Art 1995-1999
1995 the memento Mori of the Sheep
2013 sold 1.95 M£ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In 1991, aged 26, Damien Hirst certainly wants the glory. The three components of success are sex, death and money. He chose death.
His idea is original. The natural history museums exhibit animals preserved in formaldehyde. He decides to do the same with large beasts immersed in tanks adapted to their size and to excite the public with metaphysical titles assessing the depth of his own thought.
He made his first test with a quite unpleasant animal, the shark, maybe for not too much offending immediately the sensibilities. This piece named The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Somebody Living provided the desired success.
In 1994, three sheep join this renewed bestiary in three independent works entitled Away from the Flock. In 1995 came the most iconic unique piece of the series, Away from the Flock - Divided, where the two symmetrical halves of a single sheep are presented in two separate tanks, 118 x 186 cm.
In 2006, Hirst is the enfant terrible of British art: On May 9 of that year, Christie's sold Away from the Flock - Divided for $ 3.4 million including premium. On 13 February 2013, this installation is estimated £ 1.8 million, for sale byChristie's in London. Here is the link to the catalog.
The fabulous sale made by Sotheby's on September 15, 2008 with the so Hirstian title 'Beautiful inside my head forever' pushed the Golden Calf as a masterpiece of the genre, at £ 10.3 million including premium.
The divided sheep will be an interesting test of the market just two months after the highly publicized break between Hirst and Gagosian.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result, £ 1.95 million including premium, is in line with the estimate. This work certainly could not pretend to reach the price of the monumental Golden Calf, but it was one of the most famous in the series. The market of the art of Damien Hirst has not yet recovered its dynamism.
In 1991, aged 26, Damien Hirst certainly wants the glory. The three components of success are sex, death and money. He chose death.
His idea is original. The natural history museums exhibit animals preserved in formaldehyde. He decides to do the same with large beasts immersed in tanks adapted to their size and to excite the public with metaphysical titles assessing the depth of his own thought.
He made his first test with a quite unpleasant animal, the shark, maybe for not too much offending immediately the sensibilities. This piece named The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Somebody Living provided the desired success.
In 1994, three sheep join this renewed bestiary in three independent works entitled Away from the Flock. In 1995 came the most iconic unique piece of the series, Away from the Flock - Divided, where the two symmetrical halves of a single sheep are presented in two separate tanks, 118 x 186 cm.
In 2006, Hirst is the enfant terrible of British art: On May 9 of that year, Christie's sold Away from the Flock - Divided for $ 3.4 million including premium. On 13 February 2013, this installation is estimated £ 1.8 million, for sale byChristie's in London. Here is the link to the catalog.
The fabulous sale made by Sotheby's on September 15, 2008 with the so Hirstian title 'Beautiful inside my head forever' pushed the Golden Calf as a masterpiece of the genre, at £ 10.3 million including premium.
The divided sheep will be an interesting test of the market just two months after the highly publicized break between Hirst and Gagosian.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result, £ 1.95 million including premium, is in line with the estimate. This work certainly could not pretend to reach the price of the monumental Golden Calf, but it was one of the most famous in the series. The market of the art of Damien Hirst has not yet recovered its dynamism.
1995 Mark Tansey redeploys Art
2010 SOLD 960 K$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
If the role of this group is to discuss the most innovative trends of art, the American Mark Tansey finds here a natural place. Like Yinka Shonibare whom we have already introduced here, Tansey develops an intellectual art which is rooted in history and culture.
He is the author of monochromatic oil paintings where themes of the past are dealt with the very fine drawing of a surrealist. One feels being in a movie theater of the twentieth century, when the newsreel preceded the feature. The framing tips, the use of anamorphic effects and techniques of caricature generate hermetic works which are impossible to capture by the ignorant.
The consecration of Tansey at auction came yesterday evening at Christie's. A particularly complex work painted in 2003, 213 x 275 cm, estimated $ 800K, rose to $ 3.2 million including premium.
Tomorrow evening on May 13 in New York, Phillips de Pury sells a red oil painting made in 1995, 203 x 256 cm, entitled "Redeployment", estimated $ 1.5 million. It is staging a maneuver of cavalry troops of the Napoleonic era, in a field reduced to a curiously sharp triangle, as if it is viewed through the clap of a film director. The catalog page is shared by the online auction site LiveAuctioneers.
POST SALE COMMENT
The lot sold by Phillips de Pury had not the surrealist optical illusions which made the success at Christie's two days before. The subject of cavalry is also far from the modern world. It sold 960 K $ including premium ($ 800 K hammer).
Look out for works by Mark Tansey in future auctions. His art called postmodern in the Wikipedia is interesting.
If the role of this group is to discuss the most innovative trends of art, the American Mark Tansey finds here a natural place. Like Yinka Shonibare whom we have already introduced here, Tansey develops an intellectual art which is rooted in history and culture.
He is the author of monochromatic oil paintings where themes of the past are dealt with the very fine drawing of a surrealist. One feels being in a movie theater of the twentieth century, when the newsreel preceded the feature. The framing tips, the use of anamorphic effects and techniques of caricature generate hermetic works which are impossible to capture by the ignorant.
The consecration of Tansey at auction came yesterday evening at Christie's. A particularly complex work painted in 2003, 213 x 275 cm, estimated $ 800K, rose to $ 3.2 million including premium.
Tomorrow evening on May 13 in New York, Phillips de Pury sells a red oil painting made in 1995, 203 x 256 cm, entitled "Redeployment", estimated $ 1.5 million. It is staging a maneuver of cavalry troops of the Napoleonic era, in a field reduced to a curiously sharp triangle, as if it is viewed through the clap of a film director. The catalog page is shared by the online auction site LiveAuctioneers.
POST SALE COMMENT
The lot sold by Phillips de Pury had not the surrealist optical illusions which made the success at Christie's two days before. The subject of cavalry is also far from the modern world. It sold 960 K $ including premium ($ 800 K hammer).
Look out for works by Mark Tansey in future auctions. His art called postmodern in the Wikipedia is interesting.
1995 Emily from Batik to Acrylic
2009 SOLD 250 KAus$ including premium
It is no exaggeration to say that Emily Kame Kngwarreye contributed powerfully to the creation of a new branch of contemporary art.
In 1977, at Alkalherre in the deserts of northern Australia, a mission of Aboriginal literacy support takes on a local workshop of batik, ie of dyeing textiles. Emily is very active in this project, which will reveal the freshness and vitality of the patterns of local traditional batik.
The next step came a few years later, when advised sponsors introduced in the workshops of these artists the acrylic paint on canvas, and organized exhibitions in the world.
Orders poured, and 1995 was a great year for the art of Emily, then largely into her eighties. A set of four works of large size (3 x 6 m each) entitled Earth Creation overcame the one million Australian dollars at Lawson-Menzies in Sydney on 23 May 2007.
The paint on linen, 110 x 201 cm, offered by Deutscher and Hackett in Melbourne on March 25 is also dated 1995. In one of the various styles typical to the artist, we see a minute tangle of strips of a remarkable harmony of colors. This work, estimated 150 KA$, had been chosen to illustrate the cover of an exhibition catalog in 1998, two years after the death of Emily.
POST SALE COMMENT
The estimates were conservative, perhaps following the series of controversies that have affected the world of the Australian auction last year.
We therefore welcome the outcome: 250 KA$ including premium.
