{"id":660430,"date":"2026-05-23T12:37:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T12:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/660430\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T12:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T12:37:19","slug":"a-1-billion-evening-for-the-art-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/660430\/","title":{"rendered":"A $1 billion evening for the art world"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2018You shouldn’t give away your pictures in that way; they are money,\u2019 said old Vervelle. \u2026 \u2018I love Art,\u2019 said the former bottle-dealer.\u201d
Balzac, Pierre Grassou, 1839<\/p>\n

On Monday, in a two-part sale, Christie\u2019s auction house sold $1.1 billion worth of artwork. In the first part of the evening, it took, according to CNN, \u201cjust\u00a040 minutes to sell more than $630 million in art, smashing records for both the painter Jackson Pollock [1912\u20131956] and sculptor Constantin Brancusi [1876-1957].\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson Pollock, Number 7a, 1948 (christies.com)<\/p>\n

Pollock\u2019s 10-foot-long drip painting, Number 7A, 1948, set a record for the American abstract expressionist\u2019s work, going for $181.2 million. This was three times the price of his previously most expensive piece, $61.2. The sale price of Brancusi\u2019s Dana\u00efde also set a record for the Romanian sculptor. Both works were sold to \u201cunknown collectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pollock and Brancusi works were among 16 pieces at Christie\u2019s from the collection of the late \u201cmedia mogul\u201d S.I. Newhouse, longtime chairman of Cond\u00e9 Nast and owner of the parent company, Advance Publications. CNN explains that Newhouse owned a \u201clarge slice of America\u2019s local newspapers and broadcast stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newhouse, before his death in 2017, was estimated to be worth some $10 billion. In 2014, he was the 46th richest person in the US, according to Forbes. The New York Times reported the comment of his widow, Victoria: \u201cI\u2019m not getting any younger and I feel the time has come to start downsizing,\u201d she told the Times.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s an effort to simplify my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Works by Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Henri Matisse, Joan Mir\u00f3, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg also contributed to the allure of the Newhouse sale. As a single-owner collection, only that of\u00a0the late Paul G. Allen has generated more at auction\u2013in 2022,\u00a0the two-part blow-out sale of works amassed by the Microsoft co-founder fetched a record-breaking $1.5 billion on the first night alone. Newhouse\u2019s works have, instead, sold in occasional tranches.<\/p>\n

In the subsequent sale at Christie\u2019s Monday evening, works by Picasso, Joseph Cornell, Cy Twombly, Mark Rothko, Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Roy Lichtenstein, Georgia O\u2019Keefe, Edouard Manet, Matisse, Edgar Degas, Mir\u00f3, Warhol, Wassily Kandinsky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Camille Pissarro, Marc Chagall and others were auctioned off. The Rothko painting\u2013No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe), 1964\u2013brought in almost $100 million, also surpassing the artist\u2019s previous\u00a0sale\u00a0record.<\/p>\n

CNN observes that \u201cthe top end of the art market,\u201d led by auction house giants Christie\u2019s and Sotheby\u2019s, \u201chas been hellbent on a rebound over the past year,\u201d when \u201ca series of rocky sales and global economic uncertainty cast doubt on demand for blockbuster works.\u201d Both houses have \u201ccourted powerhouse single-owner collections, including those of Allen,\u00a0Leonard A. Lauder\u00a0[cosmetics] and\u00a0Pauline Karpidas [shipping], to inject the market with rare paintings from 20th-century artists that are getting harder to come by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naively, one asks oneself: how is it that one individual can accumulate such an art collection and withhold it from the public? Wouldn\u2019t it make sense, wouldn\u2019t it be fairer, for all this work to be displayed in museums accessible to everyone? Does it seem likely that a Newhouse, a Paul Allen, a Pauline Karpidas has that much more affection and appreciation for art than the average person, or the average 10,000 persons? What type of society accepts the ability of the wealthy to appropriate art for themselves like this? What special, qualifying characteristics do they possess\u2013aside from their riches, of course?<\/p>\n

Constantin Brancusi, Danai\u0308de (christies.com)<\/p>\n

An artist creates a work to communicate with others, to delight, to move, to educate, not to make money. That was true of Pollock and Brancusi, whatever one may conclude about their ultimate success or failure in that regard. (We have discussed Pollock\u2019s evolution from a left-wing artist in the late 1930s to an abstractionist later on here<\/a>.) Diderot suggested that \u201cAs soon as an artist thinks of money, he loses his sense of beauty,\u201d while Marx insisted that although a writer \u201cmust earn money in order to be able to live and to write \u2026 he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Marx also explained that \u201cMilton produced\u00a0Paradise Lost\u00a0for the same reason as a silkworm produces silk. It was an expression of\u00a0his own\u00a0nature. Later on he sold the product for \u00a35,\u201d which made him \u201cunproductive worker\u201d in capitalism.<\/p>\n

Pollock and Brancusi each knew a degree of success, but not the financial or business success of Newhouse, Allen or Karpidas. As the owners of money, therefore, the latter can own the expressions of the various artists\u2019 own natures. \u201cDo not I, who thanks to money am capable of\u00a0all\u00a0that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?\u201d (Marx again.)<\/p>\n

