都市艺术品市场惨淡 班克斯作品备受冷落

   经济危机余威尚存，英国的藏家们对涂鸦作品的态度也一度保留，从而使得一度极受追捧的班克斯的涂鸦作品大受冷落。英国伦敦一家拍卖行更是取消了包含班克斯作品的都市艺术的专场拍卖。

　　逐步下跌的价格和不断上升的流拍率使得一向热衷购买班克斯作品的买家也开始犹豫不决，不敢轻举妄动。据一些艺术品交易商估计，今年这个当代艺术家的作品价格下降了大约30%-50%。

　　六月份，在诸如苏富比、佳士得、宝龙以及菲利普斯等国际拍卖行的当代艺术夜场拍卖中均未见班克斯作品的影子。

Works by Banksy are disappearing from U.K. auctions as collectors shy away from paintings by graffiti artists in the financial slump.

British regional auction houses have canceled specialist sales of urban art in London, while some of their bigger rivals’ catalogs have few stenciled works by Banksy, who was born in Bristol, west England, and keeps his identity a secret.

Falling prices and rising failure rates for Banksy works earlier this year have made sellers reluctant to test the market with higher-value paintings. Auction prices for contemporary artists generally have dropped between 30 and 50 percent with the crisis, according to dealers.

“There’s no point flogging a dead horse,” Ben Hanly, contemporary-art specialist at the Edinburgh auctioneers, Lyon & Turnbull, said in an interview. “The core collectors have been decimated. Young City types don’t want to spend 20,000 pounds ($32,690) or 30,000 pounds on trendy art at the moment.”

There were no Banksy paintings to be seen at Sotheby’s, Christie’s International’s and Phillips de Pury’s evening contemporary-art auctions in London in June, or at Bonhams’s Vision 21 sale on July 1. Meanwhile Lyon & Turnbull and Berkshire-based auctioneer Dreweatt Neate both dropped standalone events.

Five Banksy sprayed-stenciled works, ranging in estimate from 7,000 pounds to 18,000 pounds, failed to sell at Lyon & Turnbull’s April 24 contemporary-art auction in London. The company’s October sale will contain a higher proportion of works by established 20th-century British artists, said Hanly.