Apart from the fact that the alleged origin of the prize exhibit at Art Basle – a bar of soap, displayed on a square of black velvet, purportedly made from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s fat, which was removed during liposuction – may be in bad taste in terms of historical precedents, something else struck my untypically prudish eye: the yield inversion on contemporary over historic works of art. Sign of the times, Jack, sign of the times.

Prices are soaring for star-quality artists, topping levels charged for the old masters in a market that has an estimated $20 billion annual turnover, making veteran art experts wonder if this feeding frenzy can really last. Cellphones clamped to their ears, clutching lists, buyers clad in high-fashion gear dash from booth to booth. They exchange prices in the clipped shorthand of a seasoned trader. “Six-eight for that? Or two at 20?” said one, pointing from a Donald Judd minimalist sculpture to photographs. Nothing sells here with less than three zeros added to the price. Like Internet stocks, bonds, real estate and commodities before it, contemporary art today is luring the type of glitzy investment where anything that sniffs of a potential blockbuster is flying off the walls.