Art critic and filmmaker Ben Lewis spent 2008 following the booming contemporary art market, from its peak in May until its collapse in October.
The last five years have witnessed an unprecedented craze for contemporary art, in which works of art by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Mark Rothko sold for record-breaking prices of thirty million pounds upwards. It all climaxed in September 2008, when Damien Hirst sold 111m pounds' worth of his art at an unprecedented auction at Sotheby's, and Lewis was there to see it all.
In mid-2009 amidst the credit crunch, that bubble has burst. Since autumn 2008, contemporary art has dropped in price by up to 50 per cent.
In this inside eye-witness journey into the art world, Lewis visits auction houses, art fairs, galleries and the homes of billionaires across the world, searching for the reasons behind the greatest rise in financial value of art in history. He interviews leading dealers, art collectors and art market analysts and discovers an extraordinary world of unusual market practices, speculation, secrecy and a passionate enthusiasm for art.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
