Luxist - Santa Monica,CA,USA
There is no record of a mortgage so she may have paid cash. --Art collector Adam Lindemann and his wife, Amalia Dayan have bought a slim townhouse at 64 ...
Like stylish canaries in a coal mine, Miami's art advisors are increasingly being looked to for early warnings of the art market's collapse. Indeed, even among those previously most bullish about contemporary art's investment potential, the question is no longer if a replay of the 1990 crash will unfold, but more often when it will arrive.
''I see the black clouds over every auction,'' says art advisor Lisa Austin, ruefully describing the flurry of anxious conversations preceding the recent art sales by Christie's, Phillips de Pury & Co. and Sotheby's auction houses in New York and London. ``Common sense says there's going to be a shake-out -- there's a similarity to the run-up of the art market of the late '80s. Everybody said that incredible pace couldn't be sustained.''
And they were right. When the art market bubble popped in 1990 amid a national recession, the realignment was vicious. Art stars of the 1980s such as Eric Fischl and Julian Schnabel suddenly found their work selling for a tenth of their earlier seven-figure price tags -- if it sold at all. As belt-tightening collectors abandoned the field, scores of galleries closed, forcing waves of previously successful artists to set down their paint brushes in search of day jobs.
This time out, with Miami's post-Art Basel gallery expansion handily dwarfing the '80s boom, the correction could be even more painful. ''Look at the way Art Basel has been marketed,'' says art advisor Heather Urban. ``I hear so many people talking as much about the parties, and who they're being seen with, as about the art.''
Once the cash -- and its attendant glitz -- drains away, many expect these fickle crowds to also vanish.
IN THE WORKS
To hear art advisor Dora Valdés-Fauli tell it, the weeding-out process has already begun. ''The art market is not immune to the same factors that have touched the housing market,'' Valdés-Fauli says. Many of the local banks she's helped assemble collections, such as Banco Santander International, have ceased new acquisitions. ''Look at Bear Stearns,'' she says, referring to the meltdown of the once seemingly-impregnable brokerage firm. ``Try to convince a bank board they should be purchasing art now.''
''Now is the time to cash out,'' says Lang Baumgarten, a longtime client of Lisa Austin's dating back to her stint as art director for Southeast Bank (whose own impressive collection was scattered to the winds following the bank's 1991 insolvency). As a commercial mortgage broker, Baumgarten has a quick metric for judging the market's peak: ''At the height of the real estate business, every hooker-model-actress in town reinvented themselves as a real-estate broker. Now those same people are calling themselves art consultants.'' Pointing to Eliot Spitzer's notorious overnight hotel guest, he scoffs, ``I'm sure Ashley Dupré is going to be an art advisor by next year.''
Read the complete article by Brett Sokol
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