Art Market: Tidbits From Fall Auctions 2025 @ Sotheby`s New York

 

(Drivebycuriosity) -  It`s November again and the world`s largest auction houses have their annual huge fall auctions in Manhattan.  This post focuses on the auction galleries  @ Sotheby`s (sothebys).

They had moved from the banks on the East River to Madison Avenue, close to Central Park. For financial reasons they gave up their huge tower and squeezed their administration and the auction galleries into the smaller Breuer Building, famous for its "Brutalist" architecture.  

Unfortunately the new location and apparently a huge buzz on Instagram and other social media attracted quite a crowd and I had to stand in line about 30 minutes to be allowed in, the first time at any auction gallery visit. There were no crowds at Christie`s & Phillips, who had their autumn auctions as well. The crowd, apparently steered by influencers on Instagram and other social media, clustered in some rooms and made them barely accessible, but many remarkable works, including some Magrittes, were ignored. 

Anyway - as usual - quality & quantity of the displayed art works were overwhelming and admission was free. I display here just my favorites, a very subjective selection. 

I start the post with 2 works by Mark Tansey. I have been a sucker for his surreal compositions for a while. The first image is called "The Myth of Depth". Their website explains: “The artist transposes the biblical miracle of Christ walking on water into a contemporary drama of twentieth-century art history, recasting its spiritual protagonists as the champions of Abstract Expressionism and its theoretical apostles. The daring Christ figure becomes Jackson Pollock, striding audaciously across the rippling teal surface, while in the lifeboat to the left, Clement Greenberg lectures an uneasy congregation of Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and Arshile Gorky".   

The second image is called "Nature´s Ape". Fortunately both paintings didn`t get the attention of the Instagram crowd.

 

                          Concealed Orgies 

 

Above this paragraph follows another favorite of mine: Dorothea Tanning with "Interior with Sudden Joy". I discovered her surreal worlds at show at London`s Tate Modern in Summer 2019 (driveby ).  

 

Cecily Brown likes to paint concealed orgies. Above you can study her "High Society". I had enjoyed her exhibition at Paul Cooper gallery in 2017 ( driveby).

 

 

Above are 2 of René Magritte`s masterpieces: "La Représentation" & "Le Symbole Dissimulé". 

 

Above follow Neo Rauch with "Production"  & Huddon Sundbloom with "Around the Corner from Everywhere".

 

I also admire Andrew Wyeth´s realist paintings: Above his "East Waldoboro". 

 

Aren`t they cute? Maurice Dennis`"L'ORATORIO POUR 'L'ÉTERNEL PRINTEMPS" 

 

Carlos Enriquez`s "Banistas" remind me August Macke and other representants of German Expressionism. 

 

                               Bohemian Life 

 

Above you can see Pierre Auguste Renoir`s  "Femme Nue` Assise"; Paul Devoux`s "Composition"; Phillip Pearlstein`s "Nude on Kilim Rug"  & Hans Bellmer`s "Les Bas Raves".

 

And last but not least Richard Overstreet`s "Scenes from Bohemian Life - No. 5". 
 

Stay tuned

 

Economics: Was China`s One-Child Policy Really So Bad?

(Drivebycuriosity) - There is much lamentation about China`s One-Child-Per Family policy. Was it really so bad?

"China's one-child policy significantly influenced population growth by dramatically slowing it. The policy, implemented in 1979 and ending in 2016, is credited by the Chinese government with preventing an estimated 400 million births.", says Google´s AI (google ).

We don´t know how accurate the official numbers are. But if China had kept the original population growth the country today might have some hundred million people more. A higher population growth might have led to more economic growth, but not very much because the construction of the necessary infrastructure (railways, streets, energy plants etc. ) got already stressed. So, without the One-Child policy China would have to feed more people; as a result the incomes per capita (GDP divided by population size) and living standards would be lower. Would the Chinese be happier?

If China today would have a far larger population, the country would emit even more greenhouse gases, making the global warming issue even more severe. 

If China would have continued an unconstrained population growth the country would today consume more oil, more rice, pork, more of everything. The global prices of oil, rice, pork and many other commodities might be higher today and slowing global growth.

It seems that China did the world a favor. We should be grateful for that! 

Art Market: Tidbits From Fall Auctions 2025 @ Christie`s

 (Drivebycuriosity) - It`s November again and the world`s largest auction houses have their annual huge fall auctions in Manhattan. This post focuses on the auction galleries @ Christie`s (christies). As usual quality & quantity of the displayed art works was overwhelming and admission is free. I display here just my favorites, a very subjective selection as usual.

 

On top of this post you can see David Hockney`s "Christopher Isherwood and Don Barchady" (acrylic on canvas 83 ½/2 x 119 ½ in. (212 × 303.5 cm.) followed by Francis Bacon`s violent lover Lucian Freud with "The Painter Surprised by a Naked Admirer" & Genieve Figgis`"Sunday Tee in the Garden".

