Sophie Neuendorf, Vice President of Artnet and Senior Contributing Editor at LUX

Sophie Neuendorf, Vice President of Artnet and LUX Senior Contributing Editor, turns her insider’s eye to emerging trends to bring us her art-world predictions for 2024

1. Online fine art sales will take up more market share
According to financial services company UBS, online fine-art sales made up 16 per cent of the $68 billion global fine-art market in 2022, up from six per cent in 2019. With the rise of a new tech-savvy generation and the desire for digital solutions and experiences, I predict online sales will continue to rise.

2. All eyes will be on Christie’s and Sotheby’s
It’s no secret that the art market has been volatile recently. Sotheby’s failed to consign several hot single-owner sales and Christie’s had the Fineberg sale disaster. But with a summer Sotheby’s sale that included a rare Klimt portrait with an estimate
of $80 million and Christie’s total sales outperforming Sotheby’s for the first half of 2023, the fightback is on. Will Christie’s finally emerge as the art-world auction powerhouse? The stage is set for 2024.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

3. There will be a consolidation of the market
A plethora of art-related companies have surfaced over the past few years. The question is, with online experiences and transactions increasing, which companies will take the lead in this hot segment? I predict that only a few companies will survive and take the lead in the market, especially because of socioeconomic pressures, and this will become apparent during 2024.

4. Art and fashion collaborations will expand
I recently spoke to a friend who works in one of the major haute fashion houses about the rapidly increasing collaborations in art and fashion. These are fruitful creative marriages with benefits on both sides. While the fashion industry gains depth and seriousness, fine art can gain new potential collectors. There have been controversies, such as the concerns over Louis Vuitton’s 2023 collaboration with Yayoi Kusama. At Saint Laurent, however, Creative Director Anthony Vaccarello is doing a remarkable job in supporting established and emerging artists, just like Yves Saint Laurent himself. There’s an exhibition space at the Rive Droite site and global pop-up shows including Sho Shibuya at Art Basel Miami Beach.

Christmas in California, 2022, by Guimi You. The Korean artist is a LUX favourite. Image chosen by our editorial team, not an endorsement by the writer

5. Museums will deaccession more works
The Whitney Museum of American Art recently deaccessioned seven works, including four by Edward Hopper, with proceeds from the sales said to be going to support new acquisitions. Hopper is indisputably one of America’s greatest artists and it strikes me that the action caused panic in the market – works by Hopper were predicted to take a tumble in value. This is the unfortunate side-effect of deaccessioning artworks. However, I personally feel that an artwork is far better served on an art lover’s wall than in a museum vault.

6. ESG will have a greater foothold in the market
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is a framework that is rapidly gaining in importance. It is not only an indicator of the sustainable health of an economy or company, it is also driving decision-making among the new generation of collectors. Where the baby-boomer generation was interested in how an artist draws from art history, the new generation of collectors is more concerned with asking about what drives the artist. What are they trying to communicate with their work? Does it represent the zeitgeist and discuss contemporary themes, such as #MeToo, Black Lives Matter or the war in Ukraine? In trying to captivate the new generation, galleries will have to engage with ESG reporting and initiatives.

Read more: Artist Ricky Burrows: From the streets to the studio

7. Expenditure in fine art as an asset will increase
I always advise to buy for passion, but with an investment view. According to cultural economist Claire McAndrew, investments in fine art are especially lucrative during inflationary and recessionary periods. I have noticed significantly increased movement over the past few months, especially on the private sales side of the market. From an eye-opening Lichtenstein to a rare Caravaggio, never have I been offered so many works for private sale and acquisition. With the impending transfer of wealth from the baby boomer to the millennial generation, I predict there will be many a marvellous work to hit the auction block in 2024 and, indeed, over the next few years.

Find out more: artnet.com

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

An NFT from Tezos

They’re being shown at Basel, included in Venice: let’s see what the data tells us about NFTs and their long-term potential. Our contributing editor and columnist Sophie Neuendorf looks into it

Sophie Neuendorf

At this point, I believe that most of you will have heard of the phenomenon that’s taken the art world by storm: Non-Fungible Tokens, better known as NFTs. Ever since Christie’s sold that now famous NFT by artist Beeple for $69 Million in March 2021, this nascent category has grown exponentially. Over the past year, something like $44 billion has been spent on about 6 million NFTs, usually issued to certify digital creations but sometimes for physical objects such as paintings and sculptures.

The popularity of NFTs can be attributed to several factors. Primarily, it can be attributed to the rapid digitalisation of the art industry. Now, more and more artists, collectors, and professionals are comfortable with browsing, interacting and transacting online. This coincides with the cultural shift to the metaverse, which is a digital copy of the real world. It’s unsurprising that the metaverse should include fine art and collectibles, given that luxury fashion brands such as Gucci, Prada or Ralph Lauren are also represented.

Jimmy Fallon’s NFT by Bored Ape Yacht Club

But how can one identify ‘good’ or ‘bad’ NFTs and NFT artists? How do we know which NFTs are a good investment? This process is not much different to that of traditional art: after a period of time, a selection of NFT artists will crystallise as those that are most in- demand and desired. This may be a reflection of tastes and preferences but also of the zeitgeist and, most importantly, of who collects them. Many of us look to tastemakers and well known gallerists or collectors to see what they are buying, then use that information to help us form an opinion.

As one does before committing to a traditional work of art, it’s important to research prices and comparables before purchasing an NFT, as the market for NFTs has evolved and changed rapidly, even within the past year.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

As you can see from the graph, the prices for NFTs appreciated rapidly from the spring of 2021. However, since the end of last year, NFT prices have experienced a correction – the average transaction value has decreased substantially. This is in no way a reflection of the long-term viability and value of NFTs as a collecting category, but can be interpreted as the stabilisation of the market. Much more volatile than other assets or collectibles, such as contemporary art or gold, NFTs also suffer from price fluctuations due to the changeable nature of cryptocurrencies. Additionally, as it’s a new category, speculators may see it as less viable and secure as an investment in comparison to traditional blue-chip categories (as demonstrated below, on this page) – as yet, in terms of art as an investment, postwar and contemporary art, for example, are seen as much more secure than the nascent NFTs.

Yuga Labs is the company that is responsible for the extremely pricey ‘Bored Ape Yacht Club’ NFT series. At the beginning of this year, they announced the acquisition of the intellectual property behind their rival Larva Labs’ CryptoPunks and Meebits projects. This means that now three of the world’s most important crypto companies are under one blockchain-supported roof. Yuga Labs thus attempts a novel solution to a riddle facing more and more art professionals in this era of Instagram-ready immersive installations, branded merchandise, and fractionalised ownership: how do you turn a niche obsession into a mainstream phenomenon?

One of 10,000 avatar NFTs created by Azuki

Yuga Labs’ answer is to grant direct financial incentives to NFT owners to help the company build – and market – a creative universe around its tentpole intellectual property (IP). The move makes an expensive category accessible to a potentially much wider fan base. Despite the correction in transaction value, these popular NFTs are still expensive. The cheapest Meebit now costs about 5.6 ETH ($14,500). The floor price for a CryptoPunk is about 75 ETH ($195,000). Bored Apes sell for at least 97 ETH ($250,000).

