从艺术品销售解读西班牙经济

    “自从卡洛斯开始主管展会后，ARCO有了巨大的进步，变得非常国际化。来的人不只有欧洲的收藏家，甚至连拉丁美洲和美国的收藏家都来了，”澳大利亚克林星格画廊（GalerieKrinzinger）的托马斯•克林星格说道。据他说，他已经以30,000到50,000欧元的价格卖出两件画作了。

    某些阔绰的西班牙买家似乎也在回归。

    据纽约马尔伯勒画廊（Marlborough Gallery）特殊项目主管玛西娅•盖尔•莱文说，这家画廊已向西班牙和美国收藏家售出了4件价格在100,000 欧元左右的胡安•赫诺维斯的作品和2件价格在200,000欧元左右的马诺洛•巴尔德斯的作品。她说：“虽然发生了危机，但我们有知名画家的作品，西班牙人不会不买。因此经济危机对我们没有造成多大影响。”由于马尔伯勒画廊对西班牙的“流感”具有“免疫性”，因此，据画廊董事长皮埃尔•莱瓦伊所说， 2012年参加ARCO的画廊很多都损失惨重，但这一年，马尔伯勒画廊的表现却“出奇的好”。

    据《观察家报》称，经济危机后的几年，国际上的有钱人无疑变得更有钱了。而马尔伯勒画廊是高端艺术品市场的巨头，它“实际上发明了现代艺术品市场”。然而，这个说法对于艺术界的中产阶级来说并不适用。像在世界其它地区一样，这个阶层总是受到排挤。

    西班牙圣塞巴斯蒂安Altxerri画廊主管胡安•伊格纳西奥•加西亚•贝利利亚说：“专业人士和富豪一般在展会头几天到来，而且一出手就是大手笔。如果你的身家只是从5000万欧元变成了4000万欧元，不会有什么变化。但是，周末来的中产阶级顾客一般只会花4,000到5,000欧元购买艺术品，这个消费群体受经济危机的影响最大。”

    中产阶级消费群体的消失让画廊经理人伤心不已，Galería Nieves Fernández画廊的伊多娅•费尔南德斯就是一个例子。经济危机之前，中产阶级人士经常会在周末到展会上选购艺术品。

    “过去年轻的专业人士会将800欧元用来买艺术品而不是电视，但现在这个市场消失了，”费尔南德斯说。我们采访她的第一天，她卖出了三幅作品，价格在2,000至14,000欧元之间。“如果市场还在，我们可能已经拓宽它了。但现在市场消失了。真是可惜，我们当时已经把艺术品消费变成普通消费了。”

    然而情况似乎在变好，她说。“今年到现在，我们已经卖了两幅画给西班牙收藏家，所以算起来，”她笑着说。“我们在西班牙国内的销量已经翻倍了。”（财富中文网）

    译者：朱毓芬/汪皓

    "Since Carlos has run the fair, it's made an enormous step forward. It has become so international. Not just European collectors, but ones from Latin America and the U.S.," said Thomas Krinzinger of Austria's Galerie Krinzinger, who noted that he'd already sold two pieces for between 30,000 and 50,000 euros.

    And it seemed that even some wealthy Spanish buyers had returned.

    Marcia Gail Levine, special projects director at New York's Marlborough Gallery, said that the gallery had already sold four pieces by Juan Genovés for around 100,000 euros and two byManolo Valdés for some 200,000 euros to Spanish and American collectors. "Even though there was a crisis, there are certain artists we have that people in Spain were buying. We weren't hit that bad," she said. To drive home Marlborough's immunity to Spanish flu, gallery president Pierre Levai added that ARCO's generally bad 2012 was an "exceptionally good" year for Marlborough.

    To be sure, the international rich have only grown richer in the post-crisis years, and Marlborough is a high-end giant that "virtually invented the modern art market," according toThe Observer. The story is not the same for the middle class of the art world, which, just like the middle class elsewhere, has been squeezed.

    "The professionals and the rich come the first days to make big buys. If you have 50 million euros and it goes to 40 million, it doesn't change anything. But on the weekend, the people pay 4,000 to 5,000 euros to buy something. That wave is more affected by the crisis," said Juan Ignacio García Velilla, director of the Altxerri gallery in San Sebastián, Spain.

    Idoia Fernández of Galería Nieves Fernández, for one, was saddened by the disappearance of the middle-class buyers who used to buy art at the fair on weekends.

    "The market of younger professionals who would buy art instead of a 800 euro TV has disappeared," said Fernández, who had sold three pieces valued between 2,000 and 14,000 euros when we talked the first day. "We'd extended the market to them in Spain, but it's disappeared. Which is a shame. We had made buying art much more normal."

    Still, things seemed a little brighter, she said. "This year, we've already sold two pieces to Spanish collectors," she said with a laugh. "So we've doubled our Spanish sales."