In 1977, at Alkalherre in the deserts of northern Australia, a mission of Aboriginal literacy support takes on a local workshop of batik, ie of dyeing textiles. Emily is very active in this project, which will reveal the freshness and vitality of the patterns of local traditional batik.
The next step came a few years later, when advised sponsors introduced in the workshops of these artists the acrylic paint on canvas, and organized exhibitions in the world.
Orders poured, and 1995 was a great year for the art of Emily, then largely into her eighties. A set of four works of large size (3 x 6 m each) entitled Earth Creation overcame the one million Australian dollars at Lawson-Menzies in Sydney on 23 May 2007.
The paint on linen, 110 x 201 cm, offered by Deutscher and Hackett in Melbourne on March 25 is also dated 1995. In one of the various styles typical to the artist, we see a minute tangle of strips of a remarkable harmony of colors. This work, estimated 150 KA$, had been chosen to illustrate the cover of an exhibition catalog in 1998, two years after the death of Emily.
POST SALE COMMENT
The estimates were conservative, perhaps following the series of controversies that have affected the world of the Australian auction last year.
We therefore welcome the outcome: 250 KA$ including premium.
1995 Education in Chicago
2018 withdrawn
After his training and early career in Los Angeles, Kerry James Marshall is working in Chicago since 1993. He found there a positive atmosphere for the spread of his social message and taught until 2006 at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois.
Marshall encourages young African-Americans to break free from their inferiority complexes. The American society was built by whites for whites, but blacks must also benefit from it. His scenes are populated exclusively by blacks. To create and maintain an art specific to their community, it is quite possible to ignore the existence of whites.
On November 15 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 27 C a 295 x 700 cm acrylic and collage made by Marshall in 1995 on the theme of education for use by public libraries in Chicago.
Titled Knowledge and Wonder, this mural shows children accompanied by three adults. Viewed from the back, they access knowledge by looking at and commenting on a large fresco that unites the symbols of the universe, from the infinitely great of astronomy to the infinitely small of microbiology.
A detailed inspection offers some interesting surprises. A black boy passes over their heads on a surfboard. A dragon symbolizes the wonder. Perched on a tree in a gap, a red cardinal, the state bird of Illinois, gives them its protection. A ladder is ready to be used for their social climbing.
Marshall encourages young African-Americans to break free from their inferiority complexes. The American society was built by whites for whites, but blacks must also benefit from it. His scenes are populated exclusively by blacks. To create and maintain an art specific to their community, it is quite possible to ignore the existence of whites.
On November 15 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 27 C a 295 x 700 cm acrylic and collage made by Marshall in 1995 on the theme of education for use by public libraries in Chicago.
Titled Knowledge and Wonder, this mural shows children accompanied by three adults. Viewed from the back, they access knowledge by looking at and commenting on a large fresco that unites the symbols of the universe, from the infinitely great of astronomy to the infinitely small of microbiology.
A detailed inspection offers some interesting surprises. A black boy passes over their heads on a surfboard. A dragon symbolizes the wonder. Perched on a tree in a gap, a red cardinal, the state bird of Illinois, gives them its protection. A ladder is ready to be used for their social climbing.
1996 Migrants, Pigs and Gas Cans
2014 SOLD for HK$ 66M including premium
The artists of the new Chinese painting were troubled by overpopulation and its effects on individuality. In their social criticism, they often tried to find moral values in the family, such as Zhang Xiaogang and Fang Lijun.
Liu Xiaodong observes the people of the poorer classes. As ugly as the characters of Otto Dix, they illustrate the same message about the futility of their life.
Liu works from his own photographs or sketch drawings. In 1996, he saw two trucks, one carrying emigrant workers, the other leading pigs to the slaughterhouse. In both cases, the individual is contained in a small space and resolutely ignores his or its fate.
Titled Disobeying the rules, the oil on canvas 180 x 230 cm painted in 1996 is for sale at Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, lot 1046.
On the platform of the truck, 17 migrants of all ages are naked. They smile stupidly without taking attention to the gas cylinders, in an involuntarily remake of the Wages of fear. The title is contemptuous : in their China that becomes wealthy, the individuality of the poor is no more than a trivial nothingness.
Later, Liu will also show the gloomy atmosphere of sexually engaged people such as transsexuals and prostitutes, accentuating the similarity of his artistic approach with the German expressionist including Beckmann.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's, showing the extraordinary speed of the brush of the artist.
Liu Xiaodong observes the people of the poorer classes. As ugly as the characters of Otto Dix, they illustrate the same message about the futility of their life.
Liu works from his own photographs or sketch drawings. In 1996, he saw two trucks, one carrying emigrant workers, the other leading pigs to the slaughterhouse. In both cases, the individual is contained in a small space and resolutely ignores his or its fate.
Titled Disobeying the rules, the oil on canvas 180 x 230 cm painted in 1996 is for sale at Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, lot 1046.
On the platform of the truck, 17 migrants of all ages are naked. They smile stupidly without taking attention to the gas cylinders, in an involuntarily remake of the Wages of fear. The title is contemptuous : in their China that becomes wealthy, the individuality of the poor is no more than a trivial nothingness.
Later, Liu will also show the gloomy atmosphere of sexually engaged people such as transsexuals and prostitutes, accentuating the similarity of his artistic approach with the German expressionist including Beckmann.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's, showing the extraordinary speed of the brush of the artist.
1996 Self Portrait amidst Watermelons
2011 SOLD 37.6 MHK$ including premium
2016 SOLD for £ 2.05M including premium
PRE 2016 SALE DISCUSSION
The enthusiasm of the Chinese art market for Zeng Fanzhi reached a peak from 2008 to 2013. A self portrait was sold for HK$ 37.6M including premium at Christie's on May 28, 2011, lot 1024, but did not reach its reserve price at Sotheby's in October 2015 with a lower estimate at HK$ 25M.
It is now estimated £ 1,5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on June 28, lot 45, the last but one lot of the evening sale. I paste below my 2011 discussion slightly increased in 2015.
The series of the Masks by Zeng Fanzhi, begun in 1994, are constituting a favorite set within the contemporary Chinese painting. His characters hide their personality for reasons that are probably their own. Relations between humans are artificial.
In 1996, at the time of the full development of his Masks, Zeng painted a life size self portrait, oil on canvas 200 x 169 cm.
Zeng provides an image of himself without a mask. He is a young artist of 32 whose face is too serious, whose hands are too large and jacket too narrow. He is dressed cool but in western fashion, and for sure he questions if such a modernism betrays the Chinese tradition. The wall behind him is covered with some unreadable calligraphy.
The catalogues by Sotheby's include an interesting comment on a possible influence of Max Beckmann's self portraits on Zeng. The scattered watermelons may be a symbol for the commonplace garbage in Western and Eastern modern life.
On May 24, 2008, Christie's had sold for HK $ 75M including premium a Mask of the same year, 1996, 200 x 360 cm, on which eight aligned characters smile without reason, like for a family or team sport photo.
The enthusiasm of the Chinese art market for Zeng Fanzhi reached a peak from 2008 to 2013. A self portrait was sold for HK$ 37.6M including premium at Christie's on May 28, 2011, lot 1024, but did not reach its reserve price at Sotheby's in October 2015 with a lower estimate at HK$ 25M.
It is now estimated £ 1,5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on June 28, lot 45, the last but one lot of the evening sale. I paste below my 2011 discussion slightly increased in 2015.