Read more: Maryam Eisler On Tim Yip’s ‘Love Infinity’

‘Rebirth’ by Beeple

This new development answers the question of how to build a broad fan base for IP in such short supply, and with such impressive price tags: create derivative works available at low costs. Think of the Basquiat estate licensing the artist’s imagery for Uniqlo T-shirts. The difference is that Yuga Labs is outsourcing this task to NFT owners, rather than proliferating the Punks, Meebits, and Apes in house. Yuga Labs will give direct financial incentives to NFT owners to help the company build and market a creative universe. Or, to compare it to the traditional art world: create prints off of original works on canvas for a fraction of the price.

NFTs have already been shown at major fairs, such as Art Basel. This year’s Venice Biennale is showing NFTs in the Cameroon Pavilion. Galleries and museums, such as the Uffizi and Belvedere, are issuing NFTs of their Old Master and modern paintings. With auction houses such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Artnet auctions regularly offering NFTs, it’s only a matter of time until they are less of a novelty and more fully integrated in the traditional art industry.

Sophie Neuendorf is Vice-President at Artnet

This article first appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

Shanyan Koder is the founder of HUA gallery and Shanyan Koder Fine Art

From a very young age, art has been a fundamental part of Shanyan Koder’s life. Here, the founder of Shanyan Koder Fine Art and Hua gallery speaks to LUX Contributing Editor, Samantha Welsh, about how technology has changed the art world and her charitable efforts beyond art.

LUX: How did your upbringing give you an insight into art and collecting?
Shanyan Koder: My family instilled my passion in fine art. I grew up attending auctions with my parents at Sotheby’s and Christie’s and bid on works from the Impressionist and Modern art sales.  It was very organic and natural.

LUX: What brought about the change of career plan?
SK: I graduated with a law degree from Cambridge, worked at Goldman Sachs, then moved to Sotheby’s in New York, London and Hong Kong. After several years, as I took a more prominent role in representing my family’s art collection, I decided to pursue my passion in fine art. After my time at Sotheby’s London, I left to set up my own private art advisory business, Shanyan Koder Fine Art and my Chinese contemporary art business HUA, a platform celebrating a combination of my Chinese heritage and my passion for contemporary art.

In collaboration with various artists, Mango is creating five digital artworks in NFT format based on five works including those of Miró

LUX: What helped you stand out as an authoritative collector and dealer in the crowded impressionist to contemporary space?
SK: I was fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time. Apart from my boss, Patti Wong, the Chairwoman of Sotheby’s Asia, I was the only other Chinese speaking employee in Sotheby’s on New Bond Street.  I bid for telephone bidders from Asia who required translation, be it for a Mouton Rothschild wine collection, a Ron Arad design table, paintings by Monet, Miró, Picasso, Warhol or Lichtenstein.  That was how I met Asian collectors who wanted to buy Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art overseas.

LUX: What compelled you to seek advisory roles at Unit London and Eye of the Collector?
SK: I became a Board Member for Unit London becasue I found their business model ground-breaking in a traditional art world and I wanted to be involved in the journey of one of the art world pioneers of the digital age. Using social media to promote artists was a new concept and aligned with how I liked to work. My role at Eye of the Collector came about as Nazy Vassegh, the founder, is a long-time friend whom I knew from Sotheby’s and she invited me to join her Advisory Council.  Their second edition launched in May 2022.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: You were an early adopter of tech to facilitate China/Europe crossover collecting. How did you do this?
SK: In the 2000s, collectors shifted away from needing the see the original artwork before buying. That was the real break for me in the ability to adopt tech to facilitate China/Europe crossover collecting.  My first sale completed on email was a Warhol.  As social media began to take-off, I sold via platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Instagram, and so on.

The most recent sale of a waterlilies artwork by Claude Monet was sold at Sotheby’s for $70.4 million in May 2021

LUX: What was behind your co-founding of Global Showcases?
SK: Global Showcases is a ‘by invitation only’ UHNW luxury app-based sales platform. My co-founders and I decided that there was a gap in the market for buyers and brands in the “beyond luxury” space. These are assets, collectibles and experiences, for instance, art, real estate, yachts and accessories, aircraft, performance cars, high jewellery, limited edition watches. This is going to be an interesting space as the crypto world continues to develop.

LUX: How did Artemis come about and why is this disruptive to the crypto industry from a sustainability perspective?
SK: Artemis Market is the world’s first decentralised NFT mobile social platform. It uses Solana as the crypto currency which is more sustainable from an environmental perspective.  I was invited to be the first Brand Ambassador and was excited to accept. As the world continues to move towards crypto currency trading, NFTs are fast becoming a new asset class for collectors.

Shanyan hosted an art x fashion evening for Borne Charity in collaboration with the Unit London. Image courtesy of Shanyan Koder

LUX: How did entrepreneurship and social connection bring about your work with the NHS?
SK: I suffered the loss of three unborn babies during pregnancy and the grief, the spiritual, physical and mental impact are beyond words. As a result, I have supported Borne, a leading scientific research foundation in the field of preterm labour and premature birth.  Via Borne, I met fellow Borne Ambassador, an ex-SAS military officer, Jason Fox, and his SAS friend Richard Bassett.

Read more: Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation: Bridging Global South And North

We discussed PTSD caused by mental trauma from losing a baby and from experiencing combat. This was the start of our partnership and co-founding Mentor360, your pocket mentor. This App launched on World Mental Health Day on October 2021. It is a safe space to help people focus on mental fitness, holistic wellbeing, mindfulness and performance. The content is produced by leading psychologists, health care professionals and mentors. We partner with the NHS in North and Central London as their recommended mental fitness app for NHS surgical patients on their waiting list. We aim to develop Mentor360 to help teenagers and young adults through the Education space.

LUX: How has your personal journey influenced what you want for the next generation?
SK: I want young people to be healthy, happy, pursuing their passion, growing up as global citizens. The pandemic reminds us of the value of family and the importance of giving children a happy childhood.

Find out more:
shanyankoder.com
hua-gallery.com

Gordon & MacPhail’s Generations 80-Years-Old from Glenlivet Distillery with decanter and case designed by David Adjaye

On the 3rd February 1940 John Urquhart and his son, George, created a spirit at the Glenlivet Distillery, producing a bespoke Gordon & MacPhail cask, only to be sipped in the following millennium. 80 years later, on 7th October 2021, encased in an oak pavilion designed by David Adjaye, the first bottle is going to auction at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. Candice Tucker reports

Generations 80 Years Old from Glenlivet Distillery, Gordon & MacPhail’s latest release and the oldest single malt Scotch whiskey ever bottled, will go on auction this week along with the number one decanter and casing designed by Sir David Adjaye.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

“Maturing a single malt Scotch over eight decades is an art, similar in many ways to architecture where you are creating something that needs to stand the test of time,” commented Ewen Mackintosh, Managing Director at Gordon & MacPhail. “Both Sir David and Gordon & MacPhail share a commitment to invest in the future. We both see the significance of creating something exceptional; leaving a legacy for future generations.”

Adjaye with the crystal decanter

The British-Ghanian architect’s casing takes the form of a pavilion-like structure made from oak while the crystal decanter was hand-blown at Scotland’s Glencairn Crystal Studio with two cut lenses that magnify the liquid inside and a darkened oak top. “I wanted to create a design that pays tribute to the role oak plays in transforming liquid into an elixir with almost magical properties,” explained Adjaye.

