Cult of the masterpiece

Location, location, location. On the morning that Christie’s prepared to launch the art market’s latest high-profile, big-buck season of Impressionist, modern and contemporary sales in New York — a series beadily scrutinised by the throng of art-world Jeremiahs who have long predicted the end of this particular art-market bubble — the auction house announced that it was offering by private treaty sale one of the most highly valued works of art of this or any season — a colossal $120 million Warhol portrait of Chairman Mao. Not in New York but in Hong Kong.

The announcement speaks volumes about the nature of today’s newly truly global art market. Most obviously it offers vendors — in this case, a private European client — and auction houses the opportunity to place a work of art where it should excite the greatest interest and generate the highest price. Given the uncertainties of the Western financial markets, the vast fortunes of Asia, Russia and the Middle East appear increasingly alluring.