WOUNDED ART MARKET SHOWS SIGNS OF LIFE

       Quick sales at decent prices at this month's contemporary art fairs in London and Paris indicate the market bouncing back from trauma but still not a pretty picture, experts said.
       "The market is down but not out. Volumes and values are down, but there is a renewed confidence and a renewed spirit," said Georgina Adam of The Art Newspaper.
       Held consecutively over four days each in the two art capitals, the Frieze and FIAC fairs comprising hundreds of the world's top contemporary-art galleries wound up proving that bidders were still being lured by cutting-edge art.
       FIAC organisers said its many deals were a "sign there is market confidence" while Frieze noted "renewed confidence in the contemporary art market."
       Those claims will be tested at this week's New York auctions, which kick off today.
       After months of trauma that saw auctions shrivel, fairs cancelled and prices nosedive, Zurich-and-London gallery Hauser and Wirth sold a Louise Bourgeois sculpture at Frieze for 2.4 million euros (Bt118.5 million), while New York's David Zwirner pocketed 680,000 euro for a Neo Rauch.
       At the FIAC, New York's Sharstedt Gallery sold a Cindy Shermann photo for over a million euros and Paris-Nekw York's Yvon Lambert sold a Jenny Holzer for over 300,000 euro.
       "It's much better than last year, the market is healtheir," said lambert.
       The crisis was affecting collectors, said private French buyers Marc and Josee Gensollen. "We have to make sacrifices, but some of us choose not to sacrifice art."
       "However, negotiating the price has become easier," he said.
       In the mid-2000s, contemporary art - works by artists born after 1945- saw a boom that sent prices soaring 85 per cent from 2002 to 2008, with 620 per cent more works sold at over a million euros in the same period, according to artprice.com.
       The party ended in last year's economic turmoil, driving prices down 27 per cent as billionaies and banks fell off the map, and finance from museums, funds and corporations melted away.
       "The worst months were between last November and April. It was a terrible period," Adam said.
       "Things have picked up since the Art Basel fair in June. There are buyers, but prices are down a lot," she said.
       Last month, the world's top-grossing artist Damien Hirst scooped an Asian record of 13.37 million Hong Kong dollars (Bt57.7 million) at auction with "Tranquillity" (thousands of dead butterflies laid out in a circular mosaic) - though it fell short of its estimate.
       Betting on the appeal novelty to counter the overriding gloom, London's avant-garde Frieze fair this year launched a new section titled Frame, where 29 galleries less than six years old showcased emerging talent from lesser-known territories.
       FIAC on the other hand put the accent on blue-chip galleries and blue-chip talent.
       It featured a specially designed show of modern art bringing together 25 museum-quality 20th century works. Among them was a Mondrian titled "Composition with Blue, Red and Yellow", estimated at US$35 million (Bt1.17 billion) and said to be the most valuable in private hands. It was on hold for a private collector last weekend.
       Lesser-known avant-garde creations possibly took longer to seel, but many on display found buyers.
       "I think there is a new generation of collectors and a new public for contemporary art," said Chantal Crousel of the eponymous Paris gallery, which sold half of its works on show at the FIAC, for prices ranging from 550 euro to 300,000 euro.
       "There are people out there who want to live in the times and who want art that reflects the times."