustee
walks in, you know,

you'd rather the trustee
at MOMA have the artwork,

'cause it stands a better
chance of basically being

in the museum,
than somebody from Boise.

But that doesn't make
it any more right.

When you buy a luxury
home or you buy a yacht.

You know who owned the home
or the yacht before it,

you know what they paid.

The middle man, the brokers,
whatever the call themselves,

dealers, art advisers,
often are very secretive

about where they got the art
from, and what the cost was.

No one ever really
knows what art is worth,

especially if you have
an emerging new artist,

so if price goes down at all,

everyone is worried
the whole market

for this artist
will just collapse,

and they'll never work again,
and they will go

to great lengths to
manipulate the market.

A dealer
may decide that, you know,

his youngest contemporary
artist needs a, you know,

a price bump, and they
will basically take a work

to auction,
and bid it up, and you know,

between the collectors and the
dealer, or several dealers,

they will build a price
up to whatever amount,

and buy it amongst themselves.

It narrows the market, remember,

many an artist has
been burned by prices

that go up too rapidly,
and one day they wake up

in the morning and their
market has disappeared.

You know, you're seeing
artists being cannibalized

by the art market.
Certain galleries

that are so corporatized,
the idea that some

of these larger
galleries are picking

up extremely young
artists and sort

of inflating their markets
at such a rapid pace.

It's scary,
it's a scary, scary thing.

Who is Larry Gagosian?

He doesn't want you to know,
I can tell you that.

One of the uber dealers,
the uber dealer,

and I think there isn't
really a comparison

to be made with anybody else.

He sells about a
billion one of art a year,

that's three million
dollars every business day.

Most important dealer
the world has ever known.

I think of Larry
a little bit like I do

of the auction houses,
they're in another world.

Gagosian believes
that artists are heroes,

women artists,
men artists, but the,

making a great artist
in heroic practice,

and that's what interests him.

If your intention is to stay
connected to your artists,

then it must be
incredibly difficult

if you have three, five,
10 galleries across the globe.

He knows who
the right collectors are,

who the right artists are, and
how to bring it all together.

You know, the art world doesn't
really operate without him.

I have known Larry
since we were both agents

at the William Morris Agency
together when we were kids.

He left the agency
to go sell posters

in Westwood for UCLA students.

Larry has taken a model
that we used at CA,

which is to represent
a larger talent pool

to give that talent
pool leverage,

and in order to do that,

he needs a lot of facilities
to show the art.

His galleries have
more floor space

in total than
the Tate Modern in London.

He started out in LA,
he went to New York,

he went to London,
Athens, and Paris,

and Hong Kong,

and I think he had outposts
for awhile in Moscow.

He's so unique in the sense
that he has over 70 artists

on his books, most of them are
actually solely represented

by him, he has a group of
collectors who buy exclusively

from him, he has relationships

with every single major
museum in the world,

he is an ecosystem
in his own right.

He is a major
player, he is also something

of a significant enigma.

I know there's this
mystique around Larry,

everybody wants to do
the definitive film on Larry,

right, the definitive
book on Larry.

He hasn't cooperated in
any way, shape, or form,

and this is a story that
we're not gonna be able

to tell, I don't think,
for another 50 years.

If you're the middle man,
which is what Larry Gagosian is,

what upside is there
in sitting around,

discussing how you operate?

Very little, I would imagine,
because his clients don't want

to read exactly what
percentage he took,

and they would probably
have a heart attack.

Curators are involved
in what they want to do,

which is to look at
what interests them,

and think about whether
or not there's a way

of making that
interesting to a public.

Dealers look at it
and think differently,

can they commercialize it,
can they find a way to sell it?

And I don't want to
reduce dealers simply

to being merchants, because a
lot of dealers really believe

in their artists, and they
believe in the mission

of trying to ensure that there's
a public for those artists.

I think Larry
is extremely important

to the art world,

he's done amazing things
and he's done incredible shows,

but it's not who I emulate,
I'm just not interested in that.

That part of the business.

Albert Oehlen was an
artist that we started

to show when we had
a gallery in Los Angeles,

he was a wonderful,
wonderful person,

wonderful artist to work with,
and he said

that he was going
to leave the gallery,

and went to Gagosian.

