I can attest to the impact of the poor economical times on the art market. And not only in the auction of fine art pieces, but in the hiring/paying of commercial artists (I’m an illustrator). As an example, a current strategy for cutting costs is to use images from cheap stock photography sites (such as istock, etc.) as a cover image for books, with little or no acknowledgment of the original artist. If the artist is acknowledged, it’s generally via their registered username, and they may not find out that the piece is being used until it shows up on the cover of a bestseller. While there’s obviously nothing illegal about purchasing a picture from a stock site and using it as such, the overall cost to commercial artists who lose work over this strategy is enormous.

More on topic (after my rant) Anish Kapoor is amazing. We had the good fortune of a piece of his showing at the Hirschorn a few years back. He strikes me as the sculptor equivalent of Umberto Eco, his works folding and reworking space to reflect in on itself. Gorgeous.

“There is an urban myth that fine art and antiques are recession-proof. This is wrong, ” they said. “This market lags behind the economic cycle by around a year to 18 months. So people should not rely on it.”