My comments are included in Arun Kakar’s article, May’s Record-Breaking $2.5 Billion Auction Week, Explained, published this week in Artsy:
“‘New collectors may find that they are entering a market of cautious growth,’ said advisor David Shapiro. ‘They will be wise to learn lessons from recent burst speculative market bubbles, and instead, to prioritize, as much as possible, purchases of characteristic works by artists with proven standing and strong institutional support.’”
(l. to r.) Pablo Picasso, Femme hurlant sa douleur, June 1937, Paul Coulon booth; René Magritte, Moralité du sommeil, ca. 1941, Paul Coulon booth; Gustav Klimt, Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, 1897, Wienerroither & Kohlbacher booth: all at TEFAF, New York, 2025
Comments in May edition of Artsy Insider newsletter
Thanks to Artsy Art Market Editor Arun Kakar for including my comments in the May edition of the Artsy Insider newsletter, released today. Here’s my contribution:
Artsy: For this month’s mailbag, we spoke to the independent art advisor David Shapiro. Based in New York, Shapiro is also a certified fine art appraiser and specializes in post-war and contemporary art.
How would you characterize the sentiment at this year’s New York Art Week?
DS: While I hesitate to characterize the sentiments of others, some may agree with my observations, which include the following: At Frieze, some galleries appeared to devote less to this fair than to others.
The compression of New York’s fair schedule into a single week highlighted a palpable difference in quality between Frieze and TEFAF, the latter being superior. As to the question of the extent to which larger economic factors may (or may not) be affecting commerce, one rarely knows the true volume of trade and actual extended prices in a retail sales venue.
As such, the more reliable market gauge, as usual, will be the auctions, after which sentiment will be rooted more firmly in fact.