Financial crisis hits the art market

The crisis has now hit the art market, El País writes in a preliminary report on the auctions of modern and contemporary art in New York: "Edginess, caution and - although no one wants to say it out loud - fear. ... After five consecutive years of dolce vita in which the buying frenzy turned contemporary and dead artists into investments whose prices reached exorbitant heights and replicated the crazy behaviour of the financial markets, the big freeze has set in on the art market. ... The great uncertainty now is: Who will stop buying? The Russians and Chinese, who invested spectacular sums in recent years? The US nouveaux riches who made it fashionable to buy art with money generated by the real estate bubble? The rock stars á la Bono, who would turn up at auctions in the same way they turn up for the opening night of the hottest new club?"

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