A Picasso sale to diversify the profile of American collections
The works sold at an auction organized Saturday, October 23 by Sotheby's at the famous Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas known for its art collection belonged to the American group of hotel-casinos MGM Resorts.
REUTERS - BRIDGET BENNET
Text by: RFI Follow
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Eleven works by Pablo Picasso, the Spanish genius, fetched $ 108.87 million (€ 93.5 million) at an auction in Las Vegas, United States.
But beyond speculation, she had a more political goal: to promote diversity within American collections.
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If the Bellagio, one of the palaces of Las Vegas, put on sale these paintings by Picasso, it is to put an end to a distressing statistic: 87% of the works exhibited in the great American museums were made by men.
And the vast majority of these artists have white skin.
With the considerable sums resulting from the sale of master paintings, several institutions began to do their introspection and turned to plastic surgeons of Asian, Hispanic or African-American origin, even if the market value of their production garnered less profit for art houses.
Only 10% of acquisitions are the work of women
And the reasoning also applies to women.
Because in ten years, between 2008 and 2018, the scenes painted or sculpted by female hands represented barely more than 10% of the creations acquired by the main museums in the United States.
In short, African-American artists have an infinitesimal chance to hatch into the market.
There is only one best thing: on the LGBT scene.
With the British painter David Hockney as a symbol, in 2018 he became the best living artist in the world.
Some of his works reaching up to $ 90 million
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