The hype and glamour of the string of soirees that accompanied London's Frieze Art Fair have paid off

Apollo, Dec, 2004 by Samson Spanier

The hype and glamour of the string of soirees that accompanied London's Frieze Art Fair have paid off. After White Cube gallery's bash at Sketch bar and Hauser and Wirth gallery's party at Tramp nightclub, 26 million [pounds sterling] of art was sold at the fair, up from about 18 [pounds sterling] last year. This may not be as much as the Art Basel fairs, whose unpublished figures are estimated as twice as much, but the growth speaks well for the future. At Zoo and Scope, the smaller fairs that coincided with Frieze, certain galleries also enjoyed strong sales. The great sale of the 'Frieze week' was of course that of Damien Hirst's Pharmacy restaurant at Sotheby's (see Market Review, pp. 94-95), which totalled 12 million [pounds sterling] a huge amount that was buoyed up directly by the auction house wisely organising the most exclusive party of all. The glamourous evening view--adorned by Jay Jopling of White Cube, Samuel Keller of Art Basel and (right) the artist himself with Sotheby's vice president Robin Woodhead--was exclusive for a reason: only a few staff were invited, and the rest were told to leave the building by 7pm. 'You couldn't work late even if you wanted to,' said one disgruntled employee.

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