This certain
artists like something

that Larry offers that we don't,

Larry has a private jet,
he can pick Albert up

in his home in Switzerland
and bring him to London

with his wife, it was
tough, it was devastating,

because there was no issue
that he could allude to.

It was no bad business,
but I think he was looking

for something else that
we couldn't provide him.

Which is something that
I don't feel regret,

I don't mind that I don't
have a private jet, if that's

what he needs, then he needs
to go to another place.

If I spent my time
deciding which people were able

to buy my work, I think
I would probably commit suicide.

Choosing a gallery for me
was all about relationships,

how you deal with people.

David Kordansky is a gallery
I started working with

when I was a younger artist
and he was a younger dealer,

and we kind of grew up together.

He nor I knew what
we were doing,

we just kind of were doing it.

And, you know, I loved
David like a brother, and

he loves what I do,

and I love that he helps
facilitate what I do.

I know this isn't the story
that a lot of artists have

to tap about galleries,
there's a long history

of galleries taking
advantage of artists,

doing things that weren't in
the artist's best interests,

and honestly, I haven't
talked to my gallery as much

about the prices of work in
years, we talk about art.

I'm not a car salesman,
you know, I'm a gallerist,

and there're individuals
within the gallery

that are more than happy to
make deals and close deals, so.

An artist
has to be bigger

than any gallery they might
show at, or might have shown at,

you know, art is bigger
than that, you know.

Galleries fade, you know,
they go out of business,

dealers die, but you know,
we still look at the Mona Lisa.

Do you think when the
artist painted this,

he ever thought it would go
for such a ridiculous price?

I mean, what is it,
it's just some paint,

brushes, some cheap canvas,
what's the big deal?

It's shit,
what do you want for it?

Three million.

Done.

Done.

Art's an intellectual,
fascinating subject.

Money should have
nothing to do with it,

but today, unless you've
got a lot of money,

you can't buy art.

I was 17
and a half years old,

graduated high school,

had never been, believe it
or not, to New York City.

When I was going through MOMA
and seeing the master works

that were there,
the depth and the breadth

of what they were
showing from the turn

of the century forward,
it just pretty much put me

into a state of cultural shock.

You know,
to be a collector today

is the most difficult
thing imaginable,

it's become such a huge,
I'll say "industry," if I may,

in my earlier days it was
intellectual, it was solid,

there wasn't too much art about,

it was an honor
to buy something,

an honor to see something
before the contemporary madness.

Today it's very difficult
to be a collector,

and the reason
why it's difficult,

it's so easy to make a mistake.

Every collector
has a path of its own,

my long term is to
create a collection

that is something worth more
than the sum of its parts.

I like to look in direction
that people are not looking at.

This is what I do, I don't
want to join the herd of,

you know, and say,
"Me too, I want it, too."

I do constantly acquire,
but I have to discipline myself

on the amount that I acquire,
because it could be endless.

People talk about
collecting as if it's a virus,

you catch it and it's addictive,

or you can't get rid of it,
there's no known cure.

There's not a month that goes by

that I don't seem
to acquire something.

I do love collecting
art, in some strange way.

I wish I collected
pictures of art instead

of the actual art itself.

I would say most
collectors, there's a part

about contributing
to society and culture,

and there's a big
part about this idea

that I may be really
successful in this life,

but my life is mortal,
and what is this thing

that's going to immortalize me,

and that's a really
important, you know,

significant component
of collecting, too.

I've been in art and
am in art because I love it,

but the flippers couldn't
care less about an artist,

about an art, it's all
about making a profit.

Well, contemporary art
is one of those markets

which does attract collectors,
but also speculators.

There's a term called flipping,

which is not a very
attractive term,

but people do turn over
works on a more regular basis

than they do in other markets.

No one should want a buyer
who is buying art purely

as an investment,

no one should want
a buyer who is thinking

about how quickly
he can flip the art.

It is not in
the artist's interest.

No, I'm not at all
interested in the speculators.

But I like real collectors,
I like to place work

into collections
that are stable.

In my life,
I don't sell, but, you know,

they say, what, they say,
"Death, debt, and divorce."

So, you know, maybe,
you know, I hope none

of these happen to me.

I do make it clear
to all the galleries

that I work with that I hope
they're selling the work to,

you know, quote good people,
that means that,

you know, six months later
it's not gonna be going

to the auction block where,
in my argument,

I would say it doesn't belong.

