contemporaryart

Art Market Pits Old against Young, with Age Reigning Supreme

Combined, Sotheby's and Christie's moved £39 million ($63.25 million) in art from the Old Masters & 19th Century category at the beginning of July. Though it's still nothing compared to the levels reached the year before, it was good enough to top the Contemporary Art auction performances at those houses the month before. Collectors, together, cast a £1 million vote for age over beauty, a stunning development in an art market that has become accustomed to emphasizing the value of twentieth century pieces.

The rise in older works is akin to a flight to quality in financial markets, as the rarer, more reliable pieces have substantial track records and are less likely to fall victim to changes in taste. Speculation isn't as rampant in the Old Masters as it is for contemporary works: the market is a known quantity, with room for very few "discoveries," while there are still many twentieth century artists among us ... some of whom are even deigning to create their own paintings.

The success of the Old Masters category last month is due in part to the availability of inventory. Sotheby's was fortunate enough to be chosen for the Barbara Piasecka Johnson collection, which brought in more than £5 million. Christie's saw three new records set, though the house didn't keep pace with rival Sotheby's, despite sending more lots under the gavel.

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Tags: art, art auction, art auctions, art market, ArtAuction, ArtAuctions, artist, ArtMarket, artwork, auction, auction-house, auctionhouse, auctions, christies, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, old masters, OldMasters, sothebys

Contemporary Art Comes To A Medieval Castle

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

A medieval castle is going to become a 'House of Bling' in a new contemporary art exhibit. An exhibition at Tattershall Castle, a 15th Century Medieval castle in Lincolnshire, England is part of a new relationship between the Arts Council England and the National Trust aimed at promoting contemporary art in historic properties. The name 'House of Bling' does honor to the fact that the castle was built between 1434 - 46 by Ralph Cromwell, Lord Treasurer to Henry VI as a visible symbol of his wealth, a form of real estate bling.

Artists Sarah Price, Geraldine Pilgrim, Catherine Bertola, Linda Florence, and KMA (Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler) will create new art works inspired by the building and each artist will work in a specific area of the monument and grounds including a large scale work cut into the lawn in front of Tattershall's castle done by Linda Florence. Catherine Bertola's offering will be a site-specific work that uses images of weaving and spinning from folk fairy tales and will result in golden cobwebs hung in the castle. Geraldine Pilgrim will create a work that will use packing cases and crates to explore imagery associated with towers and keeps. The work from KMA will be inspired by the castle cellars and will take the form of a film and audio narrative that combines fact and fiction. Sarah Price will create a secret wild garden on the castle grounds to invoke the time when the castle was abandoned and overgrown. The exhibition will take place at Tattershall Castle from August 8 – 23.

[via Art Daily]

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Tags: art, art exhibit, ArtExhibit, catherine bertola, CatherineBertola, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, geraldine pilgrim, GeraldinePilgrim, kma, linda florence, LindaFlorence, sarah price, SarahPrice, tattershall castle, TattershallCastle

London Art Auction Market Gives Up 70 Percent

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

June auction revenues were off 70 percent in London this year, due in large part to job cuts and an unwillingness to guarantee lots. Even the occasional sign of hope had to be taken with a grain of salt, as lower expectations tended to magnify this year's results falsely.

Together, Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips de Pury pulled in $269.4 million in this summer's sales – off 70 percent from a year ago. In addition to the mechanical drivers of lost jobs and guarantees, the auction houses haven't had an easy time bringing high-profile, high-value pieces to market. Every event in London this summer unloaded at least two-thirds of its inventory, and success rates rose to above 88 percent at the Sotheby's and Christie's events this past June, but lingering in the background is the notion that 2009, at this point, is nothing like 2008.

To some, the current art slump is reminiscent of the early 1990s, in which a bubble in Impressionist art pricing precipitated a general decline, and nobody could get a realistic sense of a piece's value. The market took several years to recover, but it has since passed the levels of nearly 20 years ago. The Impressionists are down 68 percent this year, roughly in line with global trends, with the contemporary market off approximately 73 percent. New York fared no better than London, with contemporary sales at Sotheby's down 75 percent and Christies off 72 percent.

