The Great Contemporary Art Bubble

Art critic and film-maker Ben Lewis spent two years following the contemporary art market, from its heady peak until the enivitable crash in October ‘08. Now - in this new and updated version - Ben returns one year after the crash, in October 2009, to discover a very different market.

Remember when the global economy was booming. The price of everything was doubling steel, gas, and property. Oil hit one hundred and fifty dollars a barrel. There were 1,000 billionaires on the planet, and rising. World Markets were full of bubbles; but one bubble was bigger than all the rest . . . Contemporary ART.

2003 - 2008 witnessed an unprecedented craze for contemporary art, in which works of art by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Mark Rothko sold for record-breaking prices of thirty million pounds upwards. Ben began making this film in May 2008 as the art world was at its most optimistic and confident, and prices grew ever higher.

Climaxing with Damien Hirsts' unprecedented Auction at Sotheby's London Sept 08, which sold £111,000,000 worth of art. The greatest rise in the financial value of art in the history of the world. And on the very day that Lehmann Brothers Bank collapsed, bringing down the financial systems of the western world. . . . . .Ben was there to see it all.