PARIS, Jan. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As the world begins to take stock of the unprecedented volume of art destroyed in the fires that are ravaging Los Angeles, Artprice by Artmarket.com and its CEO/founder thierry Ehrmann wish to express their sympathy and solidarity with all those affected by this major catastrophe.
The damage caused by the fires that have raged for many days goes way beyond the material, and while we all naturally regret the loss of life and the destruction of whole neighborhoods, as art market professionals, we are shocked by the news of the scale of cultural and patrimonial destruction that has also occurred, and is ongoing.
Indeed, as we write, millions of artworks have either gone up in smoke or are at risk of doing so. Hundreds of contemporary artists have lost their entire life’s work as their studios have been burnt to the ground and many first-rate historical art collections have been completely decimated, leaving a very substantial hole in our collective global heritage.
Christopher Wise, vice-president of Risk Strategies, told ARTnews : “tons of art has been destroyed. In value terms we are talking many billions of dollars”.
As art world professionals, collectors, and insurance companies try to evaluate losses directly resulting from the wildfires in California, Artprice by Artmarket has recently been handling numerous searches and valuation requests. As World Leader in Art Market Information, Artprice by Artmarket holds and offers the most comprehensive data available, and is therefore not surprised to see a +450% increase in traffic to our website.
When it comes to getting the true price of Art, access to data from 861,000 artists and nearly 30 million sales results and Artprice indices, with the contribution of the proprietary AI Intuitive Artmarket® now deployed in Premium mode, makes it possible to speed up procedures with insurance companies with the certainty of the price of the work destroyed in the tragedy of the Los Angeles fires.
As the news emerges, we are both shocked and saddened to discover one of the biggest cultural losses that humanity has ever suffered, comparable to very few other historical events, such as the burning of the Library of Alexandria. Countless unique works will now only exist through photos that were taken for art history books and databases, including those of Artprice.
“Our mission since 1987, beyond analyzing, producing and providing in complete transparency the prices of the Art Market, is to map the circulation of works across the centuries and on five continents.” says thierry Ehrmann, president of Artmarket.com and founder of Artprice. “We are unfortunately witnessing a truly historic disaster and we wish to express our sympathy and support for all those affected by these fires and particularly for the artists and collectors who are today losing their – and in many cases, some of humanity’s – most precious possessions.
“Artprice takes this opportunity to restate its role as one of the new guardians of global artistic memory by recording and tracking all artworks as they pass through auctions all over the world. We will naturally do everything we can to help those impacted by very heavy losses and to assist the broader Art Market in integrating the new reality into its day-to-day activities after the destruction of so many masterpieces.
We have mobilized our teams and experts to respond to searches and valuation requests to the best of our abilities. We are also opening access to our documentary collection of manuscripts and paper sales catalogs, from 1700 to the present day, with more than 180 million artworks listed and annotated by our art historians.”
Support is pouring in from around the world to help L.A., where arts culture is omnipresent. This New York Times article by Robin Pogrebin attests to the outpouring of generosity that is being organized:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/arts/design/california-fires-la-artists.html
Major museums like the Getty and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, along with philanthropists like Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar and foundations like Steven Spielberg’s, have raised $12 million for a fund to support the artists affected by the California wildfires.
Among the organizations that have chipped in are the filmmaker George Lucas’s Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation; Spielberg’s and Kate Capshaw’s Hearthland Foundation; the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the A&L Berg Foundation.
Two of the world’s largest galleries have contributed: Gagosian and Hauser & Wirth.
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Artmarket and its Artprice department were founded in 1997 by thierry Ehrmann, the company’s CEO. They are controlled by Groupe Serveur (created in 1987). cf. the certified biography from Who‘s Who In France©:
Artmarket is a global player in the Art Market with, among other structures, its Artprice department, world leader in the accumulation, management and exploitation of historical and current art market information (the original documentary archives, codex manuscripts, annotated books and auction catalogs acquired over the years) in databanks containing over 30 million indices and auction results, covering more than 861,100 artists.
Artprice Images® allows unlimited access to the largest art market image bank in the world with no less than 181 million digital images of photographs or engraved reproductions of artworks from 1700 to the present day, commented by our art historians.
Artmarket, with its Artprice department, constantly enriches its databases from 7,200 auction houses and continuously publishes art market trends for the main agencies and press titles in the world in 119 countries and 9 languages.
Artmarket.com makes available to its 9.3 million members (members log in) the advertisements posted by its Members, who now constitute the first global Standardized Marketplace® for buying and selling artworks at fixed or auction prices (auctions regulated by paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article L321.3 of France’s Commercial Code).
There is now a future for the Art Market with Artprice’s Intuitive Artmarket® AI.
Artmarket, with its Artprice department, has twice been awarded the State label “Innovative Company” by the French Public Investment Bank (BPI), which has supported the company in its project to consolidate its position as a global player in the art market.
Artprice by Artmarket publishes its 2024 Contemporary Art Market Report:
https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2024
See our 2023 Global Art Market Annual Report, published in March 2024 by Artprice by Artmarket: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2023
Summary of Artmarket press releases with its Artprice department: https://serveur.serveur.com/artmarket/press-release/en/
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whose head office is the famous Museum of Contemporary Art Abode of Chaos dixit The New York Times / La Demeure of Chaos:
https://issuu.com/demeureduchaos/docs/demeureduchaos-abodeofchaos-opus-ix-1999-2013
La Demeure du Chaos/Abode of Chaos – Total Work of Art and Singular Architecture.
Confidential bilingual work, now made public: https://ftp1.serveur.com/abodeofchaos_singular_architecture.pdf
- L’Obs – The Museum of the Future: https://youtu.be/29LXBPJrs-o
- https://www.facebook.com/la.demeure.du.chaos.theabodeofchaos999 (more than 4.1 million subscribers)
- https://vimeo.com/124643720
Contact Artmarket.com and its Artprice department – Contact: Thierry Ehrmann, ir@artmarket.com
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