The series of the Masks by Zeng Fanzhi, begun in 1994, are constituting a favorite set within the contemporary Chinese painting. His characters hide their personality for reasons that are probably their own. Relations between humans are artificial.
In 1996, at the time of the full development of his Masks, Zeng painted a life size self portrait, oil on canvas 200 x 169 cm.
Zeng provides an image of himself without a mask. He is a young artist of 32 whose face is too serious, whose hands are too large and jacket too narrow. He is dressed cool but in western fashion, and for sure he questions if such a modernism betrays the Chinese tradition. The wall behind him is covered with some unreadable calligraphy.
The catalogues by Sotheby's include an interesting comment on a possible influence of Max Beckmann's self portraits on Zeng. The scattered watermelons may be a symbol for the commonplace garbage in Western and Eastern modern life.
On May 24, 2008, Christie's had sold for HK $ 75M including premium a Mask of the same year, 1996, 200 x 360 cm, on which eight aligned characters smile without reason, like for a family or team sport photo.
1996 The Black Madonna of the Suburbs
2015 SOLD for £ 2.9M including premium
The globalization brings a new culture linked to the meeting of the races. Gauguin in Tahiti was one hundred years ahead.
Chris Ofili is British of Nigerian origin. His Christian education mad him question the dogma of the Virgin Mary to which he observes the erotic features in some old pictorial figures. He will be the hip-hop artist of the African woman in a schematic style which is also a continuation of Basquiat by his racial activism.
On June 30 in London, Christie's sells The Holy Virgin Mary, lot 37 estimated £ 1.4M.
This artwork 243 x 182 cm was realized in 1996 with a mixed technique used to obtain a brilliant effect: acrylic, oil, resin, phosphorescent paper, pins and elephant dung.
The black woman is seated, in front view. Her long and slightly transparent dress releases a breast made in elephant dung. The psychedelic orange background is gorgeous, with a slightly lighter halo composed of radiating lines around the head.
This recuperation of the Marian theme with a black character outraged the Christians of New York in 1999, up to a lawsuit brought against the Brooklyn museum by the mayor of New York City on a charge of sacrilege scarce in a country so proud of its First Amendment.
This reaction appears to be quite excessive as The Holy Virgin Mary belongs to the theme of the glorification of the African woman and of her fertility. Orgena (A Negro), realized in 1998 in a similar technique without religious attributes, was sold for £ 1.9 million including premium by Christie's on 30 June 2010.
Chris Ofili is British of Nigerian origin. His Christian education mad him question the dogma of the Virgin Mary to which he observes the erotic features in some old pictorial figures. He will be the hip-hop artist of the African woman in a schematic style which is also a continuation of Basquiat by his racial activism.
On June 30 in London, Christie's sells The Holy Virgin Mary, lot 37 estimated £ 1.4M.
This artwork 243 x 182 cm was realized in 1996 with a mixed technique used to obtain a brilliant effect: acrylic, oil, resin, phosphorescent paper, pins and elephant dung.
The black woman is seated, in front view. Her long and slightly transparent dress releases a breast made in elephant dung. The psychedelic orange background is gorgeous, with a slightly lighter halo composed of radiating lines around the head.
This recuperation of the Marian theme with a black character outraged the Christians of New York in 1999, up to a lawsuit brought against the Brooklyn museum by the mayor of New York City on a charge of sacrilege scarce in a country so proud of its First Amendment.
This reaction appears to be quite excessive as The Holy Virgin Mary belongs to the theme of the glorification of the African woman and of her fertility. Orgena (A Negro), realized in 1998 in a similar technique without religious attributes, was sold for £ 1.9 million including premium by Christie's on 30 June 2010.
1996 The Closest Land to Heaven
2014 SOLD 27 MHK$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Chen Yifei began his career in the last years of the Cultural Revolution. By this time he had the courage to provide his art with a humanistic dimension that could displease the authorities.
After a long stay in the United States, he returned to China in 1990. Tibet, which he had visited, became for him the symbol of purity, a place where hostile climatic conditions generate the solidarity among men, and where family and prayer are not led aside by modern civilization.
In the mid-1990s, Chen devotes a large series of paintings to Tibet, the closest land to heaven. He gets in touch with groups of characters without giving a prominent place to an individual. His Tibetan family is tight, inseparable, indestructible. Heavy clothes confirm the hardness of life.
On 21 May 2011, China Guardian sold for 81M RMB yuan including premium an oil on canvas 188 x 255 cm dated 1994 on the theme of the upland wind.
On April 5 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas 200 x 200 cm made in 1996, estimated HK $ 25M, lot 112 in the catalog, on the mystical theme of the morning prayer. This occupation is so important for this group of men that they are concentrated on it while ignoring everything around them.
POST SALE COMMENT
Good result for this painting altogether modern and exotic : HK$ 27M including premium.
Chen Yifei began his career in the last years of the Cultural Revolution. By this time he had the courage to provide his art with a humanistic dimension that could displease the authorities.
After a long stay in the United States, he returned to China in 1990. Tibet, which he had visited, became for him the symbol of purity, a place where hostile climatic conditions generate the solidarity among men, and where family and prayer are not led aside by modern civilization.
In the mid-1990s, Chen devotes a large series of paintings to Tibet, the closest land to heaven. He gets in touch with groups of characters without giving a prominent place to an individual. His Tibetan family is tight, inseparable, indestructible. Heavy clothes confirm the hardness of life.
On 21 May 2011, China Guardian sold for 81M RMB yuan including premium an oil on canvas 188 x 255 cm dated 1994 on the theme of the upland wind.
On April 5 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas 200 x 200 cm made in 1996, estimated HK $ 25M, lot 112 in the catalog, on the mystical theme of the morning prayer. This occupation is so important for this group of men that they are concentrated on it while ignoring everything around them.
POST SALE COMMENT
Good result for this painting altogether modern and exotic : HK$ 27M including premium.
1996 ANGEL OF THE NORTH BY ANTONY GORMLEY
2008 SOLD 2.3 M£ INCLUDING PREMIUM
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
We now have the use of it. In their major contemporary art sales, Sotheby's accentuates the communication on a work which is not among the top prices of the sale. The press seized it, and the day of the sale prices soare precisely on that work.
The new beneficiary of this winning strategy is a monumental sculpture (200x533x34 cm) by Antony Gormley, number three of an edition of five executed in cast iron in 1996, lot 10 within the sale of London on July 1. Entitled Angel of the North, it is a human-size model for a monument ten times bigger that was installed in the north of England.
Sotheby's compares it to the Statue of Liberty and to Christ the Redeemer in Rio. Believe me, they don't do it only to make you laugh but mostly to attract targeted customers who will eventually find cheap its estimate of 600 K £.
We are told that the central human form, between the two plates which are the wings of the angel, was cast on the body of the artist. Considering the result, a kind of César without humour, we may be in the presence of a true abstract artist.
The aesthetics has nothing to do with all of that. Here now the monumental size generates the price. At Sotheby's such pleasures are varied: on May 14, the sex had pushed a sculpture by Takashi Murakami entitled My Lonesome Cowboy to $ 15 million on an estimate of $ 3 million. The next day, again in New York, a tasteless intellectualism pushed a lettrist painting of Ed Ruscha entitled I Dont Want No Retrospective to $ 4 million on an estimate of $ 1 million.
