Olivier Bertrand
Interview with Olivier Bertrand
In an exclusive interview with AuctionLot, the international portal for art and antiques, Olivier Bertrand reported on the maliciousness of the art market and the danger of forgeries and biased or incorrect advise that could befall inexperienced buyers.
According to Bertrand, who can now look back on a long and successful career as art dealer and expert, the influence of major auction houses such as Sotheby“s and Christie“s on each individual customer begins with the consideration of whether the customer should simply become informed about the market situation on the auction house“s website, or whether they should make use of more sources.
In the opinion of Bertrand, it is of great importance to get as much information as possible on the art market, but to understand, however, that the market is unstable and that it is impossible to produce exact prognoses about prices and resell values. Right now, inexperienced art buyers are underestimating the complexity of the market, and sometimes in retrospect describe the immense sums as overpriced and that the relationship between the worth of a work and the personal value placed on it by a collector are often incompatible.
Art, according to Bertrand, should not be considered an area of speculation – if you want to make money, you should concentrate on the real estate and stock markets, and not see art primarily as an investment object.
These days, the personal value placed on art has disappeared from some buyers, and these buyers are also to blame, along with the larger auction houses, which are stuck in the race for the next enormous record bids in the marketing and promotion of their evening auctions, with the buyers then driving sale prices to record levels.
Any one of these prognoses about a possible highest bid does not mean a guarantee. An approximate price could be predicted simply by observing the origin of the work, its condition, its place in the oeuvre of the artist as well as the general market position of the artist and the style.
The prediction of prices and the speculation that goes with it is one of the most difficult undertakings of the art market. Merely to fight against the sale of forgeries, and to recognise these in time to take them off the market, is in Bertrand“s opinion the main problem, because in the end each buyer must decide by themselves as to whether or not they will take part in the race for record prices.
More information as well as the full interview can be found at http://auctionlot.info
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