During Paris Photo, auctions on the other side of the print – Libération

While the Paris international fair is being held until Sunday November 10, auction houses, in the midst of reconfiguration, are taking advantage of the sector’s presence to do well in a less speculative market than that of contemporary art. .

The photography market is tightening, that’s a phrase we hear on everyone’s lips. In any case, it is changing as the second market indicates: the resale of prints at auction is an indicator of trends. While Paris Photo is deployed at the Grand Palais with 195 galleries – the first market, where works are traditionally presented for the first time – the auction houses are trying to do well by taking advantage of the dynamic of the largest photography fair in the world. Because during the event, collectors, major American museums, curators are in Paris. But the sector is in the process of being restructured, with different strategies depending on the players.

“The market has matured”

Signs of contraction are first visible in the larger ones. The major international houses Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips abandoned physical sales during the fair despite their subscription to record prices (Christie’s sold in October the solarized portrait of Meret Oppenheim by Man Ray in the Avant-Garde(s) sale at the price of 176,000 euros (estimate 100,000 – 150,000 euros)). As regular sales of photography have become less profitable than other sectors of art, these houses no longer sell works. “The market has matured. Exceptional prints are increasingly rare, anal