Read more: Milk Honey Bees Founder Ebinehita Iyere on youth work & creativity

The highest bidder at auction will also receive one-of-one signed lithograph of Sir David’s original, concept drawings and a whisky tasting experience for four in London, conducted by Gordon & MacPhail’s Director of Prestige, Stephen Rankin and attended by Sir David Adjaye, in addition to the framed original cask head of Cask 340 which cradled the spirit for eight decades.

For more information, visit: gordonandmacphail.com, sothebys.com

Auctioneer Oliver Barker directing Sotheby’s global e-auctions. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

Following the announcement of Sotheby’s Cologne office, artnet’s Vice President and LUX columnist Sophie Neuendorf discusses shifting collecting habits and the potential for Germany to become a key player in the art world

The recent news that Sotheby’s is opening an office in Cologne, Germany has made waves internationally but also ruffled a few feathers within the German market. However, given the ramifications of Brexit, which is making import and export transactions much more cumbersome, it’s hardly a surprising decision. Christie’s has been steadily strengthening its presence Paris over the last few years and Amsterdam is much smaller in terms of buyer opportunities so the EU’s largest country in terms of size and economic strength seems the logical choice for Sotheby’s.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

According to the auction house, “German collectors remain essential to Sotheby’s business, featuring in the list of top ten countries most actively buying and selling in Sotheby’s sales for the past three years.” In this light, it’s hard to imagine that the aim of the opening is centred solely around the potential of new collectors, but what is of interest is the abundance of private collections in Germany, which provide ample opportunities for acquiring unique and unseen masterpieces.

Germany is renowned for its impressive history of supporting the arts, from fine arts to music or literature. Many of the most important art collections worldwide are located in Germany, and quite a few of these marvellous collections will be handed down to the next generation before too long.

Neuendorf Gallery pop art exhibition 1964 in Hamburg, Germany.

“The German art market is outstanding in Europe with its strong collectors on the one hand and its internationally sought-after artists on the other,” comments Alice von Seldeneck of Germany’s prestigious Lempertz auction house. “After Brexit and the uncertainties and costs associated with it, it was a logical conclusion to establish another foothold on the continent. We had expected this to happen much sooner.”

Read more: The art of cross-collecting by Philip Hewat-Jaboor

According to artnet data, German collectors have historically favoured Impressionist and Modern art, closely followed by Post War and Old Masters paintings. Now, these same categories are tied to tedious export rules and regulations, newly introduced by Germany’s culture minister (ostensibly to protect Germany’s cultural heritage), which are suppressing international trade. The fourth most popular collecting category is Contemporary Art, which is much easier to buy and sell internationally. With the rise of the new millennial generation of collectors, perhaps the German market is primed for a shift in wealth and collecting habits?

Infographic courtesy of artnet

Germany ranks 4th in terms of sales in western countries after the United States, the United Kingdom, and France (source: art net). “In 2020, 40% of German bidders were new to the company, while the number of German buyers in online sales tripled, ” revealed a spokesperson from Sotheby’s. With many of Europe’s hottest emerging artists flocking to Berlin, it’s only a matter of time until the country becomes a hot spot in terms of Contemporary and Ultra Contemporary art.

“Berlin is an ideal combination of a strong primary and secondary market with different generations of collectors,” says von Seldeneck. “The strong consignments from abroad show us how highly regarded the German art market is internationally.”

Infographic courtesy of artnet

The city is a place of inspiration for many creatives from around the world as reflected by the plethora of blue chip galleries that have recently opened in the German capital. Four of the world’s top earning artists – Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, and Frank Auerbach – are also Germany-based. But will this rise in popularity be reflected in actual sales and growth of the market?

Read more: The gastronomic delights of Suvretta House, Switzerland

According to Berlin-based gallerist and former BVDG (German Association of Galleries) board member Klaus Gerrit Friese, the entry of Sotheby’s into the German market is a testament to the country’s strength and potential for growth. “I’m very positive about the future of the German art market. The new generation of gallerists have developed radically new ideas about viewing and selling art, which goes hand in hand with the rise of millennial collectors. So, the real potential lies in the Contemporary and Ultra Contemporary market, where I have observed a lot of upward movement in Germany over the past few years,” he says.

While Germany seems primed to become one of the world’s most important countries in terms of both creativity and sales, it remains to be seen whether the coming generational change and shift in collecting preferences will propel the country into the upper echelons of the market.

Follow Sophie Neuendorf on Instagram: @sophieneuendorf

The Spirit of the Rose pink diamond, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s on 11 November

In celebration of an upcoming sale of an ultra-rare Russian pink diamond known as The Spirit of the Rose, Sotheby’s invited fashion editor Carine Roitfeld to style a contemporary ballet performance of the Ballets Russes’ acclaimed 1911 Le Spectre de la Rose. On the eve of the auction, Sotheby’s jewellery specialist Benoit Repellin discusses the historic relationship between jewellery and dance

‘Dance is an art and I think jewellery can also be seen as a form of art. As I generally say to clients, there are three things to look at when admiring a jewel or thinking of buying one at auction: nature, art and provenance. Nature being the quality of the stone; art being the jewel and the craftsmanship involved in the cutting of a stone or the making of a piece of jewellery; and provenance being the history of the piece.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

There are several links between the different worlds of art, fashion, dance and jewellery. Between 1909 and 1929, the Ballets Russes really engaged all the disciplines and brought together artists from the different fields to work on a ballet. It was a social phenomenon, and jewellery designers attended ballet performances and took inspiration from the movements, the costumes and the decors to bring new vocabulary and motifs into jewellery.

Carine Roitfeld (middle) with ballerinas Bianca Scudamore and Naïs Duboscq from Opera National de Paris

Charles Jacqueau, the main designer at Cartier, attended ballets, took details from the performances, inspiration from the dancers, the costumes, the colours, and translated them into amazing jewellery pieces. Van Cleef & Arpels took the motif of the ballerina and made brooches set with gemstones, in the late 1940s, and it is still one of their most popular design. I think the beauty and poetry of dance and jewellery are meant to be linked and it appeals to a lot of connoisseurs.’

The rough diamond was originally named Nijinksy after the ballet dancer. It was later renamed ‘The Spirit of the Rose’

‘The rough diamond mined in Russia in 2017 was named Nijinksy, a testimony and homage to one of the most famous Russian ballet dancer from the Ballets Russes company. The best-known performance and the one that’s most strongly associated with Valslav Nijinsky is Le Spectre de la Rose (The Spirit of the Rose), which premiered in Monte Carlo in 1911. This is the name Alrosa, the diamond company which mined and cut this exceptional, ‘fancy vivid’ purple-pink diamond, gave to the faceted stone.’

Read more: The Art of Listening with the APERIO Headphone System

‘The occurrence of pink diamonds in nature is extremely rare in any size. Only one per cent of all pink diamonds are larger than 10-carats and only four percent of all pink diamonds are graded ‘Fancy Vivid’ and display a rich, vivid colour. Having the opportunity to offer a large polished pink diamond of over 10-carats and with the richness of colour and purity of The Spirit of the Rose is, therefore, truly exceptional. The diamond’s character and immense presence is further enhanced by its oval shape. It is a truly mesmerising stone; a natural wonder, steeped in Russia’s century-long diamond tradition and cultural heritage.’

