ART
Still aglow from five years of booming business, the art market isn’t in any obvious trouble (in fact, 2008 will have more fairs than ever). But there has already been a noticeable shift to foreign money, as exemplified by Sotheby’s February art auctions, where a full 82 percent of the buyers were European (13 percent were American). The same pattern applies to the gallery scene: “There’s been a shift to the European market,” notes gallery owner Zach Feuer, who says business at his West 24th Street gallery hasn’t slowed so much as just changed. However, this isn’t necessarily a tenable solution for the New York art world, says Artnet critic Charlie Finch over e-mail. “The problem with foreign money is that it seeks foreign venues. Chinese collectors are only interested in Chinese contemporary art. Russian money is gravitating to London and Paris, where there is a strong Russian émigré presence. South Korean collectors, who like to show their own Sunday paintings beside the work of stars like Jeff Koons in private megagalleries, concentrate in Asia. Thus, there is little guarantee that New York will continue to be the cynosure of collector money.”

If the end of the city’s art boom is indeed nigh, not everyone will be sorry about it. “When things get economically bad, art gets good,” says Hudson, the one-named owner of gallery Feature Inc (which recently moved from West 25th Street to the Bowery), explaining that artists tend to “loosen up” when they have little hope of actually selling their work. What’s more, he adds, “When there’s a slowdown, the people who purchased work as an investment have to start looking at it as art and not as a financial asset. They’re forced to see its inherent value—and that’s what it’s all about.”

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