The market for contemporary art is really influenced by the effects of ads on which Sotheby's excels. This market is highly speculative. Curiously we feel that speculation is focused more on a specific work selected by the auction house than on a signature. If so, it is a fundamental difference with speculative mechanisms that we have experienced with the bubble of 1988-1990.
POST SALE COMMENT
This prediction was met : this sculpture by Gormley could not stay at its estimated value. It was sold 2.3 M£ including fees.
We now have the use of it. In their major contemporary art sales, Sotheby's accentuates the communication on a work which is not among the top prices of the sale. The press seized it, and the day of the sale prices soare precisely on that work.
The new beneficiary of this winning strategy is a monumental sculpture (200x533x34 cm) by Antony Gormley, number three of an edition of five executed in cast iron in 1996, lot 10 within the sale of London on July 1. Entitled Angel of the North, it is a human-size model for a monument ten times bigger that was installed in the north of England.
Sotheby's compares it to the Statue of Liberty and to Christ the Redeemer in Rio. Believe me, they don't do it only to make you laugh but mostly to attract targeted customers who will eventually find cheap its estimate of 600 K £.
We are told that the central human form, between the two plates which are the wings of the angel, was cast on the body of the artist. Considering the result, a kind of César without humour, we may be in the presence of a true abstract artist.
The aesthetics has nothing to do with all of that. Here now the monumental size generates the price. At Sotheby's such pleasures are varied: on May 14, the sex had pushed a sculpture by Takashi Murakami entitled My Lonesome Cowboy to $ 15 million on an estimate of $ 3 million. The next day, again in New York, a tasteless intellectualism pushed a lettrist painting of Ed Ruscha entitled I Dont Want No Retrospective to $ 4 million on an estimate of $ 1 million.
The market for contemporary art is really influenced by the effects of ads on which Sotheby's excels. This market is highly speculative. Curiously we feel that speculation is focused more on a specific work selected by the auction house than on a signature. If so, it is a fundamental difference with speculative mechanisms that we have experienced with the bubble of 1988-1990.
POST SALE COMMENT
This prediction was met : this sculpture by Gormley could not stay at its estimated value. It was sold 2.3 M£ including fees.
1996 Tracey Emin beyond Painting
2015 SOLD for £ 720K including premium
Contemporary art, especially from the movement of the Young British Artists, managed to evacuate from the creative process the traditional solutions such as painting and sculpture while recovering installation, happening and word.
Constantly on the verge of voyeurism and scandal, Tracey Eminis an explorer of this new language. Her art is a cry generated by a difficulty of sharing her ego. She is a professional artist who has reinterpreted former masters whose work is an offshoot of flesh more than of brain or hand : Munch's scream on the road to asylum, twisted bodies by Schiele and dances of nudes around Klein.
In 1990, Tracey Emin considers her inability to express herself through painting which she stops using and supersedes with various materials that will make her fame: textiles, ready mades, neon, furniture. This bold approach is acknowledged as she is now a professor at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Executed in 1996, Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made is a significant step in her career in the next year after the completion of Everyone I have ever slept with, which was still unexhibited. This installation is a struggle of the artist to overcome both the failure of traditional figuration and some reluctance to her own nakedness.
For three weeks, the artist worked naked in a locked room of a gallery in Stockholm. She was visible to the public but not disturbed, through eyelets embedded in a wall. The threat, that will not be executed, to burn the work at the end of the happening also aroused media interest.
The first piece is her actual exorcism: a self-portrait as Munch screamer. The use of her body as a Klein brush-woman is performed repeatedly. The final work consists of 12 paintings, 7 body paintings, 79 works on paper, a bed and countless everyday artefacts.
Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made is estimated £ 600K, for sale by Christie's in London on February 11, lot 24.
Constantly on the verge of voyeurism and scandal, Tracey Eminis an explorer of this new language. Her art is a cry generated by a difficulty of sharing her ego. She is a professional artist who has reinterpreted former masters whose work is an offshoot of flesh more than of brain or hand : Munch's scream on the road to asylum, twisted bodies by Schiele and dances of nudes around Klein.
In 1990, Tracey Emin considers her inability to express herself through painting which she stops using and supersedes with various materials that will make her fame: textiles, ready mades, neon, furniture. This bold approach is acknowledged as she is now a professor at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Executed in 1996, Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made is a significant step in her career in the next year after the completion of Everyone I have ever slept with, which was still unexhibited. This installation is a struggle of the artist to overcome both the failure of traditional figuration and some reluctance to her own nakedness.
For three weeks, the artist worked naked in a locked room of a gallery in Stockholm. She was visible to the public but not disturbed, through eyelets embedded in a wall. The threat, that will not be executed, to burn the work at the end of the happening also aroused media interest.
The first piece is her actual exorcism: a self-portrait as Munch screamer. The use of her body as a Klein brush-woman is performed repeatedly. The final work consists of 12 paintings, 7 body paintings, 79 works on paper, a bed and countless everyday artefacts.
Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made is estimated £ 600K, for sale by Christie's in London on February 11, lot 24.
1997 Nude by Lichtenstein
2022 SOLD for $ 10.3M by Phillips
Roy Lichtenstein died of pneumonia in September 1997, cutting short a new burst of creativity.
In the previous years, his figures took the excuse of imagining the private life of the modern woman in full nudity in her furnished apartment.
Nude, oil and magna 210 x 114 cm painted in 2017, displays a life size woman quietly standing in the nude in a surrounding reduced to a corner from some furniture. The right angled arms in an arguing attitude justify the straight back.
The signature technique of the artist to provide the contrasts through ben-day dots here results in close inspection to unwanted smallpox stains in the face. The continuity of the dots between hair and back wall is surrealistic.
As usual Roy took his subject from a photo of a magazine. The gorgeous pale blue haired is arguably the blonde sex symbol Pamela Anderson, while she is also inspired in her perfect nude outlines from Praxiteles's Aphrodite.
Nude was sold for $ 10.3M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Phillips on May 18, 2022, lot 19. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In the previous years, his figures took the excuse of imagining the private life of the modern woman in full nudity in her furnished apartment.
Nude, oil and magna 210 x 114 cm painted in 2017, displays a life size woman quietly standing in the nude in a surrounding reduced to a corner from some furniture. The right angled arms in an arguing attitude justify the straight back.
The signature technique of the artist to provide the contrasts through ben-day dots here results in close inspection to unwanted smallpox stains in the face. The continuity of the dots between hair and back wall is surrealistic.
As usual Roy took his subject from a photo of a magazine. The gorgeous pale blue haired is arguably the blonde sex symbol Pamela Anderson, while she is also inspired in her perfect nude outlines from Praxiteles's Aphrodite.
Nude was sold for $ 10.3M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Phillips on May 18, 2022, lot 19. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1997 Breakfast at Tokyo
2010 SOLD for $ 6.8M including premium
In Japan, the Otaku culture applies to a contradictory aspect of contemporary life : the geek is alone at home, obsessed with video games and comics that bring him a sexually loaded fantasy world. The first sculptures by Takashi Murakami are a translation of the otaku into life size characters. They also provide a Japanese sequel to Jeff Koons' Pink Panther.
The first work in this series, in 1997, is Miss ko², painted in oil and acrylic on fiberglass and synthetic resin. It has been executed in 3 copies plus one artist's proof, slightly different from each other for the details of the painting in manga and Playboy styles.
