Fantasy Auctions 2005 (Fall Edition), Update I
Well, it seems I have some new art! (At least in my fantasy world). The results aren't up yet for last night's and today's (duh!) Contemporary sessions at Phillips, but artnet.com has posted most of the other fall auction returns now, and I'm happy to report that---although that Twombly I was hoping no one would notice was gorgeous went for over 8 million (see the rules here, I only have $3mil to spend)---I would have won the bidding on some awesome pieces, including this Luc Tuymans (no offense to the person who won the bid in real life, mind you...you have extraordinarily good taste!):
Luc Tuymans, Premonition, oil on canvas, diameter: 28 in. 71.2 cm.
What I didn't win includes the Twombly, which went for $8,696,000, this Peyton, which went for $856,000, and this Candida Höfer, which went for $42,000....all out of the range of where I said I'd stop bidding. But I did win the Warhol I wanted to get for Bambino, so I can go home tonight anyway (it went for $96,000 [estimate $70 - 90k]).
But on to what everyone really wants to know...how did the "emerging" artists do? Very well overall.
Julie Mehretu's Untitled (Skybox) was estimated at $30,000 - 40,000 and sold for $48,000. Kehinde Wiley's Saint Francis of Paola, which was estimated at $25,000 - 35,000, sold for $33,600 (not bad...remember how young he is and this is not what I'd call one of his most complicated works). But the real newsmaker was Dana Schutz, whose Project at Kensington (estimated at $60,000 - 80,000 [see below]) sold for $96,000 (yes, that's real US dollars).
Dana Schutz, Project at Kensington, 2001, Oil on canvas, 42" x 47.2"
I still have my fingers crossed that I'll get a small Twombly and the gorgeous Gonzalex-Torres (so I'm not adding up my winnings just yet, in case I'm already over my budget). Final update to come.
Luc Tuymans, Premonition, oil on canvas, diameter: 28 in. 71.2 cm.
What I didn't win includes the Twombly, which went for $8,696,000, this Peyton, which went for $856,000, and this Candida Höfer, which went for $42,000....all out of the range of where I said I'd stop bidding. But I did win the Warhol I wanted to get for Bambino, so I can go home tonight anyway (it went for $96,000 [estimate $70 - 90k]).
But on to what everyone really wants to know...how did the "emerging" artists do? Very well overall.
Julie Mehretu's Untitled (Skybox) was estimated at $30,000 - 40,000 and sold for $48,000. Kehinde Wiley's Saint Francis of Paola, which was estimated at $25,000 - 35,000, sold for $33,600 (not bad...remember how young he is and this is not what I'd call one of his most complicated works). But the real newsmaker was Dana Schutz, whose Project at Kensington (estimated at $60,000 - 80,000 [see below]) sold for $96,000 (yes, that's real US dollars).
Dana Schutz, Project at Kensington, 2001, Oil on canvas, 42" x 47.2"
I still have my fingers crossed that I'll get a small Twombly and the gorgeous Gonzalex-Torres (so I'm not adding up my winnings just yet, in case I'm already over my budget). Final update to come.
posted by Edward_ at
9:32 AM
2 Comments:
I'm very happy for Dana Schutz, I'm a fan of Julie Mehretu, and I think Kehinde Wiley deserves success, but someone needs to explain Elizabeth Peyton to me. I don't see it. Some of her paintings rise to the level of "okay," but most just don't do it for me.
With most art, even if it doesn't work for me, I can understand why someone else would say it does. I just can't do that for Peyton, and I could use a seminar if anyone would care to give one.
They remind me of throw-away illustrations from a mass-market children's book. To compare her to David Hockney is a bit rich. I saw the pairing of Peyton and Hockney at the recent Whitney Biennial, and I agreed that the pairing made sense aesthetically -- the Hockney-Peyton room was one of the more memorable for me -- but Hockney's works stir my soul whereas Peyton ... I dunno ... again ... someone please give me roadmap? Cuz I'm lost.
Henry, IMNSHO it's the capriciousness of the art market and nothing more. The odds are zero that a million monkeys with typewriters in a million rooms will write a Shakespeare sonnet, but in the current art market, the odds are roughly 80 to 1 that a dealer will snatch a page, hail its bleeding-edge genius, schedule a show and pay Holland Carter to write the catalog intro, so long as he knows there are 999,999 other pages to sell.
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