• The Leonard Lopate Show, Financial Times, New York Times , Friday, November 14, 2008 11:15 AM

Interesting insights into what sells in the New York City art world on Leonard Lopate's WNYC radio show yesterday afternoon. Lopate interviewed Sarah Thornton, a contributor to Artforum.com and The New Yorker, and author of Seven Days in the Art World. Blue and red paintings sell better than brown ones, we learn, and happy paintings do better than sad ones. We're also told about Takashi Murakami, a Japanese artist and sculptor, who runs a digital design "factory" that makes Andy Warhol's set-up of yore seem "like a lemonade stand."

Lopate points out that artists have to sell themselves much more than they used to; they can't just let the work speak for itself. "I think taciturn painters have it rough nowadays, definitely," Thornton agrees. Later, he points out that all of the auctioneers at Christie's are foreign born. "Is it because their accents give their words more style?" he asks.

"Selling can be seen as a profane act with regard to art," Thornton replies. "And perhaps the Swiss, or the British or the Austrian accent lends a little dignity to the flogging of this stuff."

Not to be a philistine, but when you've got a buyer and seller exchanging $2.8 million at auction for a 1951 De Kooning charcoal, profane isn't what comes to mind. It's more like, "Holy Profanity! If only folks who aren't taciturn by trade could learn to do art!"

You can download an MP3 file of the show here .

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