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  3. The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beauti

The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beauti

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问题     The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby’s in London on September 15th 2008. All but two pieces sold, fetching more than ￡70m, a record for a sale by a single artist. It was a last victory. As the auctioneer called out bids, in New York one of the oldest banks on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy.
    The world art market had already been losing momentum for a while after rising bewilderingly since 2003. At its peak in 2007 it was worth some $65 billion, reckons Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics, a research firm—double the figure five years earlier. Since then it may have come down to $50 billion. But the market generates interest far beyond its size because it brings together great wealth, enormous egos, greed, passion and controversy in a way matched by few other industries.
    In the weeks and months that followed Mr. Hirst’s sale, spending of any sort became deeply unfashionable. In the art world that meant collectors stayed away from galleries and salerooms. Sales of contemporary art fell by two-thirds, and in the most overheated sector, they were down by nearly 90% in the year to November 2008. Within weeks the world’s two biggest auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, had to pay out nearly $200m in guarantees to clients who had placed works for sale with them.
    The current downturn in the art market is the worst since the Japanese stopped buying Impressionists at the end of 1989. This time experts reckon that prices are about 40% down on their peak on average, though some have been far more fluctuant. But Edward Dolman, Christie’s chief executive, says: "I’m pretty confident we’re at the bottom."
    What makes this slump different from the last, he says, is that there are still buyers in the market. Almost everyone who was interviewed for this special report said that the biggest problem at the moment is not a lack of demand but a lack of good work to sell. The three Ds—death, debt and divorce—still deliver works of art to the market. But anyone who does not have to sell is keeping away, waiting for confidence to return.
The three Ds mentioned in the last paragraph are
选项 A、auction house’s favorites.
B、contemporary trends.
C、factors promoting artwork circulation.
D、styles representing Impressionists.
答案C
解析 细节题。本题测试考生对文中具体细节信息的理解能力。题干的意思是“在最后一段中提到的三个D指的是______”。根据最后一段内容可以得知，在当前的市场中缺少的不是对艺术品的需求，而是好卖的艺术品。题干中的三个D分别指的是Death(死亡)、Debt(债务)和Divorce (离婚)。这是三个将艺术品引入市场进行流通的途径。因此C项“促进艺术品流通的因素”为正确答案。A项“拍卖行的最爱”、B项“当代的趋势”和D项“印象派画家的风格”均不符合文章的内容。
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