By Stephen P. Sweeting, ASA
Like the rest of the world the Canadian art auction market entered a period of recession in the autumn of 2008. Fewer quality lots, lower prices, and an overall softening of the market indicated that Canada’s auction market was feeling the effects of the global recession. As the season opened in the spring of 2009 many were expecting a continuation of the depressed autumn 2008 prices. And indeed, this played out with the first two major auctions of the season at Sotheby’s Canada and Joyner-Waddington’s – both in Toronto. According to news sources, Sotheby’s sold 3.5 million Canadian dollars worth of art including buyer’s premium, while Joyner-Waddington’s take totaled 1.6 million dollars. These are extremely modest if not depressed sale results.
This falling market pattern was not continued, however, with the last major sale of the season at Heffel Fine Art Auction House in Vancouver, British Columbia. Their two catalogue-auction sale produced a total of 11.3 million dollars – more than double the combined results of the two major competitors. Although down from the heady days of 2007, this result does not speak of recession.
Observers of the Canadian auction scene are asking whether Heffel’s successful sale is the harbinger of better times – or merely a reflection of the company’s more aggressive and resilient business model. I want to propose a different hypothesis behind Heffel’s rise to the top of the Canadian art auction scene and its apparent stability in an undeniably soft art market: Heffel Fine Art Auction House more successfully connects with the changing culture underpinning the Canadian art market and is in effect the country’s first postmodern (PoMo) auction house.
Several years ago when attending a Heffel Canadian art auction in Toronto I felt that something different was going on with this firm – a relative latecomer on the national auction scene. The salesroom crowd reacted uniquely to the proceedings and there was an almost electric combination of theatricality and state-of-the-art technology in the Park Hyatt ballroom where the sale was being conducted. I walked out of the auction feeling like I had just observed a definitive break with the ossified model of first-tier Canadian art auctions. The staid old auction salesroom with its cast of regulars and measured proceedings suddenly looked very quaint and out-of-date. A changing of the guard was taking place. (Click Read More for the rest of the Article)
Of late, I’ve started to consider Heffel Fine Art Auction House in terms of it relationship to postmodernism. The paradigm of postmodernism is characterized by some as the culture of the marketplace and by others as an acceptance of relativism, decenteredness, and the value of pastiche. Many other defining features are attributed to postmodernism and its meaning is subject to considerable debate.
So how then, is Heffel’s a mirror of postmodernism and a break with the past? First, they are decentered. With bricks and mortar locations in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, and biannual sale locations in Toronto and Vancouver, Heffel’s are both regional and national at the same time. The Vancouver auction sales play up Western Canadian content while the Toronto sales are more “national” in presentation. If the auction house conducted sales in Quebec – and in French as the law requires – they would have the three dominant regions of Canada covered – Ontario, the West, and Quebec. I would not be at all surprised if this happens in the future.
Second, Heffel’s is relativistic in terms of both identity and function. They operate as a chain of commercial galleries, a “live” auction house with sales twice a year, and an on-line auction house with continuous offerings. They also function as the publisher of an on-line Canadian art index of auction sale results. Heffel’s appear to move comfortably between these various roles – generating a pastiche identity that is wholly uncharacteristic of major auction houses in Canada. Their identity changes relative to the market opportunity and location.
Finally, through Heffel Fine Art Auction House’s early and inspired use of the technology of the Internet they have reconfigured their live auction sales into a textbook representation of the culture of the marketplace. As I walked out of the Park Hyatt Ballroom several years ago I remember mentally searching for metaphors to define the Heffel auction experience. The best I could come up with was reality television. Although not exactly culture with a K, there is something decidedly self-conscious, staged, and precociously connected to mainstream popular culture about a Heffel art auction. And as disquieting as this idea is to those of us who still have one foot in the old paradigm, there is no arguing with the success of the new model “PoMo” Canadian art auction.
Like the rest of the world the Canadian art auction market entered a period of recession in the autumn of 2008. Fewer quality lots, lower prices, and an overall softening of the market indicated that Canada’s auction market was feeling the effects of the global recession. As the season opened in the spring of 2009 many were expecting a continuation of the depressed autumn 2008 prices. And indeed, this played out with the first two major auctions of the season at Sotheby’s Canada and Joyner-Waddington’s – both in Toronto. According to news sources, Sotheby’s sold 3.5 million Canadian dollars worth of art including buyer’s premium, while Joyner-Waddington’s take totaled 1.6 million dollars. These are extremely modest if not depressed sale results.
This falling market pattern was not continued, however, with the last major sale of the season at Heffel Fine Art Auction House in Vancouver, British Columbia. Their two catalogue-auction sale produced a total of 11.3 million dollars – more than double the combined results of the two major competitors. Although down from the heady days of 2007, this result does not speak of recession.
Observers of the Canadian auction scene are asking whether Heffel’s successful sale is the harbinger of better times – or merely a reflection of the company’s more aggressive and resilient business model. I want to propose a different hypothesis behind Heffel’s rise to the top of the Canadian art auction scene and its apparent stability in an undeniably soft art market: Heffel Fine Art Auction House more successfully connects with the changing culture underpinning the Canadian art market and is in effect the country’s first postmodern (PoMo) auction house.
Several years ago when attending a Heffel Canadian art auction in Toronto I felt that something different was going on with this firm – a relative latecomer on the national auction scene. The salesroom crowd reacted uniquely to the proceedings and there was an almost electric combination of theatricality and state-of-the-art technology in the Park Hyatt ballroom where the sale was being conducted. I walked out of the auction feeling like I had just observed a definitive break with the ossified model of first-tier Canadian art auctions. The staid old auction salesroom with its cast of regulars and measured proceedings suddenly looked very quaint and out-of-date. A changing of the guard was taking place. (Click Read More for the rest of the Article)
Of late, I’ve started to consider Heffel Fine Art Auction House in terms of it relationship to postmodernism. The paradigm of postmodernism is characterized by some as the culture of the marketplace and by others as an acceptance of relativism, decenteredness, and the value of pastiche. Many other defining features are attributed to postmodernism and its meaning is subject to considerable debate.
So how then, is Heffel’s a mirror of postmodernism and a break with the past? First, they are decentered. With bricks and mortar locations in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, and biannual sale locations in Toronto and Vancouver, Heffel’s are both regional and national at the same time. The Vancouver auction sales play up Western Canadian content while the Toronto sales are more “national” in presentation. If the auction house conducted sales in Quebec – and in French as the law requires – they would have the three dominant regions of Canada covered – Ontario, the West, and Quebec. I would not be at all surprised if this happens in the future.
Second, Heffel’s is relativistic in terms of both identity and function. They operate as a chain of commercial galleries, a “live” auction house with sales twice a year, and an on-line auction house with continuous offerings. They also function as the publisher of an on-line Canadian art index of auction sale results. Heffel’s appear to move comfortably between these various roles – generating a pastiche identity that is wholly uncharacteristic of major auction houses in Canada. Their identity changes relative to the market opportunity and location.
Finally, through Heffel Fine Art Auction House’s early and inspired use of the technology of the Internet they have reconfigured their live auction sales into a textbook representation of the culture of the marketplace. As I walked out of the Park Hyatt Ballroom several years ago I remember mentally searching for metaphors to define the Heffel auction experience. The best I could come up with was reality television. Although not exactly culture with a K, there is something decidedly self-conscious, staged, and precociously connected to mainstream popular culture about a Heffel art auction. And as disquieting as this idea is to those of us who still have one foot in the old paradigm, there is no arguing with the success of the new model “PoMo” Canadian art auction.
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