 

Above this paragraph follow Rudolf Bauer`s huge nipple "Composition with Red Circle" & Firelei Báez`s "Untitled ((Colonization in America, Visual History Wall Map, Prepared by Civic Education Service).

 

                         Consent S&M? 

 

Artists like to provoke: Maurizio Cattelan`s "Untitled" (2007, resin, paint, human hair, clothing, packing tissue, wood and screws). A crime scene or consent S&M? Anyway I spotted this girl already at Christie´s Spring Auction in 2017 (driveby ) & Takashi Murakami`s "Miss Ko (Project Ko)".

 

Above you can see Cecily Brown`s "It`s not yesterday any more" & Adrian Ghenie´s "Bogeyman".

 

Then follow George Condo`s "Untitled" & John Currin`s "Lake Place".

 

                   Forests With Tiny Figures 

 

Tomás Sanchez specializes in huge forests with tiny figures. Above his "Discovering the other Shore".

 

 

Then follow Julia Jo`s "Rhyme or Reason" & "Catherine Goodman`s "Solo".

 

And last but not least Caroline Walker´s "Study for Troupes, Backstage I" & John Singer Sargent`s "Corner of the Church of San Stae. Venice". 

To be continued.

Science Fiction: Ra By QNTM

 (Drivebycuriosity) - QNTM - the pen name for Sam Hughes - belongs to the rising stars on the firmament of science fiction. I was amazed by his novella "There Is No Antimemetics Division" ( my review ) and his short story collection "Valuable Humans In Transit And Other Stories"  ( drivebycuriosity). Both books are cutting edged hard science fiction with weird but well developed and plausible ideas. Unfortunately his novel "Ra" does not work for me ( amazon).

The plot is about magic, but this is not another Harry Potter rip-off. QNTM describes magic as another set of rules of nature, recently discovered and comparable to quantum mechanics, the strange behavior of particles. 

"Magic`s not the Force. It`s not mystical, it`s  a gauge theory. It explains observations. It is, at its root, a collection of dry and unpalatable nonlinear partial differential equations which are known to be not totally accurate. Magic does not speak to us or obey our commands".

And:

"Magic can be created, shaped, collected, stored, transmitted and released using real, physical equipment"

"Magic can be used to apply real measurable effects to the physical world".   

In QNTM`s novel some humans use this knowledge to create new technologies based on the laws of magic. So far so good.

 

                           Senseless Mess 

But, qntm way overshoots. The plot turns into a bizarre, apocalyptic horror show. Apparently he got out of control during writing, intoxicated by his own ideas. The plot gets more and more bizarre and absurd, to make things worse, the events, settings and weapons are getting  bigger and bigger. These exaggeration - and the dialogs - seem to be written to entertain young adults. 

But I enjoyed QNTMs style anyway. Paragraphs like this kept me browsing the novel till the final, page 535: "Laura´s memory place is a sprawling, convoluted grey stone fortress, a senseless mess of differing castle styles. Most of its towers are too tall to be possible and some of them appear to rise forever, narrowing to wires".    

Apparently there is more money to be made by writing young adult scifi than with hard science fiction. But the genre would benefit if Hughes would invest his magical style in hard science fiction like Liu Cixin (The 3 Body Problem) or Alastair Reynolds.

Books: Old Filth By Jane Gardam

  (Drivebycuriosity) - The word filth has usually a derogatory meaning. It stands usually for foul or putrid matter and describes something that tends to corrupt or defile. But in some English circles filth has a different meaning: "Failed in London Try Hong Kong”. This is the definition that Jane Gardam used in her novel: "Old Filth", the begin of a trilogy (amazon ). 

The plot follows the life - over about 80 years - of an English gentleman, born in Asia, who had a career as lawyer & judge in England and in Hong Kong. Both, the funny title, and the topic got my attention. And I loved the book.

The plot jumps back and forth in time, including the protagonist`s childhood in Asia & England, his adolescence, his war time experiences, his marriage and his dealing with the challenges of old age. "Filth" - later "Old Filth" - is a very likeable character, stubborn but with a sharp wit. I enjoyed very much Gardam´s slick style and her sarcastic humor. Looking forward to Vol. 2.  

Economics: Should We Fear Another Inflation Wave?

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Inflation is relatively tame but sticking still stubbornly close to the 3 percent mark (GeneSohoForum ). The author of the website  "Rangvid`s Blog" suggests that there could be even another inflation wave ( rangvid). I would have ignored him, but I found the link on the influential website edwardconard.com. The blog seems to have a lot follower.

