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  3. The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic

The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic

游客2023-09-05  62
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. [br] In the first paragraph, Damien Hirst’s sale was referred to as "a last victory" because______.
选项 A、the art market had witnessed a succession of victories
B、the auctioneer finally got the two pieces at the highest bids
C、Beautiful inside My Head Forever won over all masterpieces
D、it was successfully made just before the world financial crisis
答案 D
解析 根据题干中的a last victory将本题出处定位到首段第三句，但是根据语境得知，答案应该在第四句中找。文中先提到，这(Damien Hirst的拍卖)是一次最后的胜利，随后就解释原因：在拍卖商大声喊出出价的同时，在纽约，雷曼兄弟申请破产，揭开了自20世纪20年代以来最为严峻的经济危机的序幕。由此可见，它是经济危机开始前的最后一次成功的艺术品拍卖活动，故答案为[D]。文中讲到，自从Damien Hirst的拍卖后艺术市场进入了低迷，[A]“艺术市场见证了一系列的成功”与之矛盾，故排除；[B]是针对首段中的All but two pieces sold设的干扰项，很显然[B]是错误的信息，故排除；该段首句提到with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst，Beautiful Inside My Head Forever…，没说明该作品胜出其他作品，[D]是对该信息的过度推测，故排除。
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