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Tags: art, art auction, art auctions, art bubble, art market, ArtAuction, ArtAuctions, ArtBubble, ArtMarket, artwork, auctionhouse, auctionhouses, bubble, bubble watch, BubbleWatch, christies, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, impressionist, impressionists, london, phillips de pury, PhillipsDePury, sothebys

New Bacon Book to Accompany Met Exhibit

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events, Art, Books

If you can't make it to "Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this month you can still enjoy the great painter's works courtesy of art book imprint Skira Rizzoli. Francis Bacon, a comprehensive study of the seminal 20th-century painter (and oligarch favorite) "provides a radical reassessment of his major achievements and his enduring importance for the twenty-first century."

Bacon developed a way of portraying the human body that was unique in the history of painting - "usually in isolation, at moments of extreme tension or even pain, his figures distorted as if in a fantastical nightmare," as the authors note. In addition to 250 full-color plates, the book also reveals Bacon's inspirations, including magazine tear sheets, photographs, and imagery from films. The book, which will be published later this month, is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

Tags: contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, Francis Bacon, FrancisBacon, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MetropolitanMuseumOfArt, museums, New York, NewYork, painting

Giant Jeff Koons Egg Up For Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Less than two years ago, a huge shiny sculpture by Jeff Koons, Hanging Heart by Jeff Koons went for $23.4 million at auction. Now the kitschy artist has another monumental piece up for sale, a giant rendition of a candy egg which will be auctioned off at the May 12 evening sale of Contemporary Art at Sotheby's New York. The massive egg is made of high-chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating and is one of four differently colored versions. It is estimated to sell for $6 to $8 million. For a sense of the scale of the piece, watch the video of Sotheby's principal auctioneer Tobias Meyer talking about it. Meyer speaks about Koons's love of the egg shape and its meaning of creativity, fertility and positivity. It might be tempting to dismiss Koons's outsized and cartoonish creations but Meyer remarks that it is actually quite a challenge to create something that looks like shiny aluminum wrapper from steel and chromium and that the two types of finishes, the crumpled look and the high gloss bow present their own challenges. Some contemporary art provokes thought or controversy but with Koons you generally get a sort of glee, a sense of the ridiculousness of the world. Viewing one of his large sculptures from his Celebration series is like revisiting your own childhood through a funhouse mirror.

[Thanks, Lana]

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Tags: contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, egg, jeff koons, JeffKoons, sculpture

Sotheby's Opens in Doha, Bizarre Timing

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

Once the undisputed land of conspicuous wealth and consumption, the United Arab Emirates is being squeezed by a large drop in oil prices. It's a shame this comes after the region's addiction to art has become fully entrenched. Sotheby's is planning its first contemporary art sale from its new Doha, Qatar branch on March 18, 2009 – also the opening day of the Art Dubai fair. Hell, it's enough to make you "scream" (see photo).

This looks like the triumph of ambition over common sense, but Sotheby's was probably too far into its Middle Eastern endeavors before the bottom fell out on the region's finances. And with Bonhams and Christie's already in town, Sotheby's had little choice but to follow.

The UAE has committed quickly to the art scene. Abu Dhabi is working on building a Louvre, and is erecting a Guggenheim. Last year, art auction revenues reached $34.9 million, up 70 percent from 2007. But, the upcoming auction should be tricky, particularly with the poor performance of the sector last fall in more established markets, like New York, London and Hong Kong.

In around two weeks, we'll see if Sotheby's will be able to make this new auction house work, or if it will fall victim to the greater recession-triggered decline in the art market. The Mei Moses All Art Index dropped 4.5 percent last year. This seems like a modest amount, but you need to remember that record-setting sales continued through the middle of the summer. Last May, Roman Abramovich was a billionaire with a new Francis Bacon piece in his collection. Today ... we know he feels pain, too. The second half of the year wiped out the first half's records and pulled prices down further.

It's a tough time to count on the market to make Sotheby's Doha a success, but the market doesn't give us choices.