Rangivd tries to justify his claim with tariffs, lower interest rates, weaker dollar, high inflation expectations and a smaller labor force. Surprisingly, I could not detect the word "money" in this post, neither any references to the monetary growth rate. Did Rangvid ever hear about Milton Friedman? Apparently economics is an arcane science.
 

Milton Friedman said "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon". The money volume, the amount of money available in the whole economy, restricts how much people can spend. If they - for in instance - pay higher prices for imported goods, then they purchase fewer of them or they spend less for other goods & services.

 

Friedman`s claim got confirmed by the recent inflation wave. It was caused by a deluge of money in the years 2020 & 2021. In 2020 & 2021 the Biden government flooded the economy with stimulus checks in the value of trillions of dollars to fight the Covid19 recession (American Rescue Plan). The government checks got financed with massive bond purchases by the Federal Reserve (Quantitative Easing known as QE1,QE2 & QE3).

The government money landed directly on the bank accounts of the Americans, blowing up the money volume M2 (bank notes & coins & deposits at banks). Milton Friedman described this as helicopter money (cato ). As a result in 2021 & 2022 the US money supply M2, the engine of the inflation, jumped 40%. Unfortunately the money deluge met a constrained supply of goods & services partly - partly because of Covid19. So the price level inevitably had to jump and the inflation rate (first derivation) went up.

 

                         Causal Relationship

The causal relationship between the money supply and inflation was already recognized by Nicolaus Copernicus! The astronomer explained in the year 1517 why "too much money" causes inflation. Copernicus` "quantity theory of money" is based on observations: Early in the 16th century Spain conquered today`s Latin America and looted the silver stocks. The Spaniards send the precious metal to Europe where it was printed into coins and used as money.

As a result the European money supply jumped, but the supply of goods & services did not change much. The flood of money raised suddenly the demand for scarce goods & services and caused a jump of the price level.

Elaborated studies by Milton Friedman, Karl Brunner, Allan Meltzer and many other economists (known as Monetarists) confirmed Copernicus & the quantity theory of money. They described in the 1960s elaborately how and why the inflation rate follows the growth rate of money with a time lag (causal connection).

 

                   No Inflation Fuel

Today´s monetary growth rate is very moderate. In August M2 grew 4.7% y-o-y -  just 2 percent points over the growth rate of the real GDP. There is not much fuel for another inflation wave.

Rangnid - and the other "return of inflation" callers - are ignorant of history and economic illiterate. 

 

 

 

Books: Beethoven - Anguish And Triumph By Jan Swafford

 

(Divebycuriosity) - If you are interested in Ludwig Van Beethoven and in the life of the genius you might enjoy the biography "Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph" by Jan Swafford (1,483 pages! amazon). 

The author describes Ludwig`s development, who and what influenced him and the genius` struggles with employers, competitors and his fragile health. Swafford, who himself is a composer, elaborates and explains the  symphonies, chamber works, concertos & many other pieces of music, their development processes and how the - often surprised - audiences had responded. 

We learn about the political, economical & sociological environments Beethoven has to deal with; influenced by dynamical history of the German speaking countries - a patchwork of about 300 kingdoms, duchies, electorate,  cities and other independent polities -, which was then a patchwork of independent countries.     

Beethoven was most of his life sick, struggled with frequnt Diarrhea and suffered a worsening hearing loss, that naturally impaired his work. Some authors claim that the hearing loss was caused by syphilis but Swaffort suggests that the illness could have been caused by the fact that in the 18th century people drank wine spices with lead, because the heavy metal made cheap wine sweeter.

 

                    No Luck With Women 

Contrary to Mozart, Beethoven did not have luck with women and stayed his whole life a bachelor. Partly because of his look, he was described as massive and ugly, partly because of his bad health and partly because of his temperate. Many women adored his music and ingenuity, so they were hanging around him and wrote him a lot letters, but they had no carnal interests. And Beethoven courted stubbornly aristocratic women who did not want to marry a commoner whatever his qualities were, partly because their children would lose their aristocratic title.

In the 19th century there was no real market for music and no copyrights existed. Multiplying the notations was expensive and often compositions got stolen and plagiarized. Beethoven depended financially on the support of dukes, counts and other aristocrats, who enjoyed his music and bragged with concerts written for them, but they kept distance to a commoner and treated him arrogantly.

The ignorance and arrogance of the aristocrats may have influenced his political beliefs. He sympathized with the French and the French revolution, even though they occupied his home town Bonn. Beethoven even planned to call his Third Symphony "Bonaparte" to celebrate the rise of Napoleon. But the fact that Napoleon became a dictator and made himself emperor, opened the composers eyes and he changed the symphony`s name to "Eroica".

I chose the portrait above because it looks friendly, the genius might have looked different. But anyway, I have learned a lot from this biography - highly recommended.