‘We’ve been wanting to work with Carine Roitfeld in some capacity at Sotheby’s for a while. A fashion icon and visionary creative, her voice was something that we wanted to bring to Sotheby’s in a way that would be disruptive and new. With this in mind, when the Spirit of the Rose came to us, we thought of Carine instantly. Not only is she half Russian, but she herself was once a dancer and her favourite ballet is in fact Le Spectre de la Rose, which was a favourite of Karl Lagerfeld’s as well. Bringing her eye and visual sensibility, we asked her to style Le Spectre de la Rose as a tribute to The Spirit of the Rose and to bring this magnificent diamond to life. It has not disappointed!’

Watch the teaser video of the ballet performance below:

The Sotheby’s live auction of ‘The Spirit of the Rose’ takes place on 11 November at 8:30 PM CET. To register and for more information visit: sothebys.com

Ornellaia 2017 Solare Vendemmia d’Artista 6 litre with label designs by Tomás Saraceno

This week, Italian wine producer Ornellaia opened its 12th annual online benefit auction in collaboration with Sotheby’s and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, featuring vintages with label designs by Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno. Chloe Frost Smith takes a closer look at the available lots

© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2019

This year’s auction continues Ornellaia’s Vendemmia d’Artista project, which commissions a different contemporary artist each year to create an artwork for a series of limited-edition labels. The artist is given a single word description of that year’s harvest by the estate director, Axel Heinz, as inspiration. Last year, Iranian artist Shirin Neshat responded to ‘La Tensione’ with a series of monochrome photographs, and this year, Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno has incorporated ‘Solare’ (‘radiant’ in English) into several aspects of his designs.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Renowned for his interactive installations that allude to new sustainable ways of living, Saraceno has created a striking set of labels which depict various phases of a solar eclipse for nine lots of Imperials, to be sold individually or in pairs. The auction’s most prestigious lot comes in the form of the Salmanazar sculpture, titled “PNEUMA 4.21×105”, an impressive 9-litre bottle of Ornellaia 2017 topped with a floating sphere anchored to the neck of the bottle. Reminiscent of the artist’s previous work on untethered flight, this celestial sculpture highlights the importance of the relationship between the Sun and the Earth, and of renewable resources more generally.

Ornellaia 2017 Solare Vendemmia D’Artista, with various designs by Tomás Saraceno including the Salmanazar sculpture (centre)

Not only embodying ‘Solare’ visually, the labels are a tangible take on the concept – made from thermochromic paper, which changes colour according to the heat of a person’s hand. This sensory detail invites reflection on the impact of humanity on the planet, in keeping with the wider issue of environmental sustainability which is at the heart of both Saraceno’s artistic ethos and Ornellaia’s production philosophy, which has long focused on self-sustaining ecosystems and precision agriculture.

Bringing a sense of completion to the auction, a unique vertical of the last six years of Ornellaia is available, in twelve 750ml bottles featuring the customised labels in a celebratory wooden case, alongside six Ornellaia Bianco magnums from the last three vintages.

The auction ends on 9 September 2020. Register via: sothebys.com/ornellaia 

Shirin Neshat at home in New York City

Shirin Neshat’s devastatingly striking art combines dream, reality and an undercurrent of anger and sadness. As a major retrospective of her work is held in Los Angeles, Millie Walton meets the artist at the launch of her collaboration with celebrated Italian winemaker Ornellaia, famous for its artist labels

Portrait photography of Shirin Neshat at home in New York by Maryam Eisler

Iranian-born filmmaker and artist Shirin Neshat sits demurely drinking a cup of coffee in the palatial breakfast room at Baglioni Hotel Luna in Venice. It’s the morning after the Sotheby’s auction at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection which saw the sale of limited-edition bottles of 2016 Ornellaia wine with Neshat’s label artwork. A total of $312,000 was raised, with all profits going to the Mind’s Eye programme, which was conceived by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to help blind people experience art through the use of other senses.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

The success of Neshat’s collaboration, following that of William Kentridge’s in 2018, was well deserving of late-night celebrations, but the artist is composed and alert, her jet-black hair scraped tightly back from her face, and her dark eyes lined with black kohl. It’s a look that would seem somewhat severe or even theatrical on most, but Neshat wears it with authenticity, grace and a sense of homeliness. She pulls up another chair close to hers so that I can hear what she’s saying over the clamour of the breakfast buffet and tells me that she’s been ordering coffee to her room each morning and is worried that Ornellaia will have to foot the bill. Given the sum raised last night along with Neshat’s status as the world’s most important and widely recognised contemporary Iranian artist, it’s hard not to laugh, but she speaks softly and sincerely, taking time to consider each of her answers and apologising when yet another admirer interrupts for an autograph. She has a lot of fans it seems, yet her politically engaged work continues to generate debate. She admits, “Some people dislike what I do. There are a lot of people who hate my work in Iran, but still it is discussed, so I think I’m relevant.”

Here and above: stills from Neshat’s video Rapture (1999)

Neshat was born in the city of Qazvin, north-west of Tehran, but left for California at the age of 17 to finish her schooling. Her training as an artist began with her undergraduate and masters degrees in fine art at the University of California, Berkeley. However, she abandoned art-making and moved from Los Angeles to New York in the early 1980s. It was a decade later, through photography first and then film, that she found her artistic vision. She has now been working as an artist for more than 30 years and has won numerous international awards, including the Golden Lion at the 1999 edition of the Venice Biennale for her powerful short film Turbluent, which explores gender roles and social restrictions in Iranian culture. The film plays out on two screens: one shows a male performer singing a love song by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi to a large audience of men, whilst on the other screen, a veiled woman waits in an empty auditorium, her back turned to the camera. When the man’s performance finishes, the woman begins a wordless song of guttural cries, mournful melodies, panting and animalistic screeching. This film was not only significant in establishing Neshat’s career, but also in paving the way for her succeeding works, which all, in one way or another, deal with the restrictions of female experience. Though embedded in narratives of conflict, Neshat’s work offers a sense of hope in which women find freedom through art in all its various guises.

Neshat’s designs for Ornellaia’s ‘La Tensione’ bottle label

Neshat with Ornellaia’s estate director Axel Heinz

Given these preoccupations, the artist’s decision to collaborate with Tuscan winemaker Ornellaia is somewhat baffling. “In our culture, wine is a way not to escape, but to transcend reality and so [drinking wine] is a sacred, spiritual act,” says Neshat. “But in general, I feel like an occasional step out of your own milieu is actually very positive. For one thing, it puts your work in front of a new audience, but also, for me, [commercial work] is an attractive way of financing my projects. I make work that takes me six years and I make zero money so I think that any patronage that finances your practice and gives you the freedom to do your work is great.” Her series of images for Ornellaia, interpreting the theme ‘La Tensione’ which gives this vintage its name, depict white hands inscribed with Persian script, luminous against a black background. The use of hands, along with literature and monochromatic shades are all typical of Neshat’s aesthetic and imbue the work with a haunting, dreamlike quality. “I’m very interested in the subtlety of body postures and how they can reveal emotion, especially coming from the Islamic tradition and how provocative and problematic the body can be,” she says. “There’s a certain universality about hand gestures.” She places one palm against her chest: “This, for example, could be love”.