It deserves to be in
the home of someone who's going

to take care of it.
You never really own it,

it always belongs,
in my mind, to the artist.

You're a caretaker,
you're a steward, if you will.

It's a great responsibility,

so I say that to my dealers,

you know, don't sell to people
who don't understand that.

There is a
distinction to be made

between collectors and buyers,
and unfortunately,

the age in which we are,

we're seeing these developments
is the age of the buyer.

It's the age of cats
with lots and lots of money,

that they don't know
what to do with.

Every couple of years

ushers in a new group
of collectors,

American hedge
fund billionaires.

A new crop of Hollywood people,

I remember when all
the minerals people came in,

then there was
the Middle Easterners

and the Qatari royal family.

There's always
a new crop coming in.

How often, the kind
of taste that they develop,

with that kind of money, well,
in fact, it doesn't develop.

Well, I tell you, sometimes
I go into a collector's home

and I think, shit,
they really need a consultant.

The art consultant
is like a shrink,

they know what kind of
art their clients like,

or they train their clients as
to what art they should like.

They're folks
who basically act

as the eyes and ears,

more often the ears than the
eyes, of buyers and collectors.

They hear that so and so
bought, and Stevie Cohen has.

That's part of the great herd
mentality of the art world.

It's become
a global asset class,

it has aggregated
the wealthiest patrons

and art aficionados
from around the globe,

new people coming in the
art market, in particular,

would demand a different
level of service,

or transparency,
or knowledge, or expertise,

given the amount of
capital that's flown in.

Art moves very quickly
now, and you really need

to be on the ball, and to be
following it all the time.

It can be handy to have
someone who's helping you.

If I were looking
for a consultant,

I would make sure it was
someone who is not a dealer,

did not have inventory,
and did not buy

or invest in art themselves.

I don't want them
taking the A painting

and then selling off B plus
paintings to all their clientele

in order to make sure
that artist market moves,

that happens.

I've been in art
and am in art because I love it.

But unfortunately,
you may like it today

and may not like it tomorrow,
because your taste changes.

Sir, 969,
thank you.

They don't make
many masterpieces.

When you trip upon one,

you'll likely do more
extraordinary things to get it.

The same art in
different locations

can mean very different things.

Getting your painting
in the Guggenheim really sort

of is gonna up your
value and up your brand.

That's an amazing
stamp of approval.

One of the really important
roles that public institutions

still have is to ensure
that they're not just speaking

to the very,
very tiny number of people

that are so wealthy that
they're able to buy art.

But they're also reaching
those hard to reach audiences.

And I think it's why artists
still consider institutions

to be the most prestigious
context for their work,

because it makes
it influential and important.

If I'm not mistaken,
he painted this,

this marvelous portrait
of his French mistress,

Madeleine Pressuit, in the '20s.

Paul, I'm gonna have
to differ with you on this one.

Really?

Gil, Gil, just pay attention,
you might learn something.

Okay, well,
if I'm not mistaken,

this was a failed attempt

to capture a young French girl
named Adrianna from Bordeaux,

if my art history serves me,
who came to Paris

to study costume
design for the theater,

and I'm pretty sure she
had an affair with Modigliani,

then Braque, which is
how Pablo met her, Picasso.

Of course, what you don't get

from this portrait is
the subtlety in her beauty,

she was just a knockout.

What have you been smoking?

Today,

as the price of art
continues to rise dramatically,

the museum is competing with
collectors around the world

with extraordinarily
deep pockets.

It's a much more
complicated job for them

than it would have been,
say, 30 years ago,

when all they had
to really worry

about was gosh,
wouldn't it be nice

to get that particular
painting into the museum,

can I go and now take
the owner out to lunch?

You know, it's a business.

No museum that I know of,

no major museum,

makes money on its visitors.

MOMA's figure is that,

if you take their total
cost structure and divide it

by the number of visitors,
the average visitor costs them

about $50.00,
and they pay 15 to 20 to get in.

So they've got to make up
the difference somewhere,

and the somewhere are donors.

The best museums
are not dictated

by any particular board member,

and it takes a very
strong museum director

for that to happen.

Well,
a lot of people ask about,

is there a tension
between a donor

that has a particular
point of view,

and is it aligned or misaligned

with the organization
of the museum?

