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http://www.cityam.com/lifestyle/books/the-art-world-heats-once-more
The art world heats up once more Wednesday, 13th October 2010
Timothy Barber has a look around Frieze Art Fair, which opens to the public today
AS an army of glamorous art industry movers and shakers traipsed into Frieze Art Fair’s marquee yesterday, a young woman was standing outside distributing paper leaflets for an upcoming exhibition. Not that surprising perhaps — some galleries need all the help they can get publicising themselves — except that the gallery in question was the Royal Academy. That London’s most august art institution should find itself flyering outside a tent in Regent’s Park is one measure of the extent to which the capital’s art scene now triangulates itself around Frieze.
There are others. The National Gallery’s new exhibition of works by the 18th century Venetian artist Canaletto has coincided with Frieze this week; the merry-go-round of satellite exhibitions now includes one from The Saatchi Gallery — its owner, Charles Saatchi, practically gave birth to London’s contemporary art scene as we know it, after all — called The House of the Noble Man, in a residence near Frieze, which puts Cezanne, Manet, Poussin and Picasso alongside Richter, Murakami and Hirst; and of course, Frieze now dictates the timing of the contemporary art auctions that are the most immediate signifier of the health — or otherwise — of the art market.
As far as that goes, Anders Petterson, managing director of art market analyst ArtTactic, says the mood is cautiously optimistic. After a rotten 2009, record-breaking February sales apparently signified a return to business as normal, but momentum slowed in the summer with some shows falling significantly short.
“People got carried away with the rebound earlier in the year and sellers got a little greedy with the estimates they demanded, so the summer sales were a bit down,” Petterson says. “Since then the market has revived a bit, and people are being more realistic about the situation.”
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