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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

admin2012-05-28  72
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, triggering the most severe financial crisis since the 1920s.
    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 volatile (动荡的). 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, whereas in the early 1990s, when interest rates were high, there was no demand even though many collectors wanted to sell. Christie’s revenues in the first half of 2009 were still higher than in the first half of 2006. 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.
What do we learn about the art market from the passage?
选项 A、Nobody has confidence in the future of the art market.
B、The art market surpassed many other industries in momentum.
C、The art market generally went downward in various ways.
D、Sales of contemporary art rose dramatically from 2007 to 2008.
答案C
解析 根据题干中的art market将本题出处定位到第二段首句和第四段首句。第二段用losing momentum表示出艺术市场的衰落，之后用具体数据说明衰落的程度：第四段首句用The current downturn…is the worst说明目前艺术市场的情况，综上可以得出，艺术市场以各种方式总体下滑，故答案为[C]。[A]与文中末句的anyone…waiting for confidence to return的信息矛盾，故排除；[B]与第二段首句的The world art market had already been losing momentum的信息相反，故排除：由第二段二、三句的At its peak in 2007和Since then it may have come down可知，艺术市场在2007年达到顶峰，之后下滑，因此[D]为错误信息，故排除。
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