First of all,
you have to understand

that without donors,
there aren't museums,

so we deal with all
of it in its complexity.

Money always
comes with a demand.

Leon Black goes and buys,
you know,

what is essentially not a
great piece of art, you know,

Munch's The Scream,
it's emblematic,

but it's not a particularly
great piece of art.

At the time it was, you know,
the most expensive work

of art, I think it was 2012,
and you know,

almost immediately,
it's on view at MOMA.

Now, that's fairly unheard of,

and that's basically
somebody setting an agenda.

The board of MOMA is not there

because of their art expertise,

but they're there
on a give, get,

or get out fundraising basis,
and that's true of most

of the major museums
in the western world.

If we don't support
the arts, then,

you know, there's no
reason to continue on.

The role of
the museum has changed,

in that they're
dignifying the appeal.

On the one hand,
you appeal to the big,

you know, hedge funds types,
they're basically sort

of beyond the board,
then, on the other hand,

you go after,
you know, mass cult,

that way you assure the
world and you assure yourself

that you are not
only the richest,

but the most popular
kid on the block.

Every day you have
to make your case

to someone or some
group of people,

or to the government,
or to a corporation,

about why you exist, why it's
important that you exist,

why it's important
you do what you do.

I think the thing
that's complicated is

that there's like a hybridity

between the commercial art
world and also the other bit

of the art world, the public
sector or the institutional,

this contributes
towards a sort of,

an increasing commercialization

and privatization, if you like,

of what were previously
purely public institutions.

People buy works of art,

they give them
away occasionally,

they pass them on to their
heirs, who keep them for awhile,

but eventually,

most art of significance
makes its way

to some kind of
public institution.

If you look back
over the 20th century

and you think about all
of the great museums

in this country,
the Frick, the Huntington,

the Clark Art
Institute, the Morgan.

They're all museums
that were created

by individuals who
left their collection,

essentially, to the public.

A new generation of
extraordinary wealthy people

are looking to do just
the same thing.

Now, some people might
say they're not motivated

by the same kind of altruism
that Frick was motivated by,

but I don't know what kind of
altruism Frick was motivated by,

I know that at
the end of the day,

he created an institution
and left his collection

to that institution,
and we're all the better for it.

An evening auction
at Sotheby's and Christie's

is the pinnacle of
the art world.

500 people go, four even bid,
the others are there to be seen,

they're part of
a theatrical performance,

and the auction house
has them as evidence

of what an important
spectacle this is.

The top of the auction row
is Christie's and Sotheby's,

it's a duopoly.

They compete largely
with each other.

You have Phillips in there,
but saying I bought a work

at Sotheby's is
different than saying,

"Come over to my house,

I'd like to show you something
I bought at Phillips."

They compete for iconic works,
the works that are on the cover,

the works that are discussed
in The New York Times,

'cause that's what
brings people in,

and that's what brings
other consignments in.

This Warhol portrait

of Liz Taylor
is another highlight

of the season going under
the hammer this week.

The auction house is optimistic
about business this season.

So far it's been very
good, the market is strong,

it's become a completely
global market,

because you have buyers
from all over the world

that are participating
in these auctions.

Our catalogs are gonna
be big and scholarly and juicy,

and we're going to bring
the highest values we can

to the presentation of art
and the selling of art.

We're the only auction
house where you can bid live

on the phone,
that's how we're trying

to stay ahead of
our competitors.

The competition between
the major auction houses,

which was always intense,
is even more intense

than it's ever been.

Christie's has certainly
dominated in recent years,

its auctions have garnered,

by far, the biggest
sums of money.

Sotheby's has,
you know, really suffered.

Amy Cappellazzo

had an art agency called
Art Agency Partners.

The principle reason
that Sotheby's paid

50 million dollars was

because they urgently needed
intelligence in-house.

Amy Cappellazzo,
who was an absolute high flyer,

known as a consummate deal maker

with a lot of very
powerful clients.

They definitely
needed her Rolodex,

they needed somebody with
that kind of star power.

And Allen Schwartzman,

who was one of the best reputed

art consultants in America.

Well, it is a kind of
small, gossipy, cliquey world,

I suppose, so maybe people
just wanted to talk about that.