Ibrahim (Patriots) from The Book of Kings series (2012) by Shirin Neshat

The work is reminiscent of Neshat’s first series of black-and-white photographs, entitled Women of Allah (1993–97), which was created following the artist’s return to Iran in 1990, her first visit following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. When Neshat arrived back in Iran, it was in the wake of dramatic cultural changes. Women of Allah not only marked the rebirth of her making art, but also her engagement with the country’s political landscape – an engagement which led to her current state of exile. The series focuses on female martyrdom, showing veiled women holding weapons, their faces, hands and feet again inscribed with Farsi poetry, highlighting the revolutionary Iranians’ dual identities as both Persians and radical Islamists, as well as the tension between devotion and violence.

Read more: Introducing the next generation of filmmakers at Frieze LA

Her practice continues to be preoccupied with contrasts, highlighted by the minimalism of black and white, but also with conflict. “There are plenty of artists whose making of art is an aesthetic exercise, which is important because it has intellectual and artistic values of the highest level,” she explains. “But for artists born to a country like Iran, the relationship to art is personal in a way that it cannot be separated from daily realities. I don’t think we have the emotional capability of distancing ourselves from these issues, and it is an incredibly fulfilling process when you make work that is politically conscious. It also means that you have a relationship with an audience that is larger than the [usual] art audience because people are able to identify with the subject matter.”

Despite Neshat’s acute political engagement, her work has a sense of timelessness achieved by incorporating literature and music as well as elements of the surreal. “Music is very existential,” she says. “It sort of neutralizes a political reality, but it also contains all these cultural references and has a strong physical impact. Powerful music affects your heart.” This is perhaps most apparent in Turbulent, which was inspired by a young blind woman who Neshat saw singing on the streets of Istanbul. Many of her works have involved collaborations with composers and musicians as well as writers and cinematographers. “It’s an essential part of my work to collaborate, especially with people who know me and my work well,” she says. “I’m doing a lot of work in media that I never studied. It’s been really interesting to surround myself with people who have the expertise.”

The artist in her studio

Neshat’s artistic ‘family’ is international, but she has gravitated towards other Iranians in New York: “I am sitting on the outside [of Iranian culture], others are by choice and others not; either way, we’re naturally drawn to each other and spend a lot of time helping each other. I do feel integrated in American culture as far as the artwork goes, but I can also see the limitations of not being Western, when your practice is considered to be a little bit outside the box.” Reflecting this duality, Neshat curated ‘A Bridge Between You and Everything’, an exhibition of Iranian women artists held at the High Line Nine Galleries in New York in November 2019.

Raven Brewer-Beltz (2019) by Shirin Neshat

Neshat has called New York her home for many years, but her latest project, Land of Dreams, is the first time that she has directly turned her artistic attention towards the US. The project explores her experiences of being an immigrant, focusing on an Iranian woman who collects dreams that portray American people and takes them back to an Iranian colony for analysis. The project is now being shown for the first time as part of Neshat’s major retrospective ‘I Will Greet the Sun Again’ at The Broad in LA, and one wonders at the colony’s interpretations. “It’s kind of an absurd comedy,” she laughs, “but it was also [about] how to tackle a very important political subject – the antagonism between the two cultures as well as the corruption on both sides – through a human surrealism so that it escapes absolute realism. I want it to be timely, but I don’t want it to have no value in a hundred years’ time.” Are these surreal imaginings ever drawn from Neshat’s own dreams? “Yes, I try to write down my dreams every time I wake up. I like how ephemeral dreams are. My work is like the story that comes after.”

‘Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again’ is on show at The Broad, Los Angeles until 16 February 2020: thebroad.org.

Shirin Neshat ‘Land of Dreams’ opens at the Goodman Gallery in London on 20 February and will run until 28 March 2020. For more information visit: goodman-gallery.com

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue.

Iranian artist Shirin Neshat’s label designs on display at the closing ceremony of the Ornellaia auction at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

Italian wine producer Ornellia’s 11th annual online benefit auction in collaboration with Sotheby’s and the Solomon. R. Guggenheim museum, featured vintages with label designs by Iranian artist Shirin Neshat. Digital Editor Millie Walton recalls the closing ceremony at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

Photography by James Houston

Gliding along the Venetian canals as the sun sets is one of those rare moments when real-life seems to align with cinema. More than a couple of times during the evening, as we stood in the courtyard and then, on rooftop of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection sipping glasses of Ornellaia vintage, someone compared the evening’s scene to La Grande Bellezza. We were invited though, not just for the wine, views and glamorous company, but to celebrate the funds raised by the Sotheby’s conducted auction of Ornellaia in support of the Mind’s Eye Program at the Solomon. R. Guggenheim Museum.

Guests watching the final few minutes of the online auction projected onto a screen

One of Neshat’s label designs

The auction is part of the Italian wine producer’s Vendemmia d’Artista project, which each year, commissions a different contemporary artist to create an artwork for a series of limited-edition labels. The artist is give a single word description of that year’s harvest as the starting point. For Shirin Neshat, the prompt was “La Tensione” (or tension in English).

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Known for her iconic monochrome aesthetic and poetic vision, the Iranian artist produced a haunting series of photographs of luminous white hands captured in various postures and inscribed with Persian script. These images became labels for bottles of the 2016 vintage, which were auctioned in 11 unique lots, the most coveted of which included a visit to the Ornellaia vineyard and a luxurious overnight stay.

Artist Shirin Neshat, who produced a series of monochrome photographs for the Italian wine producer

Following a series of speeches from various team members at Ornellaia and Neshat herself, the auctioneer called an end to the bidding, announcing an impressive total of $312.000.

For more information on Ornellaia Vendemmia d’Artista visit: ornellaia.com/en/vendemmia-d-artista

Installation view of the ‘What’s Up’ exhibition curated by Lawrence Van Hagen in Hong Kong

Lawrence Van Hagen set out to start a travel tech company, and somewhere along the way, ended up curating a successful series of art exhibitions dedicated to supporting emerging artists. Now, Van Hagen runs LVH art, a business dedicated to helping clients navigate the international art market. Here, we speak to the entrepreneur about his unexpected career path, his favourite places to see art and how to start building a collection.

Lawrence Van Hagen

1. Can you tell us more about the What’s Up exhibitions and how you found yourself in the role of curator?

I started a travel start-up and in order to raise funds for it I decided to curate an art show. I wanted to curate a show since my family is in the arts. My mother has her own art foundation, collects, curates exhibitions and writes books on art. We decided to curate a show called What’s Up based on what’s up today in the art world with a focus on artists to look out for, whether they are young or established. We had the first show in Soho, New York with two spaces, 50 artists and 100 artworks. The next show turned out to be even more successful than the first.

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

We have now had shows in New York, London, Hong Kong and Seoul. I work closely with my mother. It’s more my project, but my mother gives me a huge amount of advice and help. It is nice to be able to bounce ideas off one another. The good thing about working with family is trust, you know for sure with family. My mother has kind of been my mentor and taught me what I know today since I didn’t go to art school. However, since I was a kid I was immersed in the arts and always lived with art which led me to start started collecting at a young age.