The figure is directly inspired by the sexy uniforms of the waitresses at Anna Miller restaurant in Tokyo. The Miss stretches her arm as for offering breakfast, with an enticing commercial smile.
She is thin with big breasts, wearing a miniskirt covered with a little apron, and has panties. Paradoxically this modern geisha also has the schoolgirl tie and a big juvenile knot in the hair. With her much extended legs above high heels, she reaches 1.83 m high.
The copy 3/3 was sold for $ 6.8M by Phillips de Pury on November 8, 2010, lot 10. At the same time, another copy participated in the Murakami solo exhibition inside the Château de Versailles which horrified the French traditionalists. Then the attention has dropped. The same copy was sold by Sotheby's for HK $ 23M on April 2, 2017 and for $ 3.1M on November 14, 2019, lot 46.
Immediately after Miss ko², Murakami makes his obscene couple inspired more directly from American pop art and counterculture : Hiropon, the woman, in 1997, and My Lonesome Cowboy, the man, in 1998. A copy of the cowboy was sold for $ 15.2M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
The first work in this series, in 1997, is Miss ko², painted in oil and acrylic on fiberglass and synthetic resin. It has been executed in 3 copies plus one artist's proof, slightly different from each other for the details of the painting in manga and Playboy styles.
The figure is directly inspired by the sexy uniforms of the waitresses at Anna Miller restaurant in Tokyo. The Miss stretches her arm as for offering breakfast, with an enticing commercial smile.
She is thin with big breasts, wearing a miniskirt covered with a little apron, and has panties. Paradoxically this modern geisha also has the schoolgirl tie and a big juvenile knot in the hair. With her much extended legs above high heels, she reaches 1.83 m high.
The copy 3/3 was sold for $ 6.8M by Phillips de Pury on November 8, 2010, lot 10. At the same time, another copy participated in the Murakami solo exhibition inside the Château de Versailles which horrified the French traditionalists. Then the attention has dropped. The same copy was sold by Sotheby's for HK $ 23M on April 2, 2017 and for $ 3.1M on November 14, 2019, lot 46.
Immediately after Miss ko², Murakami makes his obscene couple inspired more directly from American pop art and counterculture : Hiropon, the woman, in 1997, and My Lonesome Cowboy, the man, in 1998. A copy of the cowboy was sold for $ 15.2M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
1997 BEHIND THE MASKS OF ZENG FANZHI
2008 SOLD 1.1 M$ INCLUDING PREMIUM
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
The young Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi, 44 years old, won one of the largest bids earlier this year when one of his paintings in the series of Masks was sold $ 75 MHK by Christie's at Hong Kong on May 24. This price, including fees, was equal to five times the low estimate. The ambiguity of this series lies in its very title. His characters have no other mask than their serious attitude nearing stupidity.
Is it now a suitable time to get excited on the value of this artist at auction?
At first glance, viewing the picture and description of the above mentioned oil on canvas of 1996, we see that it was exceptional on two points.
Its dimensions: 2 x 3.60 meters. In contemporary art, the size has a top role in the construction of the price.
Then its subject: The picture does not show one or two Chineses, but a group of eight, turned to the artist with a "cheese" smile.
Is that enough to consider Zeng's value as established?
Zeng Fanzhi is leading the sale of contemporary Chinese art at Sotheby's on September 17 in New York at the lot 7 with a painting, 100 x 80 cm, of the series of Masks ($ 900 K). It represents a character in a suit and tie on the beach with a dog.
There is no doubt that the work of Zeng has admirers. From the strict point of view of my personal feelings, I think his characters are a little too cool compared to the agonizing portraits by Zhang Xiaogang (or, much lower in the scale of the auction results, by Feng Zhengjie).
POST SALE COMMENT
The painting offered by Sotheby's was sold $ 1.1 million charge included.
The young Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi, 44 years old, won one of the largest bids earlier this year when one of his paintings in the series of Masks was sold $ 75 MHK by Christie's at Hong Kong on May 24. This price, including fees, was equal to five times the low estimate. The ambiguity of this series lies in its very title. His characters have no other mask than their serious attitude nearing stupidity.
Is it now a suitable time to get excited on the value of this artist at auction?
At first glance, viewing the picture and description of the above mentioned oil on canvas of 1996, we see that it was exceptional on two points.
Its dimensions: 2 x 3.60 meters. In contemporary art, the size has a top role in the construction of the price.
Then its subject: The picture does not show one or two Chineses, but a group of eight, turned to the artist with a "cheese" smile.
Is that enough to consider Zeng's value as established?
Zeng Fanzhi is leading the sale of contemporary Chinese art at Sotheby's on September 17 in New York at the lot 7 with a painting, 100 x 80 cm, of the series of Masks ($ 900 K). It represents a character in a suit and tie on the beach with a dog.
There is no doubt that the work of Zeng has admirers. From the strict point of view of my personal feelings, I think his characters are a little too cool compared to the agonizing portraits by Zhang Xiaogang (or, much lower in the scale of the auction results, by Feng Zhengjie).
POST SALE COMMENT
The painting offered by Sotheby's was sold $ 1.1 million charge included.
1997 Cai Guo-Quang explores the Cosmos
2010 unsold
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
The discovery of planets outside the solar system was the last great advance of astronomy in the twentieth century, made possible by the progress of observation techniques. It was in 1995. The media have caught it, complacently reopening the speculation on the possibility of life beyond Earth.
Connoisseur of Chinese philosophy, Cai Guo-Qiang was particularly prone to translate into art this information which enriched our knowledge of the cosmos. Thirty years earlier, the first steps of space exploration had transcended the art of Lucio Fontana.
Titled Search for extraterrestrials, an artwork by Cai dated 1997 is huge in every meaning of the term and this word could also apply to its price. Christie's, who sells it in Hong Kong on November 27, does not publish an estimate.
It includes eight elements, for a total size of 2.75 x 32 m. Skilfully executed on paper with ink wash, smoke and gunpowder, it shows abstract structures irregularly spaced far apart from one another, which are undoubtedly the artist's view of the galaxies, all different. One of them looks like a spermatozoid.
Beings live in one of these galaxies, or in more, or not: Cai helps us to address the great mystery of the Universe.
The discovery of planets outside the solar system was the last great advance of astronomy in the twentieth century, made possible by the progress of observation techniques. It was in 1995. The media have caught it, complacently reopening the speculation on the possibility of life beyond Earth.
Connoisseur of Chinese philosophy, Cai Guo-Qiang was particularly prone to translate into art this information which enriched our knowledge of the cosmos. Thirty years earlier, the first steps of space exploration had transcended the art of Lucio Fontana.
Titled Search for extraterrestrials, an artwork by Cai dated 1997 is huge in every meaning of the term and this word could also apply to its price. Christie's, who sells it in Hong Kong on November 27, does not publish an estimate.
It includes eight elements, for a total size of 2.75 x 32 m. Skilfully executed on paper with ink wash, smoke and gunpowder, it shows abstract structures irregularly spaced far apart from one another, which are undoubtedly the artist's view of the galaxies, all different. One of them looks like a spermatozoid.
Beings live in one of these galaxies, or in more, or not: Cai helps us to address the great mystery of the Universe.