[Photo: "El Grito" by Julio Aguilera]

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Tags: abramovich, abu dhabi, abu dubai, AbuDhabi, AbuDubai, art, art auction, art auctions, art market, ArtAuction, ArtAuctions, ArtMarket, artwork, bonhams, bonhams auction, BonhamsAuction, christies, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, doha, dubai, francis bacon, FrancisBacon, guggenheim, guggenheim museum, GuggenheimMuseum, qatar, roman abramovich, RomanAbramovich, sothebys, sothebys international realty, SothebysInternationalRealty, uae, united arab emirates, UnitedArabEmirates

Francis Bacon Anthology

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Books

The contemporary art market has hit such hard times that even eternal bankables like Francis Bacon are being affected; even a relatively cheap painting of his failed to sell at Sotheby's in December. Expect interest in the twisted Irish genius to revive when a massive centenary exhibition if his work opens in at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art in the spring, however. Meanwhile, you can sate yourself on a slew of new Bacon books just hitting shelves. For starters there's an English edition of a lavish catalog produced for an exhibition in Milan earlier this year, Francis Bacon: Anthology by Rudy Chiappini (above), which covers the whole of Bacon's oeuvre dating from the 1930s, as well as a revised edition of Michel Leiris' landmark monograph on the artist. Others focus on Bacon's portraits and his photography collection - but if you just want a nice buzz as opposed to an OD, we'd go with the Anthology.

Tags: Contemporary Art, ContemporaryArt, Francis Bacon, FrancisBacon, Metropolitan Museum, MetropolitanMuseum

Eli Broad Offers $30 Million to Floundering MOCA

by Tracy Chait (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Big Givers

In the wake of MOCA's public outcry for help, Eli Broad has stepped up to offer $30 million to the museum. Earlier this month, Deidre Woollard reported that Broad (above with his wife Edythe) might have been planning a contemporary art museum of his own in Beverly Hills, after an acquisition spree that included pieces by Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha and Robert Rauschenberg.

Perhaps he's refocused his efforts towards saving a contemporary art museum instead. I wrote recently about art critic Christopher's Knight's open letter to MOCA's board, ordering it to raise $25 million pronto. Looks like Broad got the memo -- though in his statement of intent in the LA Times, he urges his fellow philanthropists to take part.

"This is not a one-philanthropist town," he writes, though in the contemporary art world, the Broad name is growing awfully familiar.

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Tags: art, big givers, BigGivers, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, eli broad, EliBroad, moca

Celebrating Cy Twombly's 80th Birthday

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Famed Abstract Expressionist Cy Twombly's 80th birthday is being celebrated with a major new touring retrospective. It just opened at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which notes that he is "one of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century's most influential artists."

To coincide with these events D.A.P. has published a comprehensive overview of Twombly's work titled Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons, a must-have for any serious connoisseur of contemporary art. Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening Sotheby's will auction off an important Twombly work, 1986's two-part Untitled, estimated at $4 - $6 million. We expect his work will prove recession-proof.

Tags: Bilbao, Contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, cy twombly, CyTwombly, Guggenheim Museum, GuggenheimMuseum, Sothebys

Sleepover Party at the Guggenheim

by Tracy Chait (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Art

Part installation, part hotel, artist Carsten Höller's Revolving Hotel Room is New York's latest impossible-to-get reservation. Revolving Hotel Room is part of the Guggenheim Museum's theanyspacewhatever exhibit, a group of installations by 10 artists who commonly express exhibition space as an important medium.

During the day, visitors to the museum can inspect the four rotating discs upon which Höller has assembled areas to sleep, work and eat.

By night, guests willing to pay the $799 per night rate can sleep over (no word on whether the discs keep rotating while you sleep). Here's hoping the museum extends the exhibit past its January 6 end date -- every night up until then is already sold out.

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Tags: carston holler, CarstonHoller, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, guggenheim museum, GuggenheimMuseum, revolving hotel room, RevolvingHotelRoom, theanyspacewhatever

Richard Prince's Lake Resort Nurse to Highlight Christie's Sale

by Tracy Chait (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

One of Richard Prince's highly coveted Nurse paintings is up for auction at Christie's on November 12. Lake Resort Nurse (2003) is estimated to fetch up to $7 million at the Post-war and Contemporary Art sale.

Christie's calls Prince's Nurse paintings a "modern embodiment of the Madonna/whore dichotomy," as he manipulates viewers to recall influences as wide-ranging as pulp romance novels, slasher films, masked heroines and Post-WWII iconography.

And Prince did use romance novels as the basis of his work -- scanning in the actual covers and printing them with an ink-jet printer, then layering on suggestive strokes of acrylic paint. (Not surprisingly, the Center for Nursing Advocacy wasn't thrilled with the arguably misogynistic and regressive message of the series.)

See the gallery for more Nurse paintings, which when first -- and last -- exhibited at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in 2004 sold for a reported $45,000-85,000 apiece. The last Nurse painting to be auctioned, Dude Ranch Nurse #2, went for $5.5 million just a week and a half ago.

