It's been ridiculous for several years but the auction house madness continues. Here is some auction house reading that tends to bore me in interesting ways:

Artnet has a nice report on Sotheby's 278.5 million dollar art-o-rama... completely boring except for the fact that Lyonel Feininger is getting some respect (he's my Mom's 3rd favorite artist, but she only likes the cityscapes, her fave is Pierre Soulages... which impresses me for it's flat out obscurity). Then there were the Christies sales, which Artnet saw as a sobering of the market.

Also on Artnet is Charlie Finch (who usually annoys me), he does some number crunching on the hedge funders. Sure, doom is coming but probably in the Fall at the earliest... (it might be years from now though, egad)

Today in the NYT's Carol Vogel, whom I also find really tiresome, took in some European bargain hunting. Maybe it's only a matter of time before some artist creates their own sarcastic auction house where sculptures of Tobias Meyer etc. will be sold at inflated bargain prices to Europeans taking advantage of the weak US dollar?

Years ago Edward Winkleman took on the doit de suite issue, would it help artists and their heirs by cutting them in on the action?

A lot of the cooler major collectors I've met hate auctions and I can see why... and yes lot of the stuff offered just isn't that good (yet goes for a premium). Auctions aren't about patronage and it distracts from the pursuit of new work and ideas. The money part bores me and isn't any more surprising than other silly crowd-feuled behavior like the Macarana.