1997-1998 The Ambiguous Art of Cecily Brown
2015 SOLD for £ 580K including premium
British artist working in New York, Cecily Brown is not afraid of men and sex. She mixes an erotic figuration with abstraction while adding a high dose of humor and a funny cinematographic curiosity.
On February 11 in London, Christie's sells Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, oil on linen 197 x 249 cm, lot 36 estimated £ 480K. This artwork is dated 1997-1998 by the young artist, at the time of her first successes.
The scene takes place on an intensely colorful fragmented background that follows the enigmatic abstract landscapes painted by de Kooning. The reference for the title is a musical film by Stanley Donen in which a bride played by Jane Powell narrowly escapes polyandry in the wild mountains of Oregon.
Two nude figures are easily identifiable: a man seen from behind is progressing toward a reclining woman. The title plays a major role in the magic of the image, inviting the viewer to discover in the rest of the scene some pornographic or orgiastic details which are or are not therein.
The tangle of colors is such that an overall interpretation is impossible regardless of the time spent by the observer in his contemplation. This subtle game between the fantasy and the perceived goes beyond the figures covered by Pollock and Klein. Cecily Brown is the first artist to have brought a feminine sensibility to abstract expressionism.
On February 11 in London, Christie's sells Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, oil on linen 197 x 249 cm, lot 36 estimated £ 480K. This artwork is dated 1997-1998 by the young artist, at the time of her first successes.
The scene takes place on an intensely colorful fragmented background that follows the enigmatic abstract landscapes painted by de Kooning. The reference for the title is a musical film by Stanley Donen in which a bride played by Jane Powell narrowly escapes polyandry in the wild mountains of Oregon.
Two nude figures are easily identifiable: a man seen from behind is progressing toward a reclining woman. The title plays a major role in the magic of the image, inviting the viewer to discover in the rest of the scene some pornographic or orgiastic details which are or are not therein.
The tangle of colors is such that an overall interpretation is impossible regardless of the time spent by the observer in his contemplation. This subtle game between the fantasy and the perceived goes beyond the figures covered by Pollock and Klein. Cecily Brown is the first artist to have brought a feminine sensibility to abstract expressionism.
1998 The Sailors with Red Flag by Liu Ye
2022 SOLD for HK$ 38M by Christie's
Liu Ye finishes his art studies in Berlin in 1994. Inspired by surrealism, he creates his world in which children play the role of adults without laughing. His father was a children's book author and playwright. The heavy curtain shows that we are in the theater, a place where fantasy has replaced reality. Children are sometimes winged.
The colors are symbols : red for the sun and for the Chinese flag, blue for the ocean and the sky. A circular area is provided by a stage lighting in the middle of the image.
In a work dated 1997-1998, a child sailor draws aside the curtain, revealing behind the stage a huge warship. In the foreground on the left, a boy and a girl also dressed as sailors ignore the threat, their faces hidden in an open book. This oil on canvas 170 x 200 cm was sold for HK $ 13M by Sotheby's on October 4, 2008.
An untitled acrylic on canvas 120 x 140 cm painted in 1998 looks resolutely like a pastiche of the Maoist official military art. It displays four sailor boys in full action on a shore. One of them is standing, showing the target with his stretched arm and finger. Another boys holds the red flag forward.
This painting was sold for HK $ 38M from a lower estimate of HK $ 19M by Christie's on May 26, 2022, lot 50.
The colors are symbols : red for the sun and for the Chinese flag, blue for the ocean and the sky. A circular area is provided by a stage lighting in the middle of the image.
In a work dated 1997-1998, a child sailor draws aside the curtain, revealing behind the stage a huge warship. In the foreground on the left, a boy and a girl also dressed as sailors ignore the threat, their faces hidden in an open book. This oil on canvas 170 x 200 cm was sold for HK $ 13M by Sotheby's on October 4, 2008.
An untitled acrylic on canvas 120 x 140 cm painted in 1998 looks resolutely like a pastiche of the Maoist official military art. It displays four sailor boys in full action on a shore. One of them is standing, showing the target with his stretched arm and finger. Another boys holds the red flag forward.
This painting was sold for HK $ 38M from a lower estimate of HK $ 19M by Christie's on May 26, 2022, lot 50.
1998 In the Privacy of Tracey Emin
2014 SOLD 2.55 M£ including premium
Provoking and feminist, Tracey Emin has shaken the language of contemporary art. She early realized that much of the public is accessible through voyeurism. In 1993, aged 30, she exhibits trivial ready mades and sordid details of her personal life.
Her first major work, in 1997, is titled Everyone I have ever slept with. The viewer must get inside a tent to discover the names of her bedfellows, including those of her infancy which obviously do not have a sexual connotation. The ambiguity of the message regarding her relationships generated the success of that work which was destroyed by an accidental fire in 2004.
In 1998, Tracey lived several days of suicidal depression after a disappointment in love. Waking up dazed after the fourth day, she observes the condition of total mess of her bed. She decides that the unmade bed reflecting her intense emotion is a work of art and brings around the furniture many orgiastic, sexual and intimate garbage from her four morbid days.
My Bed is estimated £ 800K, for sale by Christie's in London on July 1, lot 19.
Tracey Emin is a versatile artist, using alternately materials as diverse as neon, photography or textile. She is lucky to be British : London is the best place in the world to support a true artist beyond scandal. Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, she is the second woman in two and a half centuries to have become a professor in this institution.
POST SALE COMMENT
This installation has the great merit of being completely out of the traditional artistic language. It was sold for £ 2.55 million including premium.
Her first major work, in 1997, is titled Everyone I have ever slept with. The viewer must get inside a tent to discover the names of her bedfellows, including those of her infancy which obviously do not have a sexual connotation. The ambiguity of the message regarding her relationships generated the success of that work which was destroyed by an accidental fire in 2004.
In 1998, Tracey lived several days of suicidal depression after a disappointment in love. Waking up dazed after the fourth day, she observes the condition of total mess of her bed. She decides that the unmade bed reflecting her intense emotion is a work of art and brings around the furniture many orgiastic, sexual and intimate garbage from her four morbid days.
My Bed is estimated £ 800K, for sale by Christie's in London on July 1, lot 19.
Tracey Emin is a versatile artist, using alternately materials as diverse as neon, photography or textile. She is lucky to be British : London is the best place in the world to support a true artist beyond scandal. Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, she is the second woman in two and a half centuries to have become a professor in this institution.
POST SALE COMMENT
This installation has the great merit of being completely out of the traditional artistic language. It was sold for £ 2.55 million including premium.
1998 Sister and Child
2019 SOLD for £ 2.17M including premium
Hurvin Anderson was born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents. In 1998 he was finishing his studies at the Royal College of Art in London. Like his teacher Peter Doig, he had personal or family ties with the Caribbean and Canada.
Anderson receives a photo sent from Canada by his sister who had emigrated there. He transposes this image into two oils on canvas 260 x 190 cm. Each item stages the sister with a young child in warm winter clothes, standing life-size on a frozen lake in Alberta.
Each painting reproduces exactly the position and gestures of the characters. The colors are opposite. The features of the faces are indistinguishable. The child is black in both cases. The woman is black on one painting and bright yellow on the other. The two views of the frozen lake are different and their details are probably imaginary. The influence of Doig is flagrant.
At that time Anderson did not know Canada yet. These views are not related to a personal memory. The confrontation of the two elements brings a social interpretation : races are interchangeable in their attitudes and their feelings.