Gallery: Richard Prince's Nurse Paintings

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Tags: christies, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, lake resort nurse, LakeResortNurse, nurse paintings, NursePaintings, richard prince, RichardPrince

Murakami Craze the Latest Victim of Recession?

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

Has the craze for Japanese artist and Louis Vuitton collaborator Takashi Murakami's work become the latest victim of the looming recession? In May, art world observers were astounded when Murakami's onanistic sculpture My Lonesome Cowboy, estimated at $3 - $4 million, ended up going for $15 million at a Sotheby's auction. Many expected a similar result Saturday evening when Phillips de Pury put another major Murakami work up for auction in London. However, the 21-ft. sculpture Tongari-kun (above), estimated at $6 - $7.8 million, did not draw a single bid, Bloomberg reports.

Moreover, Murakami himself was in the auction audience, no doubt wanting to witness the windfall in person. He took the snub well, however; as nothing but silence answered the auctioneer's calls, the artist burst out laughing. Some insiders said Murakami had been considering staging a big bucks solo auction like the one so successfully run by Damien Hirst, but he may rethink that now, at least until the economic picture improves. Hirst of course looks even more brilliant for staging his $200 million sale right before the financial markets really went to hell in a handbasket.

Tags: Contemporary Art, ContemporaryArt, Damien Hirst, DamienHirst, Louis Vuitton, LouisVuitton, Sculpture, Takashi Murakami, TakashiMurakami

Hirst Rakes in $200 Million in Two Days

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

Art world provocateur Damien Hirst just raked in a staggering $200.8 million in total over his two-day solo sale at Sotheby's in London, shattering pre-sale estimates. The dollar figure set a new world record for an auction dedicated to a single artist, Reuters reports. Fittingly enough since Hirst recently compared himself to Picasso, the previous solo sale record was set in 1993 at a Picasso auction; Hirst's total is ten times as large.

Although buyers of works such as the gold-dipped bull which went for nearly $18 million have not been identified, we're guessing the name of one Roman Abramovich will soon surface, especially since his hot young gallery-owning girlfriend Dasha Zhukova was given a personal, private tour of the Sotheby's inventory by Hirst himself prior to the event. In any case the jackpot should help shore up Hirst's claim that he is now a bona fide billionaire.

Tags: Contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, Damien Hirst, DamienHirst, dasha zhukova, DashaZhukova, Picasso, roman abramovich, RomanAbramovich, Sothebys

Hirst's Golden Calf Sells for Record-Breaking $18 Million

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

Bad boy Brit artist Damien Hirst smashed his previous auction record with the $18.5 million sale of a gold tipped bull in formaldehyde on the first day of his major solo sale at Sotheby's in London Monday. Entitled The Golden Calf, the controversial artist's work exceeded the top end of its estimate by over $4 million, and toppled the previous record of $17.4 million paid for a Hirst work last summer, Bloomberg reports. The buyer's identity is unknown at this time.

Elsewhere in day one of the sale, a shark in formaldehyde work entitled The Kingdom was hammered down for $17.2 million - over $7 million above the high end of its pre-sale estimate. The piece in question is about half the size of the pickled shark which was sold to billionaire Steven Cohen for $8 million in 2005. The figures have many in the contemporary art world breathing a sigh of relief, as the landmark auction is seen as a bellwether of the much-hyped market's prospects in an uncertain economy.

Tags: Contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, Damien Hirst, DamienHirst, Sothebys

$6 Billion Francis Bacon Exhibit Opens in London

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Most of megabucks Irish artist Francis Bacon's major works - an estimated $6 billion worth in total - just went on exhibit at the Tate Britain in London. As my colleague Deidre Woollard reported in May, Luxist mascot Roman Abramovich slapped down a record-breaking $86.3 million for a Bacon triptych at Sotheby's.

The exhibition will run through January 2009; as we noted earlier this month, Abramovich is bankrolling a Bacon show of his own at his girlfriend's Moscow gallery in 2010. Meanwhile, the Times of London just declared Bacon, who died in 1992 long before his prices went ballistic, to be the "single greatest artist that Britain has produced in the past 100 years." That must come as something of a shock to Damien Hirst.

[via Men.Style]

Tags: contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, Francis Bacon, FrancisBacon, London, Museums, roman abramovich, RomanAbramovich, Sothebys, Tate Britain, TateBritain