Next Tuesday the London Art Fair opens, and the world is watching. Bloomberg, Animal New York, The Art Collectors Blog, Artbleat, and others have all been talking about Black Rat Press’ print release Tuesday evening at the private opening: Nick Walker’s latest “Morning After Series” print. this one feature’s New York city and the Empire State Building. It’s an edition of 175, for £475 each.
Besides just a print release, this particular print is being viewed as a sort of barometer for the state of the art market. Usually, Nick Walker prints are instant sell-out items for Black Rat, but nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen with so many collectors reluctant to spend.
According to Bloomberg, Mike Snelle expects the edition to sell out within an hour. I trust Mike, and there’s also this queue from the last time Black Rat had an in the flesh Nick Walker print release.
On the other hand, Animal New York practicaly wants to set this print on fire they dislike it so much, though I have a feeling they may be holding a bit of a grudge after they went out on a limb and claimed Nick Walker and Banksy are the same person… only to have nothing really materialize to prove that claim as they suggested it would.
Mike Snelle’s got to have a reason for being so confident, and I just heard about another street art show opening this week with next-to-no publicity that has or will completely sell out, so maybe it’s just the crap and the overpriced stuff that’s being filtered out of the market and isn’t selling.
Either way, I’ll be at the London Art Fair sometime next week (probably not Tuesday), so I guess we’ll see how it goes.
Photo from Romanywg