Mount Royal (Lac des Castors) was sold for £ 1.57M including premium by Christie's on October 6, 2017 over a lower estimate of £ 400K. Beaver Lake is estimated £ 1.5M for sale by Phillips in London on October 2, lot 11.
Anderson receives a photo sent from Canada by his sister who had emigrated there. He transposes this image into two oils on canvas 260 x 190 cm. Each item stages the sister with a young child in warm winter clothes, standing life-size on a frozen lake in Alberta.
Each painting reproduces exactly the position and gestures of the characters. The colors are opposite. The features of the faces are indistinguishable. The child is black in both cases. The woman is black on one painting and bright yellow on the other. The two views of the frozen lake are different and their details are probably imaginary. The influence of Doig is flagrant.
At that time Anderson did not know Canada yet. These views are not related to a personal memory. The confrontation of the two elements brings a social interpretation : races are interchangeable in their attitudes and their feelings.
Mount Royal (Lac des Castors) was sold for £ 1.57M including premium by Christie's on October 6, 2017 over a lower estimate of £ 400K. Beaver Lake is estimated £ 1.5M for sale by Phillips in London on October 2, lot 11.
1998 Ofili's Tribute to Orgena
2010 SOLD 1.9 M£ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Artist from Nigerian origin, Chris Ofili is a tireless interpreter of Black modernity. His work entitled Orgena, 182 x 124 cm, is dated 1998, the year of his glory when he was awarded the prestigious Turner prize. He was 30.
This tribute to Black womanhood shows a beautiful woman whose eyes and lips illuminate the face. The title, Orgena, is simply "A Negro" written backwards. The mixed material is very elaborate, with rich colors. His use, among other materials, of pieces of dried dung of elephant has a value of cultural reference and managed to shock the bourgeoisie.
This artist is strengthening his position on the contemporary art market. Orgena is for sale by Christie's in London on June 30. It is estimated £ 700K.
Artist from Nigerian origin, Chris Ofili is a tireless interpreter of Black modernity. His work entitled Orgena, 182 x 124 cm, is dated 1998, the year of his glory when he was awarded the prestigious Turner prize. He was 30.
This tribute to Black womanhood shows a beautiful woman whose eyes and lips illuminate the face. The title, Orgena, is simply "A Negro" written backwards. The mixed material is very elaborate, with rich colors. His use, among other materials, of pieces of dried dung of elephant has a value of cultural reference and managed to shock the bourgeoisie.
This artist is strengthening his position on the contemporary art market. Orgena is for sale by Christie's in London on June 30. It is estimated £ 700K.
1998 The Green Silence
2018 SOLD for INR 11.5 crores (worth US $ 1.85M) including premium
At the end of his life V.S. Gaitonde no longer differentiates between his own existence and his artistic creation. His painting exalts the silence to the best of his pictorial technique that reaches a Zen-inspired ecstatic perfection. The world around him is secondary and he does not seek to maintain his notoriety or to identify how his art is appreciated by others.
On September 13, 2017 Christie's sold for $ 4.1M including premium an oil on canvas 140 x 102 cm painted in 1996. This abstract work looks like an explosion of yellow and orange signs over a vermilion background, a gathering of colors rare for Gaitonde which may appear as the ultimate liberation of an incandescent energy.
His technique of superposition of translucent layers applied with a roller had anticipated Richter. A monochrome painting by Gaitonde remains of a great variety by the variations of the light.
1998 is his final creative year. An oil on canvas also 140 x 102 cm in hues of green is an invitation to follow geometric symbols. Four spindles perpendicular one another create halos in a slight bias. One of them directed downward is prolonged by another symbol which opens like a liberation of forces. Four dots generate a virtual inner frame.
Like all the later works by Gaitonde this opus did not receive a title. It was sold for INR 6.6 crores including premium by Christie's on December 11, 2014. It is estimated INR 10 crores equivalent to US $ 1.6M for sale online from Mumbai by AstaGuru, lot 30. The auction closes on March 27. Here is the link to the website of the auction house.
Please watch the video shared by AstaGuru.
On September 13, 2017 Christie's sold for $ 4.1M including premium an oil on canvas 140 x 102 cm painted in 1996. This abstract work looks like an explosion of yellow and orange signs over a vermilion background, a gathering of colors rare for Gaitonde which may appear as the ultimate liberation of an incandescent energy.
His technique of superposition of translucent layers applied with a roller had anticipated Richter. A monochrome painting by Gaitonde remains of a great variety by the variations of the light.
1998 is his final creative year. An oil on canvas also 140 x 102 cm in hues of green is an invitation to follow geometric symbols. Four spindles perpendicular one another create halos in a slight bias. One of them directed downward is prolonged by another symbol which opens like a liberation of forces. Four dots generate a virtual inner frame.
Like all the later works by Gaitonde this opus did not receive a title. It was sold for INR 6.6 crores including premium by Christie's on December 11, 2014. It is estimated INR 10 crores equivalent to US $ 1.6M for sale online from Mumbai by AstaGuru, lot 30. The auction closes on March 27. Here is the link to the website of the auction house.
Please watch the video shared by AstaGuru.
1999 Man on a Horse by Botero
2022 SOLD for $ 4.3M by Christie's
Painter and sculptor, Fernando Botero focuses his work on the representation of the body, of which he expresses the sensuality by inflating it like a balloon.
According to the contemporary trend, his statues are monumental. Visible from afar, they ensure the presence of his art in these exhibitions in the Avenue des Champs-Elysées (Paris), Park Avenue (New York) or the National Mall (Washington) that familiarize the passersby with current art.
His most famous sculpture is la Mujer fumando (1987). He likes women, but also includes men in his art, more intellectually, sometimes taking in reference some works of ancient art.
4 meters high, the bronze torso of a man edited in 1992 is monumental in every meaning of that word. This athlete with prominent pectorals is inspired by the Belvedere Torso, with a post-Cubist chiseling that may be compared with Bugatti.
Man on a Horse is a bronze 3.50 m high cast in 1999 in an edition of 3. The head of the nude rider is turned to the left in a proud attitude that evokes Don Quixote on his Rocinante.
The number 3/3 was sold for $ 1.82M by Sotheby's on November 22, 2016, lot 19
and for $ 4.3M by Christie's on March 11, 2022, lot 28.
In 2000 the artist made a Woman on a Horse that may be used as a counterpart of the above referred Man, in a similar attitude.
According to the contemporary trend, his statues are monumental. Visible from afar, they ensure the presence of his art in these exhibitions in the Avenue des Champs-Elysées (Paris), Park Avenue (New York) or the National Mall (Washington) that familiarize the passersby with current art.
His most famous sculpture is la Mujer fumando (1987). He likes women, but also includes men in his art, more intellectually, sometimes taking in reference some works of ancient art.
4 meters high, the bronze torso of a man edited in 1992 is monumental in every meaning of that word. This athlete with prominent pectorals is inspired by the Belvedere Torso, with a post-Cubist chiseling that may be compared with Bugatti.
Man on a Horse is a bronze 3.50 m high cast in 1999 in an edition of 3. The head of the nude rider is turned to the left in a proud attitude that evokes Don Quixote on his Rocinante.
The number 3/3 was sold for $ 1.82M by Sotheby's on November 22, 2016, lot 19
and for $ 4.3M by Christie's on March 11, 2022, lot 28.