I don't know,
the art market isn't a market

or a world that's had
a lot of acquisitions.

So in other industries it
wouldn't be near as seismic.

Most of the amazement
about the deal

was not the people
they acquired,

who are at the top of the
art world, but the numbers,

and it remains to be seen
how that will play out.

The auction houses were
these old, wholesale businesses

for years and years,

and then they became
more retail operations

where they were selling
directly to collectors

and having direct kind of
influence on collectors,

and helping with
bill collections,

and really being the
arbiters of the marketplace.

Often the auction market
drives the prices sky high,

because people who
don't have access to it

from the primary dealer,
it's their way of buying.

What the auction
house does best

and will always do is
make price transparent.

So, you know, we don't know

what secondary market
sales take place

in the dealer market,
we don't know the values,

but the auction house will
always make those prices clear

to everybody. So that's an
eternal function, without that,

the market is so opaque that
nobody knows what's going on.

I mean, when something
sells at auction,

that's one of the
few transparent moments

of price

in the art market.

The auction world
likes to present itself

as cleanly transparent,
as the place where you know

what real prices are, but that's
not actually the case.

These days,
if you go into an auction

to bid on a piece
of contemporary art,

and you don't understand,
once the bidding is underway,

what's going on at auction,

you're the sucker
who's being played,

because everything around
you is completely rigged.

There are things like
chandelier bidding at auctions.

Well,
chandelier bidding

is when there is no bidding
going on in the room at all,

but the auctioneer takes bids
from the chandelier,

that's because he's bidding up
to the reserve price,

and so if the reserve
is one million dollars,

he may start
the bidding at $700,000

and try to create momentum,
and if you're

on the phone or you're
watching on video,

you may not realize that
there is no real bidding going

on in the room at all.

Should that be revealed,
should the reserve be disclosed?

If it was, you'd simply
start the auction

at the reserve price,
is anybody harmed by this?

Very occasionally,

situations come along
that do expose

all this kind of
nefarious activity

that, by the way, would be
considered completely illegal

in any other industry.

You may have a collector
who bids up the price

of a Damien Hirst, not
because they want to buy it.

They don't want the value
of what's in their inventory

to go down,
and that happens publicly,

the Mugrabi family
in New York is very open

about the fact they
bid up Warhols,

because they have
several hundred Warhols,

and if you have a small
Warhol flower painting,

it will sell for a million
and a half dollars,

because people who own
Warhols will not let it sell

for less than that,
they'll bid it up.

Are there people who come
in and manipulate the market?

Are there dealers who want
to protect their artists?

Possibly, but the minute
you raise your paddle,

there's no surety that
someone else will raise ours,

even if I crossed my
heart and hoped to die,

I don't have to,
so you may end up owning it.

Yes, I think you hear
about these cabals

and people who aren't, you know,

deeply investing in
an artist's market

and holding onto it
and hoping to profit someday,

but there's no proof of that,
it's a very hard thing to prove,

and it's really not illegal.

If something's
listed at auction

and estimated at four
to five million dollars,

and it sells for 14,

how can you go into an auction
expecting to pay four

to five million
dollars for something,

and write a check for 14?

The answer is either you kind
of knew that would happen,

but it's also that
you want the object,

and it doesn't matter
very much to you,

and that's the high end
of the art world.

Fair warning,
your bid, not yours,

I'm very sorry,
but I'm glad for you.

33.

It's the least
interesting concept,

to talk about the
auction houses,

why aren't we talking
about the art?

Basel Art Fair was
not only the first fair,

it remains the single most
important art fair in the world,

and I believe, to this day,

it's the most
difficult to get into.

The world's tycoons
literally crammed, sort of like,

with almost their noses
pressed against the glass,

waiting for the
opening of the fair,

it was a race to
see who could get

up the elevator
to the first floor.

Which is where the top galleries

were selling the top artists,

and I've never seen mass
panic amongst super rich

in one place like it, it was
an extraordinary spectacle.

I really feel like
I can take the temperature

of the art world when I'm there,

and get a sense of
what's going on in art.

We've always
been very attentive

to what's happening
in the art world.

We've always tried
to embrace the things

that were really the most
important in the art world,

the things that were developing.