Investment in art is nowadays a very lucrative business.<\/p>\n

In terms of total available market, Deloitte has estimated the total global value of art and collectables to be ~$1.7 trillion (3-4% of which is traded on an annual basis). At this level, the asset class is similarly sized to the other major private markets, almost all of which have hundreds or thousands of institutions participating and making the asset classes available to investors. (Nomura)<\/p>\n

According to artbasel.com,<\/p>\n

The global art market returned to growth in 2025, with sales increasing by 4% year-on-year in value to an estimated $59.6 billion. Aggregate sales in\u00a0both dealer and auction markets improved, with the dealer sector rising 2% year-on-year to $34.8 billion and public auction sales up by 9% to $20.7 billion. Reported private sales declined by 5% to just under $4.2 billion.<\/p>\n

As one financial adviser points out to potential investors,<\/p>\n

One of the most compelling aspects of art as a financial asset is its\u00a0potential tax advantages.\u00a0With strategic planning, you can significantly reduce your tax burden. It makes art an attractive option for investors looking to minimize taxes while still profiting from their investments.<\/p>\n

Mark Rothko, Two Greens and Red Stripe (christies.com)<\/p>\n

In Balzac\u2019s short story referenced at the top of this article, \u201cthe honest artist, that atrocious mediocrity,\u201d Pierre Grassou, achieves financial success and a good marriage by creating skillful imitations of Old Masters for a dealer who sells them as genuine to the ignorant bourgeoisie, in this case Monsieur Vervelle, a bottle merchant.\u00a0The art world has made great strides since that time, in cash volume, if not morals.<\/p>\n

As part of their promotional efforts for Monday\u2019s auction, Christie\u2019s put together a video of actress Nicole Kidman interacting with Dana\u00efde, meant to reference a brief film made by artist Man Ray of photographer Lee Miller unveiling a Brancusi work circa 1930.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

As Artnet news describes it, the two-minute video<\/a> shows Kidman striding<\/p>\n

into the auction house\u2019s\u00a0Rockefeller Center\u00a0headquarters in a pair of\u00a0Louboutin\u00a0stilettos and taking the elevator to a private viewing room where\u00a0Dana\u00efde\u00a0awaits on a pedestal behind a wall of white curtains. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Once inside, she interacts with the work from a respectful distance. As the camera zooms in, the black-and-white footage flickers with a kaleidoscope of imagery of classical, modern and contemporary sculptures. \u2026 As Kidman circles the work, she ruffles her hair, gazing intently at the work, then seductively into the camera. By the time credits roll, she is literally floored.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s rather foolish and a little degrading. One feels a certain amount of sympathy for Kidman. What in the world is the performer doing here? What does this have to do with Brancusi or anything else? It\u2019s not clear why an auction house feels obliged to \u201cpromote\u201d a sculpture more or less guaranteed in advance to fetch tens of millions of dollars in a well-advertised sale. In fact, it is largely an advertisement for Christie\u2019s, to suggest its supposedly cutting-edge style and approach.<\/p>\n

Nicole Kidman and the Brancusi sculpture (christies.com)<\/p>\n

According to one art historian, Brancusi \u201ctransformed his own home and studio in Paris into a piece of Romania, he himself dressing like a Romanian farmer in simple cotton trousers and shirt\u2026 He furnished his studio with wooden furniture made by himself, among other things a big table with an enormous stone slab.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Kidman-Christie\u2019s story, on the other hand, one keeps bumping into billionaires on all sides, almost inadvertently, but all the more significantly. The Kidman campaign<\/p>\n

was a brainchild of\u00a0Tobias Meyer, a former\u00a0Sotheby\u2019s\u00a0star auctioneer and longtime art advisor to Newhouse, who died in 2017. Since then, Meyer has advised the billionaire\u2019s estate \u2026 Meyer said he met Kidman at billionaire\u00a0Barry Diller\u2019s lunch around the\u00a0Oscars\u00a0earlier this year.\u00a0\u2026 Meyer knew that Kidman was going to be in New York for the\u00a0Met Gala\u00a0in early May. He also knew that Christie\u2019s owner\u00a0Fran\u00e7ois Pinault\u00a0[the 54th richest person in the world in 2024] was an investor in\u00a0Creative Artists Agency, which represents the actor. \u201cSo, I said, let\u2019s ask him,\u201d he recalled. (Artnet news)<\/p>\n

This continuous, apparently irresistible coming together of vast sums of money and art is unnatural, repugnant, a blight, an affront, the product of capitalism in its extreme, parasitic decay.<\/p>\n

Shakespeare (in Timon of Athens), Marx brilliantly points out, stresses two properties of money in particular.<\/p>\n

Money, first, is \u201cthe visible divinity\u2013the transformation of all human and natural properties into their contraries, the universal confounding and distorting of things.\u201d As a result, \u201cimpossibilities are soldered together by it\u201d (ignorant, greedy billionaires and art work, for example). Second, money \u201cis the common whore, the common procurer of people and nations\u201d!<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Marx imagined a society, <\/p>\n

assuming man\u00a0to be\u00a0man\u00a0and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc. If you want to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other people.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Join the Socialist Equality Party! <\/p>\n

The Socialist Equality Party is organizing the working class in the fight for socialism: the reorganization of all of economic life to serve social needs, not private profit.<\/p>\n

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