Writing / Art-market research · 2023
Reading the Auction Record
What two decades of hammer prices say about V. S. Gaitonde and Yayoi Kusama.
The question
At Geek Art I researched artworks from an investment perspective. The question behind each report was simple: what does the public auction record say about this artist, and what would a collector need to know before buying?
What I looked at
For Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, the report covers an artist overview, sales highlights across the last decade, and how prices are spread across price points. It compares sold lots against their estimates, tracks the median price and estimate year by year, and sets the number of lots offered against the number sold. It then goes through past auctions from 2021 to 2023 lot by lot, noting where the realised price ran at least 20% above estimate and where a buyer's premium changes the final figure.
For Yayoi Kusama, the report works at the level of a single motif. It compares the price index of the Pumpkin against the Infinity Net, looks at which decades of her work turn over most, and reduces comparable pumpkin works to a price per square centimetre so they can be set side by side.
Why it sits beside the exhibitions
Producing a show and reading a market are the same habit turned in two directions: looking closely at what a work is, and then at what happens to it once it leaves the room.
Excerpts
Gaitonde: overview, performance summary and a decade of sales highlights. Gaitonde: prices across price points, and sold lots against their estimates. Gaitonde: past auctions, annotated lot by lot. Kusama: price index of the Pumpkin against the Infinity Net. Kusama: price per square centimetre across comparable works.
These reports were researched and produced at Geek Art in 2023 and are shown here as excerpts. Images of artworks belong to the artists and their estates.