Art Week Ends On Miami Beach
MIAMI (CBS4) -- For the past week, art dealers from all across the world have taken over Miami's art scene. Millions of dollars worth of art have been sold at events such as Art Basel and Art Miami.
If you were one of the art dealers in Miami this week, you saw a difference in sales.
"A tremendous difference," said Nick Korniloff, director of Art Miami, the city's longest-running contemporary art fair.
"It was 200 times better this year than it was last year," he said.
For example, last year, 36,000 people walked the gallery halls. This year, 41,000 attended Art Miami.
And then there's the money:
- A Gerhard Richter painting sold for $1.1 million.
- An Alexander Caulder piece sold for $550,000
- A Li Chen sculpture sold for $285,000.
- A Deborah Butterfield piece sold for $150,000.
"It's just non-stop traffic from start to finish," said Ryan Ross, an art dealer from West Palm Beach. "I don't know exactly what it is. But, just a real positive, positive thing going on and lots of money being spent in the fine art sector right now."
"I think people have more confidence in the market," Korniloff said.
So much confidence in the market that in February of 2012, Korniloff will launch a new art event called the Florida International Fine Art Fair.
But for now, he hopes the success of Art Week is strong enough to help South Florida's economy.
"We put a lot of people to work through a tough economic time and we held through some very tough economic times and this fair is here to stay," Korniloff said.
