Art dealers hate us

James here, just back from Art Basel Switzerland's VIP days [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi, I’m [James Tarmy](, Bloomberg’s arts columnist, just back from Art Basel in Switzerland. Every year, I write a so-called Day 1 piece from the fair’s first VIP day. I gather quotes, note a smattering of sales and do my best to [encapsulate the mood, market and trends](. Dealers profess to hate it. I understand. First, it pressures them to make big sales on the first day. If they don’t, arts journalists might report that [the market seems down](, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. (The art market, let’s not forget, is a “[vibe economy](.”) This has become a particularly meddlesome issue in the [absence of a booming market]( as collectors take sweet time to make decisions. Three editions of this sculpture by Jean Dubuffet sold at Pace Gallery’s booth for €800,000 ($859,000) apiece on the opening day of Art Basel. Photographer: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano The second issue goes hand in hand with the first. Art dealers consistently tell me that other galleries are, if not lying about their own sales, stretching the truth and reported inflated sums in order to generate a keen sense of urgency and demand. (The people casting aspersions would never exaggerate their own sales, of course.) Discounts of as much as 15% are assuredly common—but sales reports usually record the asking price rather than a work’s selling price. The way to clear all this up, dealers argue, would be for any and all reporting to come [at the end of the fair](, when conversations between dealers and collectors (a nice way of saying “haggling”) have ideally born fruit, and the actual, unadulterated transaction tally is more fulsome. Auctions, in contrast, have (fairly) inelastic sales prices. Photographer: James Tarmy/Bloomberg To be fair, serious sales did occur this year after my piece published. To name a few late-breaking announcements: [Gladstone Gallery]( says it sold a Keith Haring work on paper for $1.5 million; [Hauser & Wirth]( turned over an oil painting by Georgia O’Keeffe for $13.5 million; and Gagosian even sold [Christo’s $4 million VW Beetle](! This cuts both ways, though. Dealers, let’s not forget, are always under pressure to make major sales, whether or not an article impends. It’s an art fair, after all. A flurry of reports that major pieces are flying off the shelves can (and often does) put pressure on collectors to make decisions fast, which often works in dealers’ favor. Most important, even if dealers do stretch the truth about pricing, they rarely make sales up out of thin air. Again, their point in attending an art fair is to sell work, not pretend it sold. This being the insular, gossip-filled art world, some version of the truth will invariably come out. Christo’s Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, 1963–2014, took a few days to sell. In the end, a lucky buyer picked up a very cool artwork. Photographer: Wolfgang Volz That’s why I still do the reports. Taken with a grain of salt and arranged correctly, they provide a fairly nuanced understanding of the health of the market—whether it comes on Day 1 or Day 4 is immaterial. Connect with James via [e-mail](mailto:jtarmy@bloomberg.net). It’s house-hunting season If you’re in the market for a cozy seven bedroom, might Pursuits interest you in a mansion or two?  [A Renovated Malibu Beach House Is On Sale for $35 Million]( The home’s original architect spearheaded its restoration 40 years after it was first completed. [Country House With Wild Design Hits the Market for $2.9 Million]( The Hudson Valley, New York, compound can comfortably sleep 16 guests. [An Early Venture Capitalist Is Selling His $26 Million San Francisco Mansion]( George Sarlo, who co-founded Walden Venture Capital, is downsizing. [A Half Hour From New York City, a 13-Acre Estate Lists for $28.5 Million]( The weekend home of interior designer Sara Story has been painstakingly restored. [Florence Nightingale’s Childhood Home Lists for £3.75 Million]( The manor house known as Lea Hurst has 13 bedrooms, 7 baths and panoramic views over 19 green acres. July’s most exciting performances It’s summer music festival season, and this year Europe and the US have a stellar lineup. Here are a few major concerts I’m going to do my best to attend next month. - Opening night at Tanglewood: The most famous US summer music festival will start with a bang. Fan favorite [Hilary Hahn]( will play [Beethoven’s Violin Concerto]( alongside conductor Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The night ends with the composer’s triumphant Eroica Symphony. [July 5]( - World Premiere of William Kentridge’s The Great Yes, The Great No: Commissioned by the [Luma Foundation]( in partnership with the Aix-En-Provence Festival, Kentridge is responsible for the chamber opera’s stage direction and concept; music comes from choral composer Nhlanhla Mahlangu. [July 7]( - Teodor Currentzis Conducts Bach’s St. Matthew Passion: Classical music’s most famous upstart is back after a not-really-major [scandal]( over his connections to Russian funding. He’ll be kicking off the famous Salzburg Festival with a crowd-pleaser that’s sure to surprise and delight. [July 19]( If you prefer live theater and find yourself in New York City, click through for the nine best shows to see. Pictured here: The Outsiders. Photographer: Matthew Murphy Meanwhile, my colleagues at Bloomberg Green have taken an urgent look at how [outdoor concerts on a warming planet need a new safety playbook](. It’s been about six months since a concertgoer in Rio de Janeiro died during a Taylor Swift show held during a heat wave. Hydrate! Elsewhere in arts and culture ... Time to catch you up on everything from summer’s best new books to the season’s (slightly less exciting, according to our critic) new movies and TV shows. [New Book Blames Yuppies for Trump, Housing—Basically Everything]( [There Are Four Winning Strategies Behind