Not a surprise, with budgets down, everyone at a loss….
The downturn in the art market is likely to be shorter and less severe than in previous recessions, auction house Christie’s said on Monday, even as it forecast a big drop in turnover for 2009. Jussi Pylkkanen, President of Christie’s Europe, told the Reuters Global Luxury Summit that strong demand among the world’s wealthy for everything from fine wine to jewelry would help to drive a recovery for expensive objets d’art from 2010. “There’s been a huge transformation since the beginning of the century … It’s become extremely acceptable to collect works of art in a way that it certainly wasn’t in, say, the 1970s,” he said. – from Reuters