Who Forgot to Pay Damien Hirst?

Remember how the Russians used to keep the whole contemporary art market afloat? How just last month Larry Gagosian admitted the Ruskis generated almost half his sales? How Roman Abramovich shelled out $33.6 million for Lucian Freud’s Benefit Supervisor Sleeping in May? Well, now it seems the tides have turned, and as the oligarchs flee the contemporary art market to pursue other interests including protecting their mineral deposits from the thieving state, it appears they’re leaving a flotsam of discarded pickled sheep and twister-inspired dot paintings in their wake.

The Evening Standard is reporting that someone has backed out of paying Hirst for artworks bought at his wildly successful September sale, ‘Beautiful Inside My Head Forever’, which netted him almost £100 million just before the art market crashed in October:

“In a startling new development, a source informs me that one art collector was telephoned recently and asked if they would like to buy one of the lots that had, purportedly, already been sold.”

So the question is – who has defaulted? It’s basically an act of art world suicide to renege on a firm bid at auction, so we’re looking at someone who a) really needs the money back, and b) doesn’t actually give much of a shit about maintaining their reputation in the art world (and is unlikely to be pursued through the courts).

Enter anonymous Russian metals oligarch, as Sarah Thornton of the New Statesman reported about the Hirst sale in October:

“On that surreal night, the collectors were bulk-buying. One bidder, rumoured to be a metals oligarch who had never bought contemporary art before, bought nine of the 56 lots in the evening sale.”

Now that Russia’s stock market has plummeted 70%, and oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich are looking dangerously over leveraged and facing enormous losses, does it seem quite likely that whoever is ripping off Hirst is perhaps said anonymous Russian? As Muscovite banker Maxim Moskalev said recently at a Gagosian show in Moscow:

“The oligarchs know about assets like oil fields and factories. They only buy art for fun… to be famous and entertaining. It’s a toy to them.”

Looks like someone drank a wee bit too much champagne in London, and is now heading back to the Urals – sans pickled sheep and reputation – to protect their suffering mines…

[Update: Although Ukrainian steel magnate Viktor Pinchuk later admitted he was one of the anonymous bidders at the auction, it seems unlikely he's the bidder in question as Pinchuk has been an avid collector of contemporary art for years, and runs a public gallery in Kiev.]

Posted by Daniel Stacey in Creative Economy | November 7, 2008 11:13AM |