Modern Furniture Prices for 2009. Market Trends

The market for mid- to upper-range modern furniture and decorative arts in 2009 is flattening as the global economic downturn spreads into the antiques and collectibles markets. The market for mass modern seems to have peaked in 2008 and is now completing a flattening phase tending towards lower prices for lesser pieces and flat prices for rarities.
Modern decorative arts are still bucking the downward price spiral experienced in the antiques market recently.
The retail markets for high end are spotty as dealers fight in smaller circles for less goods. Buying trends for mass modern seem to be slowing as bargain shopping is the order of the day. Decorative arts, in particular remain strong as precious metal prices rise vs. the stock market.
Prices at local and regional auctions for named pieces are strong against the nationals and online auctioneers as bargains in the high end realm seem lesser and lesser daily. Mass modern and decorative arts by better manufacturers, even later, are flattening in price with few exceptions. Dealers and collectors are still willing to pay high prices for better pieces of studio work, one offs, or custom designs by a handful of better-known 20th century designers and architects, but the frequency of these offerings at auction seems to have diminished in the last quarter tending towards a future of less lots at higher prices as stalwart auction houses are calling consignors to lower reserves on previously estimated items to 'clean out the pipes.' Consignors seem to be leaning conservative on both consignments and reserves.
As in other recessionary years, rarities, provenance, collections, sets and multiples are what the market seems to want in 2009.

Monet oil painting tests art market

A stunning Monet oil painting of his wife Camille reading in a rich meadow sold for well below its estimate last night, providing a critical clue to the state of the art market in the recession.

The sale of Monet's Dans la Prairie, left, at Christie's in London, which had a pre-sale estimate of £15m, highlighted the difficulties. It sold for £11,241,250.

John Thain and the $1000 wastebasket

Fornasetti wastebasket

Investing in 20th century design makes good business sense. Hundreds of ‘dealers’ have ‘democratized’ interior design and collecting. The 20th century design industry moves millions of dollars of wealth in a gray market between buyers and sellers at all demographics. Investing in modern design is relatively inexpensive (compared to fine antiques and art) and John Thain’s $1000 wastebasket, however absurd, is likely more profitable and recession-proof as any investment his stockbrokers sold to investors.
20th century designers like Piero Fornasetti, Gio Ponti, Aldo Tura, Carlo Mollino and Paul Evans all produced wastebaskets and bins for various manufacturers, and market values for these pieces (especially by Mollino) have steadily risen in the past decade beating returns from both the Dow and the S&P 500.
Just as market makers (like Thain’s Merrill Lynch) offer liquidity for stocks and bonds, auction houses like Sotheby’s, Wright and Philips and e-Bay act as design market makers for 20th century design. Common household items designed by famous designers and architects sell at auction and in retail galleries for exceptionally high prices; wastebaskets, candleholders, ashtrays, flatware and kitchen accessories.
For investment purposes we like anything by Alessi, Swid Powell and Rosenthal. Pieces by Phillippe Starck, Richard Meier, Robert Venturi, Pierre Cardin, Gabriella Crespi and Ettore Sottsass are also likely to appreciate at a fast beta and remain in high demand by both dealers and collectors.


(r: Ettore Sottsass, l: Paolo Portoghesi, both for Alessi)

Len Janklow Op Art Acrylic Sculpture 1970's Modern

Len Janklow (American 1919-2006) created kinetic mixed media works from his home studio in Tamarac, Florida in the 1970's, 80's and 90's. This is a unique piece purchased directly from the Artist shortly before his death in 2006. It stands on a lacquered illuminated pedestal also by Janklow.

Hi Defintion Giga View of Obama Inauguration

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c

Note the Palladio-inspired columnar work of the Capitol Building.

Le Corbusier on Mass Production 1927

"A great epoch has begun.

There exists a new spirit.

Industry, overwhelming us like a flood which rolls on towards its destined ends, has furnished us with new tools adapted to this new epoch, animated by the new spirit.

Economic law inevitably governs our acts and our thoughts.

The problem of the house is the problem of the epoch. The equilibrium of society today depends upon it. Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of the constituent elements of the house.

Mass production is based on analysis and experiment.

Industry on the grand scales must occupy itself with building and establish the elements of the house on a mass production basis.

We must create the mass production spirit.

The spirit of constructing mass production houses.

The spirit of living in mass production houses.

The spirit of conceiving mass production houses.

If we eliminate from our hearts and minds all dead concepts in regard to the house, and look at the question from a critical and objective point of view, we shall arrive at the 'House Machine,' the mass production house, healthy (and morally so, too) and beautiful in the same way that the working told and instruments which accompany our existence are beautiful.

Beautiful also with all the animation that the artist's sensibility can add top severe and pure functioning elements." 

-Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, 1927