2. Do you see yourself as a mediator between established and new artists?

A big thing I do with the shows is I tend to bring emerging artists or mid-career contemporary artists together with very well known names. I blend them and create a dialogue between both. I find similarities in inspiration, historical aspects, colours or medium between the established and emerging artists. I do the shows this way since I think that it is interesting and I believe that in order to attract people to a show with emerging artists, you need work by household names as well. Also, when you have younger artists at a show, it keeps the older generation more current. This way of curating shows has enabled me to have a client base from 20 to 80 years old. The older collectors have the most amazing collection of well known artists but now consider acquiring work by a young artist from the shows. I have noticed that the public enjoys shows set up this way.

3. Do you buy art for its beauty or as an investment?

My taste is very classic, I tend to focus on art that is more beautiful than conceptual. However, one thing I tell everyone including myself is to focus on buying what one likes. Whether it is beautiful work or not, it is important to know that you love the work. Second, it’s important to consider investment. For me, it’s a factor of the acquisition in my collection. If it is a very young artist, I tend to not look at it. However if I spend a certain amount of money, it has to have an investment purpose. I will not just spend a big amount of money on something I like, it has to also be of value and something I believe in. One thing to know about the shows I do is that many of the artists we showcase are artists that my mother and I collect. I love to promote the artists from my shows. Lastly, it is more important for people to find what they like, than to have an advisor tell them if what they like will be a good investment.

Artworks featured in one of the ‘What’s Up’ by artists Franz West, Stefan Bruggemann and Lucio Fontana

4. Which artists’ work do you have at home?

I have a selection of young and old artists. I have beautiful work by Georg Baselitz, who is a well known German painter and sculptor. I have two works by a young artist Donna Huanca, who is based in Berlin. She is an incredible artist, who just did a show at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna. In my entrance, I have a work from the 90s by the American artist Robert Rauschenberg. I have work by Sean Scully, Stefan Bruggemann, Stanley Whitney and George Smith. In the bedroom, I have a beautiful 60s Kenneth Noland. There’s a lot more too.

In my house, I mainly have contemporary work, but with simple classic older artists. Most of the younger artists are a part of my collection and the other work is from my mother. I tend to borrow as well. I always move the artwork around in my flat to create a different aesthetic. I am lucky because the ceilings in my apartment are very high which is rare in London, so I can hang up 3 metre work. It is important for me to keep a lot of art in my house since it is my passion and profession, and I also throw dinner parties where friends come over and they can see what I do. A few pieces of art makes a big difference to a home.

5. Best place to see art in London?

It depends what type of art you are looking for. In terms of galleries, if you want to see more established artists or big shows, all the major galleries from David Zwirner and Gagosian Gallery in New York to Simon Lee in London are great. In London, if you want younger artists, it is good to go to the east end or south of London where you have Carlos Ishikawa and Emalin gallery. When it comes to museums, my favourites are Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery for contemporary art. Tate Britain and Royal Academy are also great. Auction houses always have incredible work. If you are not looking for a curated show and you just want to see beautiful paintings, I would recommend the private view before sale at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips. The auction houses have anything from contemporary to established and renaissance pieces. Lastly, to be honest the number one place to see art in London is in people’s homes. Often artists have incredible work in their homes since they trade with people they know.

6. As travel was your first business venture, what’s your next destination?

My next big trip is to Indonesia. I want to visit the Raja Ampat Islands on New Guinea. I also want to see the Komodo Islands with the Komodo dragon when I am there as it is close by. I travel every week as it is part of my work and I love it. I get to see many beautiful places on work trips, however it is still work for me. Therefore, my personal travels are very meaningful and I like to travel quite far to experience something different. My last big trip was to the North Pole. I like to do adventure trips. I am not a very resort-y person, but I always make sure the adventures are mixed with comfort. If anyone needs a travel guide, I am the guy to ask!

Follow Lawrence Van Hagen on Instagram: @lawrencevh

Interview by Andrea Stenslie

‘Atelier’ (2014). Thomas Demand.

German photographer Thomas Demand has become celebrated for his compelling, sometimes shocking, abstract recreations of the everyday. He talks to Anna Wallace-Thompson about the homogenization of our worlds, finding power in the banal, and Saddam Hussein’s kitchen.

Thomas Demand

There’s a particular moment of calm – let’s call it suspended time – when things have settled down while still retaining the memory of the movement that filled them a split second before. Think of the moment when that last dust mote finally settled after drifting down a shaft of light, or the ghostly echoes of the last flutter of a piece of paper as it relaxes into place. Or when you don’t know if the door just slammed shut or is about to burst open. Or sensing the presence of people only through their absence. That’s the moment German photographer Thomas Demand is interested in.

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

In fact, at first glance, Demand’s photographs appear simply to be snaps of ordinary places, unremarkable for their sameness, from half-empty supermarket shelves to a bath awaiting its occupant. (This is something that struck him about modern urban spaces, particularly when he first arrived in the US.) Yet, these seemingly humble snaps of everyday situations have earned him a place in the collections of international institutions such as the Guggenheim and MoMA. At auction, his works have sold for more than $100,000 at Christie’s, and he was included in the sale of Mario Testino’s personal collection at Sotheby’s, alongside luminaries such as Wolfgang Tillmans, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman.

‘Hanami’ (2014). Thomas Demand

So what is it about these seemingly everyday snaps that has everybody so hooked? Well, further examination reveals each portrait to be a meticulously built paper recreation. Yes, paper. Working in often quite large dimensions, Demand reconstructs the most complex real- life scenarios out of the humblest of materials. They are perfect – or rather, perfectly imperfect, for at the heart of Demand’s work is an interest in the world as a filtered rendering – that is, the paradox of examining past moments through the lens of the present – and even then, through a canny reconstruction of that original moment. “Perfection and beauty are very often seen as interchangeable,” says Demand. “However, if something is too perfect, then it becomes sterile.” And so, working from found photographs of banal scenes (be they supermarket aisles, hotel rooms or office interiors), Demand meticulously reconstructs these tableaux out of paper – warts and all. It is these sculptural paper sets – often quite large in scale – that he then photographs, imbuing the finished image with such an uncanny realism that the eye is often fooled into believing it is looking at the ‘real deal’.

‘Folders’ (2017)

“What I have been doing over the years is replacing the time frame of the [original] photograph with another time frame, which is no less a point in time,” explains Demand when we speak. “The original scenario in the media photograph may no longer be there to look at – although it may be from an event that is still in our short or long-term memory, depending on when it was taken. What I suppose you can see in my work is a paradox of time standing still that is both my own fragile paper construction (complete with all the little imperfections and details of ‘reality’) as much as it is a memory of the moment captured in the original photograph.” The sense of transience in Demand’s work is further compounded by the fact that he often discards the sculpture itself (and, in fact, originally began photographing them purely for the purposes of documentation).

‘Rainbow’ (2018)

In person, Demand is more tidy professor than wild-child artist, his neatly trimmed hair and beard perfectly in sync with his nifty vest and jacket. Get him talking, however, and you can almost hear the thoughts galloping inside his head. When he gets going, he talks a mile a minute, as if the thoughts inside him were moving faster than his ability to articulate them. They tumble out almost in a stream of consciousness, except just when you think he might be going off on a tangent, like a master conductor, Demand deftly brings all the threads together, eloquently and precisely articulating his point.His powers of observation, too, are key to the vision behind the work. Growing up in Munich in the 1960s and 70s, it was when Demand visited the GDR that he first began to pay attention to the power of mass production (or, in the case of the GDR, the lack thereof), and Warhol’s Brillo boxes, for example, remain a key influence: “I grew up in Munich, which is in West Germany, which had plenty of everything.”