When I started going
to Basel in Switzerland,

it was a very small
group of people,

everybody knew each other,
it was really,

truly passionate art collectors,

most of the material
was not pre-sold,

so you had an
opportunity, if you went

in the early hours
of the opening,

that is pretty tough these days.

More than half the work is
pre-sold by the major dealers.

The thing about
art fairs that we forget now,

since they've become sort of
like these catch-all places

for celebrities, and all
kinds of other folks,

is that they're
essentially trade fairs.

You know, galleries used
to go to basically get rid

of the backroom, the stuff
that they had in the back

that they weren't able to sell.

Now they're actually
asking artists

to produce
specifically for fairs.

It's a big change
that's happened

over the last 30, 40 years,

is that the wealthy used
to be inherited wealth,

and now they're self-made,
and so they're working people,

usually, they don't
necessarily have the time

to spend two or three days
a week going round galleries.

It's another reason why art
fairs are useful for them,

because it's a very
efficient use of time.

It's one stop
shopping, I mean,

it's why are shopping
malls popular?

It's the same thing,
it's a real convenience.

I've always been
a big believer of,

you know,
there should be many fairs,

they should do great,
because at the end,

it enlarges the buy,
that's all it does.

Miami is a
completely different beast.

I haven't been to Miami Basel,

only because it sounds
such a nightmare.

A lot of parties,

and there's a lot
of marketing going on.

Marketing of all
sorts of things,

like new vodkas

and new jewelry brands.

This piece is aggressive,
it's dangerous,

it's stupid,
and that's why I like it.

This is entitled Blue Box,
it's about the civil war,

obviously.
This piece was made on a ship,

and then shipped to a car,
and then driven to a plane.

This is a challenging piece,

and would be good
for your collection.

It's so stupid,
it's hard to understand,

and that can be so interesting.

You're talking about my jeans,
aren't you?

It offers a lot of food
for thought in its spectacle,

but it is a lot harder
to focus on the art.

Then there's all
the socializing,

everybody wants to give
you a kiss on the cheek

and shake your hand,

when are you gonna look
at the art?

Now more people
than ever are going.

People who don't know
anything about art,

or maybe not even sort
of interested in it,

but just sort of
along for the party.

Basel Miami will
draw 65,000 people,

of whom 2,000 might
be purchasers,

and that may be,
that may be overly optimistic.

I mean, others are spectators.

If you go
to an art fair,

the conversation is absolutely
laughable because it's coming

from people who haven't
got a clue about art.

Miami's become this

orgy of positional spending.

It's become Comic-Con for people
with gobs and gobs of money.

Everything has been
ratcheted up to be showbiz.

You've got to get
the crowds out,

you've got to get
the heads of the people,

and whatever they can do
to bring them in, they will.

It's part of the whole
phenomenon of event shopping.

You might get good
art in an art fair,

I probably couldn't tell
if it was good art anymore

because the context
impacts it so negatively.

You've got
an echo chamber

that does not exactly
produce the kind

of surprises that one,
as an art viewer,

never mind as an art critic,
wants to see

in a place like Art
Basel Miami Beach,

which supposedly is
the premier art event,

or rather,
art fair in the world.

There's a certain kind
of intellectual snobbery

that comes with
dismissing all art fairs

as some horrible event that
just sees the unfolding

of a venal art world
at its maximum expression.

I think that there is
a lot of pressure on artists

and their galleries
to continue to be producing work

for these endless number of
art fairs that keep appearing,

because there's a lot
of money to be made,

and there are lots of
cities around the world

that are very happy
to have this .1%

of the world's wealthiest
people arriving

in town and spending money.

Everybody always talks
about this pressure

that's on artist to produce.

If you choose to be the artist

that's gonna service art fairs

and service this
constant flow of goods,

then that's what
your art becomes.

So find the man who can
get reversed from the art world,

greatest supply can
produce greater demand,

if you get a deal like Gagosian,

who's got 12 or 13
galleries around the world,

takes on an artist and shows
him at multiple galleries

and multiple art fairs,
they get more promotion,

more write up in art magazines,

and they are perceived as hot,

and so there's a greater
demand for their art,

because they produce more.

Unlike anything else
pretty much in economics.

Because of the scale
of galleries today,

the fact that a gallery now
has a branch in Beijing,

London, and New York, and LA.

