This was in the
Santa Fe New Mexican a few days ago.
Peter de La Fuente, who sells his family's artworks as well as his own
at the Wyeth Hurd Gallery, said he's never seen it slower.
"If you go out on Palace Avenue, you can look down and there's nobody in
that portal going down to the Plaza. It's almost in a vacuum right
now," he said. "There are times in the year that I feel like I've got a
very nice office with very excellent art on the wall."
De La Fuente, the grandson of Peter Hurd and the great-grandson of M.C.
Wyeth, was among several dealers to use the language of the Occupy
movement.
"I hate to be a snob, but what we're getting now is a bunch of 99
percenters, and they're very appreciative, but they're not collectors,"
he said. "The people who are collectors, my clients, are the 1 percent,
people who can afford art and fine art and expensive art. ...
"We [need] to get rid of Obama and let the people make money again. Profit is not a bad thing. It's what makes this country go." ("Bloom or Bust? Jury's out on state of Santa Fe art market," Tom Sharpe, The Santa Fe New Mexican, February 16, 2012)
In other news, the Dow Jones
broke 13,000 today for the first time since May, 2008.