Good Hollywood Sequels]( [HBO’s New House of the Dragon Season Moves Way Too Slowly]( [The Real Estate Magnate Betting on New Orleans’ Black Musical Legacy]( [The Top New Books for Your Summer Reading List]( [A New Book Definitively Proves the Architect Is Not Always Right]( You had questions ... So here are some answers! Keep them coming for next week via our [Bloomberg Pursuits]([Instagram]( and e-mail](mailto:askpursuits@bloomberg.net?I%20have%20a%20question). What should I wear to an art fair? I actually get this question a lot. The first and best answer: If you’re there to buy art, you can wear whatever you want, and dealers will fall over themselves to be friendly. But there is, in fact, an informal dress code. People on the outside might call it “quiet luxury.” If people at the fair call it anything at all (honestly, I’ve never heard a word about it), they’d probably call it “basics.” Photographer: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images North America Generally speaking, male dealers are the only ones wearing suits and ties. I found this out the hard way—when I wore a suit to an art fair and people kept asking me how much artworks cost. Everyone else—of every gender—tends to be in some [variation of sneakers](, slacks and a blazer. Men might occasionally [wear loafers](. Less frequently, women will wear some kind of heel, although the general rule is: The higher the heel, the less experienced the attendee. People spend hours trudging through aisles, so comfort is key. There’s the occasional dress ([still paired with sneakers](), although I don’t think I saw that many this year. You’d better hope these can come with gel inserts. Photographer: Janelle Jones for Bloomberg Businessweek Brands are what you’d expect from a crowd that’s dropping millions on art: [Prada](, The Row, [Brunello Cucinelli](, Charvet, Bottega Veneta, Dries Van Noten, [Loro Piana]( and so on. Don’t worry. If the prospect of wearing the “right” thing stresses you, it shouldn’t; the art world is in many respects a very forgiving place, at least sartorially. The only faux pas is to be overdressed. Clothes might be constrained, but it’s open season when it comes to watches. Source: Chopard Do I really need to care about the art market? This is a totally reasonable question, particularly given that for nearly two years, headlines in the industry have been some variation of “[things are basically fine.](” If no records are being set (or no shirts being lost), why pay attention? Still, you should—even if you don’t buy art. The Unlimited section of this year’s Art Basel included massive artworks like this piece from Torkwase Dyson. Photographer: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano/Pace Gallery Last year, 175 million people visited the world’s top 100 museums, according to[ a report]( from the Art Newspaper. Like it or not, what happens in the art market affects what you’ll see in institutional spaces. Most of the time, you can’t draw a straight line from point A (an art fair) to point B (a museum exhibition), but it’s not much of a stretch. For proof, look to the abundance of curators and museum directors at art fairs. The Venice Biennale—click through for its top 10 exhibitions—had a spectacular show of work by artists James Lee Byars (above) and Seung-Taek Lee. Source: Michael Werner Gallery, New York, London, Berlin These people don’t necessarily show up at art fairs to shop, but they come to see new artworks, talk to dealers and hobnob with trustees. Perhaps they point out a work they’d like a trustee to buy and donate to the museum; perhaps they knew that a certain artist was going to help install work at their dealer’s booth, and hoped to chat about a potential show. Or maybe they, like everyone in the art world, want to keep up with ongoing trends—trends that inevitably trickle into museum shows. (Recent examples include figurative painting and its [subsequent decline]( and contemporary Indigenous American art and its [present explosion](.) In other news, I went to see art in a Venetian prison and ran into … the movie star Zoe Saldana. Photographer: Marco Cremamascoli Was the Christie’s cyberattack overhyped? Depends on who’s asking. When the auction house [took its website offline]( days before its mega May auctions in New York, the initial reaction from collectors and auction house specialists alike was something akin to panic. Christie’s stayed mum, calling the hack a “technology security incident;” everyone else called it a cyberattack. No one knew how much or what had been taken. Was it contact information? Financial information? Or worst of all, client transaction history? This could mean that suddenly the entire world could know which collectors bought what artworks—and for how much. That would be a disaster of epic proportions for the auction house and, presumably, its clients. It would add a lot of transparency to a pretty opaque market. Per the playbook, the hackers tried to extort money from Christie’s. Photographer: Julien de Rosa/AFP The [auctions proceeded]( more or less conventionally. Only after they’d concluded did a hacker group [post on the dark web]( that it had stolen clients’ passport information; it threatened to release the data trove if Christie’s didn’t pay up. The information they’d stolen was not the worst-case scenario, although it was alarming. And then … the information [was never released](. (The hackers claimed to auction it off, but it would seem there were no buyers.) That bullet sort of dodged, the woes at Christie’s aren’t over: One collector[filed a class-action suit]( against the company over the hacking incident. It might not be the last. New for subscribers: Free article gifting. Bloomberg.com subscribers can now gift up to five free articles a month to anyone you want. Just look for the "Gift this article" button on stories. (Not a subscriber? Unlock limited access and [sign up here](.) Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Pursuits newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](