The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art

His most reproduced disaster silkscreen is 1947 White, a news photograph of a fashion model who jumped from the Empire State Building and landed on the roof of a diplomatic limousine.

“I like the idea of a thing to describe a feeling.

Hirst’s titles are an integral part of marketing his work, and much of the meaning flows from the title. If the shark were just called Shark, the viewer might well say, “Yes, it certainly is a shark,” and move on. Calling it The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living forces viewers to create a meaning. The title produced as m

ART PRICE RECORDS THE MOST EXPENSIVE PAINTINGS SOLD AT AUCTION Garçon à la Pipe (1905), Pablo Picasso, $104 million, Sotheby’s New York, 2004 Dora Maar au Chat (1941), Pablo Picasso, $95.2 million, Sotheby’s New York, 2006 Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890), Vincent van Gogh, $82.5 million, Christie’s New York, 1990 (resold privately through a Sotheby’s

TWENTY-FIVE MAJOR CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS Jasper Johns (American, 1930–) Andy Warhol (American, 1928–87) Gerhard Richter (German, 1932–) Bruce Nauman (American, 1941–) Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–97) Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925–2008) Joseph Beuys (German, 1921–86) Ed Ruscha (American, 1937–) Francis Bacon (Irish/English, 1909–92) Lucian F

and Maurizio Cattelan. For the first half-decade of the twenty-first century, Segalot chose Takashi Murakami, Luc Tuymans, Matthew Barney, and Robert Gober.

Segalot’s twelve artists of the 1980s and ’90s (he had trouble narrowing it to ten) are Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat (creator of Untitled), Cindy Sherman (a photographer), Richard Prince, Felix Gonzalez-Torres (of candy-sculpture fame), Charles Ray, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, David Hammons, Andreas Gursky, Damien Hirst,

Only one artist in two hundred—and that is two hundred established artists—will reach a point where her work is ever offered at Christie’s or Sotheby’s auctions.

The world of dealers includes men and women of the highest integrity, many of whom are experts on the work of the artists they sell, on the same level as museum curators or university professors.