Whipped Cream Difficulties

W.C. Fields supposedly said “It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep their money.”

I was reminded of that reading this NYT article:

Many in the art world insist there is no need for further scrutiny of a market that prompts few consumer complaints and is vital to the New York economy. But other veterans of the business say there is mounting concern that monitoring has not kept pace with the increasing treatment of art as a commodity.

Some examples of questionable practice:

• “chandelier bidding”: “At major auctions the first bids announced for a piece are typically fictional — numbers pulled from the air by the auctioneer to jump-start bidding.” (It’s called “chandelier bidding” because the auctioneer isn’t pointing at an actual bid, but at the light fixtures.)
• “Collectors can find themselves being bid up by someone who, in exchange for agreeing in advance to pay a set amount for a work, is promised a cut of anything that exceeds that price.”
• NYC has a law that requires galleries to post prices. “None of 10 galleries visited at random this month had posted prices, though a few smaller ones produced price lists when asked.”

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2013 at 9:12 am and is filed under Art, Clippings, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.