Globalization Keeps Money Pumping Into Art

With all the news of skyrocketing food and gas prices, it’s interesting to note that the art market is still going strong. A Monet waterlily painting– Le Bassin aux Nymphéas - just claimed a world record price for the artist at auction. It went for an astounding £40.1m (almost $80m). Technology is enabling the global super rich to keep this high end market afloat.

The Guardian reports:

But perhaps the most important reason for the art market’s continued top-end strength is its globalisation, as Jussi Pylkkänen, president of Christie’s Europe points out. When the art market crashed in 1990-92, the world was a very different place. Now Russians have fortunes to spend, and China is opening up. The internet means that auction houses are accessible from anywhere. No longer are they the exclusive province of a small club of people. Pylkkänen says that top-end buyers have increased threefold over the past five years; this is largely due to the increased geographical reach of his auctions.

The Guardian: Monet Avoids The Crunch