The late Nineties also saw the contemporary art departments at the major auction houses transform from one- and two-man bands of junior staffers to the whole-floor occupying behemoths they are today. But it was really in the Noughties, the first few years of a new millennium, that all this Nineties energy double-backed into itself and exploded into an art world champagne supernova.
Suddenly there were galleries everywhere all at once: pioneers of the industrial East End of London such as Maureen Paley found themselves surrounded by new spaces; White Cube moved to Shoreditch, which itself was filling with galleries that were anything but white cubes (the ‘Dream Bags and Jaguar Shoes’ effect).
The same was true for New York, L.A., Brussels, Copenhagen, Paris and Hong Kong: the Noughties was the decade that the art world became truly global, not just centred on the traditional art hubs of Europe and America. There seemed to be a new art fair starting in a new city every other week. And a Gagosian/Zwirner/Ropac outpost out-post opening somewhere. Frieze went from magazine to phenomenon to sine qua non. Basel became hip (to an extent).
The group of works shown in our Y2K: Selected Works from an Important Private Collection of Contemporary Art exhibition reflect this unstoppable globalisation - made by artists from all four points, shown by start-ups as well as established players across every continent. It makes for a perfect snapshot of the scene, a moment in time.
The Noughties gave us the iPod, MySpace and Spotify, which transformed the way music was made, marketed and consumed. YouTube changed television and film forever; and the .jpeg and PDF killed the art magazine and the 10 x 8 transparency (only ever offered to the most serious of collectors and never to art advisors).
If the internet changed the world in every aspect, it really changed contemporary art. Images were everywhere and everything looked great (mostly). As the Tens and Twenties send us further into digital hinterlands and contemporary art has become as much an asset class for the upper class as the Impressionists were in the 80s and 90s, the Noughties art scene feels like another country – but one that albeit calls us back with a siren song (sung by a skinny guitar group in skinny jeans) to a time of unalloyed optimism and the possibility of youth. Who wouldn’t want to go back?
