This from Jean-Michel Othoniel, France’s glass-bead master, after receiving news that three of his ginormous bibelots had sold before FIAC even opened to the public. One sculpture went to the state, part of a 24-strong purchase of French artworks by the ministry of culture, another to a Chicago collector through a New York art advisor and a third to a Montreal collector, who bought it within five minutes of seeing it at Emmanuel Perrotin.

The return of the 1980s — the nascent epoch of the celebrity artist, when market hype eclipsed art, cultivated cynicism and killed off the avant-garde — is a bit of a stretch. How about 2007? There was certainly a pré-crise buoyancy in the air.

Read on at ArtReview.com