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France’s art market activity has soared since Britain’s exit from the EU, reaching a 10-year high of $4.7bn in 2021 — but is now facing what the industry is referring to as its own version of Brexit.
An EU tax directive, quietly passed last year, would — by 2025 at the latest — increase import VAT to 20 per cent on all goods, including art, which currently enjoys a reduced 5.5 per cent rate in France, the lowest in the EU. A margin scheme, where VAT is applied only on profits rather than the total retail price, is also under threat.
Now the market’s lobbying of France’s government has begun in earnest. In early March, nearly 130 artists, including Sophie Calle, Tatiana Trouvé and Xavier Veilhan, signed a comment in Le Monde newspaper, warning that the directive could “dry up creativity and heritage”.
Meanwhile the Comité Professionnel des Galeries d’Art (CPGA), an organisation of 320 galleries, has said that the directive — adopted without industry consultation — “could result in very serious, and probably irreparable, economic damage to France’s art market”. Its statement concludes that the only beneficiaries would be “its main competitors”, named as the US, UK, Hong Kong and Switzerland.
Paris gallerist Franck Prazan says the good news is that France’s authorities “are concerned and listening to us very carefully, they get it” — a sentiment echoed by Clément Delépine, director of the Paris+ par Art Basel fair that was launched last year. Both are part of an informal industry task force that will meet Ministry of Finance officials on March 24. The aim is to settle the situation by the autumn, says Marion Papillon, a gallerist and president of the CPGA.
Tefaf Maastricht seems back on track, to the relief of exhibitors, after three years of managing the pandemic, which shut the fair down midway through in 2020. It also suffered an armed robbery last year. This year’s edition of the encyclopedic fair, which ends tomorrow, is once again in its usual March slot, with beefed-up security for its 270 exhibitors. Many report an impressive turnout of visitors, particularly from US museums.
“We’ve seen directors, curators, trustees and even conservators here, well-prepared and ready to do business,” said Andreas Pampoulides, co-founder of London Old Masters specialists Lullo Pampoulides. Its stand focuses on works by female artists, of interest to institutions that are trying to rebalance their holdings a little, and Pampoulides reported five works on hold for US museums. These include a polychrome terracotta “Madonna and Child” (c1690-1706) by the Spanish court artist Luisa Roldán, known as La Roldana, priced at $2mn.
For the contemporary art galleries, Tefaf offers more seasoned collectors than those normally on the circuit. “I am constantly, pleasantly surprised by how many new people we meet who come at contemporary art from a different angle,” said Louise Hayward, partner at Lisson Gallery. She reported early sales and that a 2020 pink onyx sculpture by Anish Kapoor (priced at £1.8mn) was reserved for another US museum. Hugo Nathan, co-founder of art advisers Beaumont Nathan, said: “Anyone who went this year will want to go back next year.”
Gallerist Timothy Taylor wants to make his presence felt when he opens his 6,000 sq ft space in Tribeca, New York, on April 20. “I want to show the ambition of the new gallery with an exciting new artist,” he says, and has chosen his latest charge, Turkish-born Hayal Pozanti (b1983). Taylor, who opened his original London space in 1996, says he discovered Pozanti’s work through Jessica Silverman gallery, with whom he now shares representation.
Now living in Vermont, Pozanti has spent 10 years creating a personalised alphabet of ciphers as the basis of her paintings and uses her fingers to blend bright oil sticks on to the canvas. Her new works incorporate biomorphic motifs from nature and are priced up to $80,000.
Of Tribeca, Taylor says it has an “energy” distinct from his previous location in Chelsea: “There are places to eat, to stay, to drink and it’s a bit untidy in some places. It feels more relevant to the next generation.” Stephen Truax, who had been hired to run the new space, is no longer with the gallery and partner Chloë Waddington has taken on the role of New York director.
Royal Bank of Canada, a longtime main sponsor of London’s cancelled Masterpiece fair, has now put its weight behind Photo London. The fair’s “international renown” coupled with its “primarily UK-based footfall and celebration of emerging art” helped it stand out among the many pitches that the bank received, says Prue Thompson, head of marketing at RBC Wealth Management. Thompson did not comment on the value of the support, though the Masterpiece backing is believed to have been worth at least £500,000 by the 2022 edition.
Photo London runs its eighth edition at Somerset House, May 11-14. This year’s “master of photography” is Martin Parr, who will show new work at the fair.
Galleries increasingly use art fairs to reveal their latest artist representations, and Art Basel Hong Kong, which opens next week, is no exception. Gladstone Gallery will bring a work by Robert Rauschenberg to mark its new role representing the late American artist, alongside his existing galleries Thaddaeus Ropac and Luisa Strina. The Manhattan gallery plans a show of Rauschenberg’s Spreads (1975-83) and Scales (1977-81) series in May and brings to Hong Kong his black-and-white “Maybe Market (Night Shade)” (1991), priced between $800,000 and $1mn.
Lehmann Maupin gallery also brings a newly signed 20th-century avant-garde artist to the Hong Kong fair, Korea’s Sung Neung Kyung (b1944). For Art Basel Hong Kong, Lehmann Maupin brings the multimedia artist’s 18-part “Venue 2” (1980), a work that explores the power of newspapers ($150,000-$200,000). He will have his first New York show at Lehmann Maupin in October, while Baik Art gallery in Seoul has recently opened a commercial show of Sung’s work.
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