Read more: Why we love the New Perlée creations by Van Cleef & Arpels 

As a young artist, travels and study followed – Düsseldorf, Paris, and Goldsmiths in London – as well as the US (he is now based in both LA and Berlin). During this time he began to notice what he refers to as global “homogenization” – a hospital ward in one part of the world looks very much like it does anywhere else, for example, and, with our mass-produced products – be they Nike trainers or even the Tupperware found in Saddam Hussein’s kitchen – we are more united than we think. “When they found Saddam, and showed the photographs, there were so many remarkably recognisable objects,” says Demand. “In one way, it’s the devil’s lair, but in another, it’s possible to see it in parts as your own kitchen. Maybe it’s a little dirtier, but he had the same objects as you and me.” The resulting work – Küche/Kitchen (2004) – could truly be a picture of a kitchen anywhere. “It’s funny how far objects circulate worldwide: you look at photographs of upheavals in Africa and people are wearing the T-shirts of a local bank in Texas, or plastic sandals made in China and marketed in California can end up in Ethiopia. I am fascinated by how the everyday links us to other cultures, from the pervasive blue computer screens that illuminate of office buildings out of hours, or the industrial slickness of an airport.”

‘Küche/ Kitchen’ (2004)

‘Daily #16’ (2011)

As well as the tableaux of media images that he is known for, Demand has experimented with more intimate scenes familiar to social media. The ongoing ‘Dailies’ series begun in 2008 features an ashtray, a plastic cup shoved into a chain link fence, or even a leaf about to fall through a sewer grate. “I was looking at doing something shorter and easier,” he says. “We all have cell phones in our pockets, and the images being circulated are now private photos – subjective little notes that might not make the news, but are still a form of communication and a culture in itself.”

Read more: In conversation with Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson

These ‘smaller’ works also offer a welcome break from larger and more ambitious set- ups. “In a good year I can make five works, but in a bad one just one,” sighs Demand. “Also, working occasionally with a team of 30 people means that if you’re two months into a particular set up, it’s too late to stop, so you keep going until it works, there’s no way around it.” For example, the work Lichtung/ Clearing Demand created for the 2003 edition of the Venice Biennale took months to get just right due to it being displayed en plein air, and therefore needed to be in some harmony with its verdant surroundings, the challenge being that the Venetian foliage kept changing with the seasons while the image was being built.

‘Daily #15’ (2011)

They leave things open – can you imagine how they might they be reused for something else?” This is particularly evident in pieces such as Rainbow (2018), part of ‘Model Studies’, in which abstract circular shapes in a range of yellows, oranges and reds hint at the full potential of the building they might perhaps one day have been, yet also present themselves as abstract colourscapes.

Most recently, Demand has had a major monograph published. The Complete Papers presents a survey of his work over three decades, and proved to be both a challenge as well as something of an eye opener, as he was able to see an evolution in his work that he had never noticed before. “I thought I was pretty organised, but it turns out there were so many pieces I’d forgotten about – and now that the book is out, there are so many more pieces I realise I would still need to add,” he laughs. “I can see that my work, since the beginning, has been moving slowly towards abstraction, though photography and abstraction can be a bit of a bad marriage in that photography, by its very nature, is figurative.” So what’s the endgame? “If my work were to become too abstract then it would all become a pointless exercise. To be something, the image has to stay on the very edge of nearly becoming something.”

Find out more: thomasdemand.info

This article was originally published in the Summer 19 Issue.

Five Château Mouton Rothschild vintages will be included in the “Versailles Celebration Cases”

Throughout Spring 2019, Sotheby’s will auction 75-limited edition cases from Château Mouton Rothschild to help fund restoration projects at the Palace of Versailles

Renowned French wine producer Château Mouton Rothschild  is auctioning 75 collector’s cases each featuring five vintages with labels designed by contemporary artists who have also exhibited at the Palace of Versailles, including Giuseppe Penone, Bernar Venet, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons and Lee Ufan. Aptly titled the “Versailles Celebration Cases”, funds raised will go towards supporting the ongoing restoration projects at the Palace.

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

Château de Versailles. Photo by Thomas Garnier, Courtesy Château de Versailles

The auction will begin in Sotheby’s Hong Kong on 1 April, followed by London on 17 April and concluding in New York on 4 May. Successful bidders will also win an invitation to a private tasting at Château Mouton Rothschild, as well as two tickets to the Versailles Celebration Gala Dinner at the Palace of Versailles in September where ex-cellar vintages of Château Mouton Rothschild will be served.

Discover Château Mouton Rothschild’s full list of collaborating artists and labels: https://www.chateau-mouton-rothschild.com/label-art/discover-the-artwork

Three paintings by Russian artist Erik Bulatov in his 2015 show ‘Bot’ at de Pury de Pury in London

The time is right for the art auction world to embrace the new digital technologies and take auctions online. That is the way to tap the vast reserves of potential new buyers, says our columnist Simon de Pury

Conceptually, I find myself fascinated by what is happening in the online world within the art market. This is a market that has been the most resistant of any to the digital revolution. And the likely cause of this is that it’s in nobody’s interest, in terms of the market’s key players, to make any changes to the way the system works.

But progress cannot be postponed forever. We have seen the rise of a number of companies that have focused on the online side of the art world. The pioneer of all of them, artnet.com, started 27 years ago with a price guide for artists’ works. For having information at your fingertips, they were the pioneer. Then you have companies in the auction space such as Artsy, Paddle8 (which recently merged with another online auction company, Auctionata) and Artspace which is also doing online auctions. The main auction houses also have an online side to their business.

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

The difficulty that the main bricks-and-mortar houses have is that the minute they have a really exciting collection or group of works, their own specialists will fight to have it in their main sales rather than seeing it go to the houses’s online business. So already they effectively have internal competition built in.

Recently I teamed up with Arnaud Massenet, a co-founder with his ex-wife Nathalie Massenet of Net-a-Porter. Arnaud is a passionate collector with a strong interest in art, and so we have put on a number of auctions which we have held online with our company, de Pury de Pury. I also conducted the three first annual benefit auctions for the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. The first two were bricks-and-mortar auctions at which we raised $26m and $40m respectively. With the third one, which we did both live and with an online component, we raised $48m for the foundation. There were challenges such as having to develop a site that could handle the massive increase of traffic you can expect if you have a project involving a celebrity of the stature of DiCaprio. It was a good stress test for the online infrastructure. We have also used a mix of live and online sales for benefit auctions such as for the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.

Right now we believe in this hybrid model, but when you sell art works of quality, and when you put sales together that have been curated, you have to give the chance to potential buyers, if they wish, to see the works physically. You cannot just dispense altogether with offering that possibility to your potential purchasers. The approach is very much to have a stunningly staged physical exhibition, and at the same time, as enticing as possible an experience for the user who will participate solely online.

When you buy and sell artworks at a price range between $10k and $2m at auction with the main houses, you have to leave quite a considerable amount on the table in terms of the buyer’s premiums that need to be paid – 25% on top of the hammer price. Surely for works in that price bracket there must be a more efficient way of selling art, which should eventually put pressure on the commissions.

