Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1992, $14,082,500 Sotheby’s New York, Nov. 9, 2011

Why do so many art people seem to be hoping for an art crash? Why can’t they accept that in these uncertain, unstable times art has elevated meaning and value? And that the global breadth of the collecting universe has grown exponentially, which is an underlying fundamental that Warren Buffet could appreciate. 

Says Charlie Finch in Artnet Magazine, “I predict that, in six months, art prices will be down, across the board by 50 percent, falling faster with no takers.”

Well, I have news for the naysayers, if you think you will ever be able to purloin a Picasso at that price, dream on. What’s more, I have a prediction of my own, that in six months time you will see that art has continued its inexorable march higher.

History offers plenty of occasions in which artists have profited handsomely from their works during their lifetimes. But today, more and more, we are faced with a kind of esthetic McCarthyism directed against the happy bedfellows of art and money. Wake up, everyone, this is a love/hate relationship that is ancient beyond time, it only appears to be much more pronounced now. To read more from Kenny Schachter, Artnet, click here.

Tags: Art Boom, Art Crash, Art Market, Artnet, Kenny Schachter, Sotheby's