There's a demand,

a constant need
to feed this machine,

and there's a demand for art
that makes artists produce,

produce, produce,
without any time to say,

"I'm sitting this season out,"

or, "I'm sitting this fair out."

You have to feed the machine,
and if you don't,

do you become irrelevant,
do artists worry about that?

I don't know if I could
live with this one, it's,

I like it, but the green is,
it's sort of institutional.

Get a fucking decorator,

these paintings
aren't even done yet.

We'll take the green one.

For one thing,
you learn how to say no.

If I was talking to
a young artist who was

on his way to New York,

and I could see
that his work was very good,

he or she was very serious.

I would say to them,

it's important
that you learn how to say no,

not every opportunity
is a good one.

You've got to say
yes until you can say no,

and once you get the
chance to say no,

you should say it
as often as you can.

This frenzy over
younger artists,

which is predicated
on making money,

you can't build
a career that way,

it's too speculative,
there's no foundation,

it's difficult on the artist,

I think if you add to
that the pressure on artists

to produce today,
it's overwhelming.

Galleries can say no to fairs,
artists can say no to galleries.

Collectors,
you can say no to collectors

who want in on the work.

I think we all have
our own responsibility

in those natures, and no one's
got a gun to anyone's head.

It's a very high
functioning system

and marketplace, do some people
win and some people lose?

Yeah, I think in every
single market it's that way.

I mean, look, it's a very
particular business model.

The bigger it gets,
the more textured

and layered and nuanced it gets.

Art has this
different aura about it,

and it leads to
a huge amount of corruption.

The problem
is that the corruption

in this world is basically
among very rich people,

does anybody else,

outside of this little
trench of people, care?

One argument is
that the only people

being manipulated are
Arab sheiks, Russian oligarchs,

and so let's take
them for a ride.

I don't like that argument,

I think that it affects artist''
lives and artists' markets.

Really, only a very small group

of artists can really
make a living at it.

As an economist,
you're always like,

are these the most talented,
the most able artists?

And when you have some minutia
distortions, perhaps not.

And so I think the
question we should worry

about is, you know, maybe
collectors aren't getting hurt

by paying too much for bad art,

or there's bigger
tragedies in the world,

but maybe we would have a market

with better working artists.

And art would maybe be
a little bit more accessible,

because you would
have a larger pool

of artists who could
afford to be full time.

I think the concern I have,

like, if there's
any case for regulation

or sort of more
pricing transparency,

it is that, you know, more
artists are probably better,

or more than we have, and you
know, could we create a market

that would support
more working artists,

rather than just a very sort
of elite group of artists

who just happen to be very
good at playing the game,

and sort of pleasing
a small group of,

sort of very famous collectors?

Stocks and bonds are regulated,

why can't an art market
at this level be regulated?

I worked a couple
of years ago

with a congressional
committee in the United States

that was looking at regulation.

And like most committees
that have looked

at this at the state of
US level, they gave up

and said, "Let it be."

I keep asking, well,

why does nobody come in and
regulate this art market?

It seems so wrong,
but the problem is

that because, basically,
there are no poor people

in this game.
The government, I think,

sort of shrugs and says,
"Well, who are the victims?"

We're not in the business,
you know,

it's a rich people's business,
so they turn a blind eye.

Good evening,
there were dire predictions

about what might happen
to the financial markets

in this country today, in fact,

this morning at
the opening bell,

the Dow took a steep
dive in what seemed,

for a time, like
near panic selling.

If the federal
government has decided not

to prosecute bankers
for what happened after 2008.

The going notion is
that what happened

when the roof caved
in is victimless.

Gosh, you've gotta imagine that

what happens in the
art world is nothing,

is nothing to these folks.
And that's unfortunate,

because I do believe,
I strongly believe

that the art world
needs regulation,

and I'm in a very unpopular
position, having said that.

I do think people should list
their prices at galleries.

That basic act of
transparency is something

that could percolate upwards
in a really strong way.

It's really,
to me in terms of regulation,

a question of ethics,
there is a story

in The New York Time yesterday
about a Picasso sculpture

that's in a show at
MOMA at the moment,

which seems to have been
sold to two different people.

Those are the kind of
things that, you know,

that look bad for the art world.

It's a business which
is very likely regulated,

and the reason is, is because
the goods we're dealing in,

the commodities we're
dealing in are heterogeneous,

every one is different.

