Recent sales of contemporary art reveal a vibrant yet capricious rebound

The contemporary art business has bounced back faster than many expected, but the market still lacks the coherent drive of the boom. Whereas evening sales in 2007 had the exhilaration of a Formula One race, last week’s contemporary sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips had a rambling feel, as if bidders were driving cross country in a wide range of vehicles.

Sotheby’s kicked off the week with an evening sale on February 10th that brought in GBP54.1m ($84.5m), the second-highest total for a February contemporary auction and three times more than last year’s paltry GBP17.9m. Of the 79 lots on offer, more than half came from the highly credible but hitherto uncommercial collection of Gerhard and Anna Lenz, who have concentrated on a branch of apocalyptically minimal art called “Zero”. The artworks, which Sotheby’s catalogue associated with “a grey emptiness… a cultural cemetery and a knowledge vacuum”, were not what you’d normally think of as surefire auction lots. Nevertheless, most of them were met with enthusiastic bidding and 19 works achieved record prices. Sotheby’s European chairman of contemporary art, Cheyenne Westphal, explained that buyers “took great comfort in the time, care and consideration invested by Mr and Mrs Lenz in assembling such a coherent group.” …