While the very top end of the market will always be about privileged personal relationships rather than internet sales, I believe that over the next two to five years we will witness a big transformation of the art market, involving a massive increase of its online component.

Read next: The greatest tasting of Masseto in history

At the moment, when you look at an auction online you have a very static image of the auctioneer and the experience is rather boring. This could quite easily be made to be much more lively, fun and animated to engage those who might bid from their office, home or swimming pool or from wherever they are following the sale. This will no doubt happen very soon. Online auctions will become a little more like some of the talk shows on American television, which are live and where you have a studio audience. Having an audience creates the atmosphere that comes across when you watch the programme, with laughing, cheering and clapping, so making it more of a show.

This is not so much of a radical transformation as some people may think. The big auctions now are packed with people filling the sales room, but as soon as you get above a certain price level most of the action takes place on the telephone. You just have the trade and some collectors who want to follow the market closely who remain in the room. So the challenge is to convey the atmosphere of what is happening and the mood of the room. The more successfully you can convey this, the easier it will be for people to get that feel without physically being there.

Photographs from Mario Testino’s show ‘Heat’ at the Dubai Design District, 2016

A key element is trust. The reason why some online auction companies have not been successful yet is that there is no trust in their expertise or track record. It is essential that such a record is established so that trust develops. A lot will be down to curating: at the moment online art and auction sites just have too much content, and need to have a clear curatorial vision. Once a track record for both buying and selling is established, it becomes much easier, because before that point is reached, you have to make ten times the effort for a tenth of the result. From my 16 years at Sotheby’s, I know that when you work for one of the main players of the duopoly [Sotheby’s and Christie’s], 80 to 90 per cent of the interesting works automatically cross your desk. You just have to make sure that you win slightly more often than you lose. What you lose gets sold by the other auction house. It is difficult for a newcomer in the online world to crack that.

Certain genres of work such as editions, prints and photographs lend themselves to online sales because, while you still need to get a condition report, you will likely have already seen works from that edition so know exactly what they look like. The minute you venture into genres where uniqueness plays a role, such as paintings or other one-off artworks, it changes. Also, the borders between various categories of contemporary culture are breaking down, so architecture, cinema, fashion and music now all cross over with art. We will have many more collaborations between these categories and the internet lends itself to this situation, as breaking down these barriers is done so much more easily online than in the bricks-and-mortar world.

The entry point of the internet is much less forbidding to those who fear crossing the threshold into the art world. It is much less intimidating than going into an auction house and brings many new potential buyers to the market. In one year, the number of individual clients at one of the big auction houses may be around 20,000 – that is an estimate, but in any case it’s a very small number and shows you how that the art market has a massive potential to grow. There is a very small group of individuals who are willing to pay $100m, or more, on a single work. There are slightly more people who are willing to pay $50m on a single work. Further down the scale, you have more people still who are willing to pay $10m, and many players at $1m. There is a huge number of people who do not collect or buy at all and who have no interest, to date, in spending part of their wealth on art. That suggests that the potential growth of the auction market is substantial, and new technologies are the best way to enlarge that art-buying public.

Simon de Pury is an art auctioneer and collector and the founder of de Pury de Pury
 depurydepury.com

By Darius Sanai
Editor in Chief

Starting on Friday November 25, around 480 supercars and classics will be up for sale in Milan at the RM Sotheby’s Duemila Route (“two thousand wheels”) auction. But it’s not the just the quantity of stock or the lack of a reserve that has excited collectors and dealers from around the world: it’s the quality and variety of the collection.

From a single owner whose business assets were seized by the Italian government, the sale is of a connoisseur’s collection of some of the most exciting and prized cars of the past 40 years, including a phenomenal selection of the hottest market category right now, so-called “modern classics”. The collection is short on the prewar Bentleys and 1950s Jaguars that might have made up a classic collection in the past; instead, it features some of the hottest cars of the modern era.

Read next: Mercedes-Benz launches new book with Condé Nast

The star of the show may be a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB/6c Alloy, estimated at more than 2.5 million euros (although, hypothetically, if nobody else bids, it could be yours for a fraction of that). However much of the attention has been focused on more modern cars. These include one of a handful of Ferrari 599 Fioranos made with a manual transmission instead of the much more common paddle-shift; a rare Ferrari 575 Maranello with the same transmission; two Porsche 911 GT2s from the ‘996’ model designation, considered the last of the raw driving experience Porsches; a Ferrari F512M, the final, rarest, most powerful and desirable of the Testarossa series of the 1980s and 1990s; and many more, including rally cars from Lancia, a desirable ‘plexi’ Ferrari Daytona, and a 25th Anniversary edition of the legendary Lamborghini Countach, designed by Horacio Pagani, who later went on to found the Pagani supercar brand.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”7″ gal_title=”rm sothebys”]

The collection of the unfortunate, bankrupted collector was as broad as it is deep, with cars for fans of every marque and at every price level: if fast BMWs are your thing, there is a brace of original BMW M3s, a M635 CSi and an original M Coupe. There are Porsches from 1970 to 2007 (a 997 GT3 RS).

Read next: Salvatore Ferragamo on Tuscan indulgence

“It’s an extraordinary selection – there is every Porsche 911 you can imagine, for example,” says Alain Squindo, COO of RM Sothebys. “It was amassed relatively discreetly, the collection was not known about before. What’s particularly interesting about this auction is that it highlights what’s particularly appealing to new collectors, 30 and 40 year olds coming into the car world. They are not interested in prewar grand sedans: instead we have sporting high performance stuff, Porsche 911s, Lancia Integrales, Alfas, Astons, thrilling high horsepower stuff.” It’s the sheer quantity that fascinates, he points out: there are two fibreglass Ferrari 308s, four Ferrari Testarossas (all red).

Squindo says most of the cars are “cosmetically pristine” while emphasising that RM Sotheby’s hasn’t had time to inspect them all and that bidders need to look carefully at the particulars in the catalogue. If your newly acquired Ferrari 400i doesn’t work, there’s no comeback.

Still, for a collector of modern classics, the atmosphere will be of a child in a sweetshop. The world’s biggest sweetshop. Just don’t get carried away. Now, I’m going to look at one of those Ferraris…

rmsothebys.com/tv16/duemila-ruote/

Ronald Ventura is already a record breaker. When his piece, ‘Grayground’ went on sale at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings auction in Hong Kong in April last year, the result astounded onlookers. Met by a whirlwind of bids, the piece sold for $1.1 million, the highest for Sotheby’s in its bracket. A year later and now back in Hong Kong, Ventura opened his solo show “Voids and Cages” at Galerie Perrotin this spring. Combining disconnected imagery and references, his work is a mixture of traditional craft and tales, informed by a wide array of artistic inspirations from old masters to Japanese anime and horror films. Ventura, who one days hopes to open a contemporary art museum in Manila, has recently begun the painful business of buying his own art – which is appreciating rapidly in value – back from buyers for his own collection. Today, he holds on to one piece from each solo exhibition so he won’t be stung again. With his work in high demand from solo shows across America, Europe and all of Asia, Ventura is one to watch, particularly for aficionados of southeast Asian art, which is growing in influence each week.