And it's very
difficult to legislate

for a market in which every
single item has its own story.

Has its own sales history,
and on the day,

has a personal relationship

between the seller
and the buyer.

It is the case that
people are buying off GNP

nowadays and not seeing the work

in real life, in the flesh,

not seeing its textures
and feeling its scale.

We've definitely moved
away from the heart

and soul of what
this is all about.

I remember talking
to Frank Stella at a dinner

about a year ago,
and he said to me,

"Can you think of a day

The New York Times
has ever ran a story

on the front page about art

without talking about
the price of the art?"

And the answer is,
it doesn't happen.

I came to
the art world before,

before there was ever
a whiff of money anywhere,

like, you didn't turn
to this if you didn't love it,

and you weren't a believer.

I don't think the
obsession with money is healthy

in any context, and it's
certainly not a healthy aspect

of the art world,
it's a fact, it's a reality.

On one level,
the price tag causes everyone

to stop for a moment and say,
"Oh, my God."

More money does not
mean better quality art,

it means more art that
is particularly in tune

to how to make money.

I think we all get hurt,
you know, culture gets hurt.

We're now in a world
that is producing a huge amount

of work, most of it,
a lot of it that's been driven

by the market, things have
to have a reason for being,

there's a lot,
there's a huge amount of work

that doesn't have
a necessity for being.

Six million five.

So you get a false
reading of art history,

and a false reading
of what is important.

There is the moment we live in

where a value is determined
by how much things sell for,

and how much
celebrity someone gets.

Very few people manage
to create a value

that endures over
a long period of time.

Ultimately,
value's created by people

who aren't even alive now.

That doesn't mean
that's the only value, though,

I think the value of the moment
is another type of value,

it just doesn't last.

We might be in a
bubble with contemporary,

we're seeing some investors
make some mistakes

with their buying
in contemporary,

but with proven pieces
that have a real place

in art history,
like the Talbin collection,

I don't think it's a bubble,

I think the prices
will only go up.

Price bubble
happens when the price

of a commodity goes up faster
than GNP, faster than incomes,

faster than inflation,
and that can't happen forever.

And so the question is,

does it deflate slowly,
or does it burst?

The one thing
about the art world

that has sustained
itself since the 1950s,

is that prices
have always gone up.

And art has beat out
a couple of recessions.

Does that mean that these
prices are sustainable,

the kind of records
that we're seeing,

150 million, 170 million?

No, just that
slowdown will make,

you know, the expectation
that art is something

that you can mint money
with, which is a lie, anyway.

I think that bubble
will get popped.

There is going to be,
at some point, a downturn,

and when that happens,
it then becomes clear,

what is the good stuff
that's going to last,

that has real value,
then it all shakes out,

and that, inevitably,
will happen.

It all works out in the end,

you can only control
a market, like art,

for a short period of time.

So I have no worry
that in 50 to 100 years,

if an artist isn't needed
into those next generations,

if an artwork has been propped
up unfairly by the market,

it'll only be a
for a period of time,

it can't last forever.

But history is ruthless

in dispensing with
things it doesn't need.

At 59, 60 million,
66 million, 67 million,

68 million, 74 million,
75 million, 77 million,

at 83 million dollars.
Fair warning,

You're all done?

And selling
at 95 million dollars.

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Trying to make history

* Everybody say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Hope you like what you see

* Everybody said

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* I'm taking every chance

* That I can think of

* I'm working overtime

* To be enough

* I'm walking my road

* No matter how tough

* I won't look till tomorrow

* Wake up, wake up

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Trying to make history

* Everybody say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Hope you like what you see

* Every say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* I'm using my hands

* And all of my life

* To make a work of art

* That never dies

* I'm looking for that

* Somebody somewhere

* To take my dreams

* And get me out there,
out there *

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Trying to make history

* Everybody say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Hope you like what you see

* Everybody say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* I'm ready

* So ready

* Let me show you how high

* I fly

* I know it

* Really know it

* If you're ready

* Then this is my time

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Trying to make history

* Everybody say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Hope you like what you see

* Everybody say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Trying to make history

* Everybody say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Hope you like what you see

* Everybody said it

* Yeah

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece

* Trying to make history

* Everybody say it

* Yeah, yeah, yeah

* Look at me

* Painting my masterpiece