In 2000 the artist made a Woman on a Horse that may be used as a counterpart of the above referred Man, in a similar attitude.
1999 Singe by Lalanne
2020 SOLD for $ 4M by Sotheby's
In 1999 with François-Xavier Lalanne, the monkey becomes a piece of interior decoration. The squatting animal let its tail hanging so that it can only be placed on the edge of a furniture. The decorator takes care of the distance between tail's end and floor. The face is stylized.
Singe is made of two models 75 cm high with the head turned left or right. At the opposite ends of a table, both look in the same direction. They were edited in patinated bronze by Clementi in eight units each.
They were prepared in a variety of patina coloration. The most spectacular is the gold monkey, numbered 2/8. Singe SII 2/8A was sold for $ 4M from a lower estimate of $ 400K by Sotheby's on July 30, 2020, lot 129.
Sotheby's had also sold two other Singe II, SII 4/8A for € 920K on September 23, 2020, lot 102, and SII 5/8A for € 1.53M on May 26, 2021, lot 150.
The pendant of Singe SII 2/8A is SI 2/8A, also in gilt bronze. It was sold for $ 3.5M by Sotheby's on July 30, 2020 in the same sale as its companion, lot 130.
The couple SI SII from the Lalanne collection was a Hors Commerce cast by Clementi in 1992-1995. It was sold for € 1.57M by Sotheby's on October 23, 2019, lot 9. A 1992 Singe II HC cast by Clementi was sold for € 1.6M by Sotheby's on November 23, 2021, lot 13.
Singe attentif is a variant with a less turned head, designed in the same year and edited by the same founder. SII 4/8B was sold for € 2.1M by Christie's on September 14, 2021, lot 118.
On October 21, 2021, Christie's separated a pair of Singes attentifs from a posthumous edition in silver by Bocquel. The 2/8A 1992-2013, weighing 6066.9 g, was sold for € 1.94M, lot 216, and the 2/8B 1992-2013, weighing 4360.3 g, for € 1.82M, lot 217.
Singe is made of two models 75 cm high with the head turned left or right. At the opposite ends of a table, both look in the same direction. They were edited in patinated bronze by Clementi in eight units each.
They were prepared in a variety of patina coloration. The most spectacular is the gold monkey, numbered 2/8. Singe SII 2/8A was sold for $ 4M from a lower estimate of $ 400K by Sotheby's on July 30, 2020, lot 129.
Sotheby's had also sold two other Singe II, SII 4/8A for € 920K on September 23, 2020, lot 102, and SII 5/8A for € 1.53M on May 26, 2021, lot 150.
The pendant of Singe SII 2/8A is SI 2/8A, also in gilt bronze. It was sold for $ 3.5M by Sotheby's on July 30, 2020 in the same sale as its companion, lot 130.
The couple SI SII from the Lalanne collection was a Hors Commerce cast by Clementi in 1992-1995. It was sold for € 1.57M by Sotheby's on October 23, 2019, lot 9. A 1992 Singe II HC cast by Clementi was sold for € 1.6M by Sotheby's on November 23, 2021, lot 13.
Singe attentif is a variant with a less turned head, designed in the same year and edited by the same founder. SII 4/8B was sold for € 2.1M by Christie's on September 14, 2021, lot 118.
On October 21, 2021, Christie's separated a pair of Singes attentifs from a posthumous edition in silver by Bocquel. The 2/8A 1992-2013, weighing 6066.9 g, was sold for € 1.94M, lot 216, and the 2/8B 1992-2013, weighing 4360.3 g, for € 1.82M, lot 217.
1999 Choir of Angels by Liu Ye
2020 SOLD for HK$ 28M by Phillips
Liu Ye finishes his art studies in Berlin in 1994. Inspired by surrealism, he creates his world in which children play the role of adults without laughing. His father was a children's book author and playwright. The heavy curtain shows that we are in the theater, a place where fantasy has replaced reality. Children are sometimes winged.
The colors are symbols : red for the sun and for the Chinese flag, blue for the ocean and the sky. A circular area is provided by a stage lighting in the middle of the image.
On July 8, 2020, Phillips sold for HK $ 28M Choir of Angels, oil on canvas 170 x 200 cm painted in 1999, lot 7.
Eleven winged girls form a choir, in two rows as on the photo of a football team. They are all identical, without individualization, and sing in unison with the same position of the mouth. They hold the score, except the girl on the left in the first row who plays the accordion : perhaps she is the conductor. Behind them the red curtain is closed. We will not know for what audience this performance is, or what the curtain hides.
The artist reused the same band in the following year, in front of a blue curtain and without stage lighting. A small acrylic on canvas 38 x 45 cm was sold for HK $ 11.3M by Christie's on November 24, 2019. This more serene image was printed in 100 copies in 2001.
The colors are symbols : red for the sun and for the Chinese flag, blue for the ocean and the sky. A circular area is provided by a stage lighting in the middle of the image.
On July 8, 2020, Phillips sold for HK $ 28M Choir of Angels, oil on canvas 170 x 200 cm painted in 1999, lot 7.
Eleven winged girls form a choir, in two rows as on the photo of a football team. They are all identical, without individualization, and sing in unison with the same position of the mouth. They hold the score, except the girl on the left in the first row who plays the accordion : perhaps she is the conductor. Behind them the red curtain is closed. We will not know for what audience this performance is, or what the curtain hides.
The artist reused the same band in the following year, in front of a blue curtain and without stage lighting. A small acrylic on canvas 38 x 45 cm was sold for HK $ 11.3M by Christie's on November 24, 2019. This more serene image was printed in 100 copies in 2001.
1999 Non-Portraits by Luc Tuymans
2016 SOLD for £ 1.48M including premium
The past has fled and photographs lie about the true nature of mankind. Luc Tuymans reconstructs images from pictures selected online. He copies that digital assembly in a painting with pale colors that accentuate the derisory vision of a bygone era.
For example, the artist painted a portrait in 2001 which is mingling the faces of Eisenhower and Mitterrand. The new hybrid has a conceited attitude and its title, Rumour, contributes to the repellent effect desired by the artist. This oil on canvas 118 x 67 cm was sold for $ 2.7 million including premium by Christie's on May 15, 2013.
Mrs, painted in 1999, is an oil on canvas 217 x 134 cm, a large size unusual in the work of Tuymans. The woman is seen lifesize. Her hair and her handbag freeze her in the 1960s. She could be Jackie Kennedy except that her face is completely empty.
Mrs is the anonymous woman. She follows the fashion of her time like millions of other women. We will never know anything more about her, and there is no need to know. In her ordinary and outdated attitude, she is the opposite of the timeless woman. If she ever had a history, it vanished. Our history of today will follow the same path.
Mrs was sold for $ 1,08M including premium by Christie's on 15 November 2006. It is estimated £ 1.2M for sale by Christie's in London on February 11, lot 19.
For example, the artist painted a portrait in 2001 which is mingling the faces of Eisenhower and Mitterrand. The new hybrid has a conceited attitude and its title, Rumour, contributes to the repellent effect desired by the artist. This oil on canvas 118 x 67 cm was sold for $ 2.7 million including premium by Christie's on May 15, 2013.
Mrs, painted in 1999, is an oil on canvas 217 x 134 cm, a large size unusual in the work of Tuymans. The woman is seen lifesize. Her hair and her handbag freeze her in the 1960s. She could be Jackie Kennedy except that her face is completely empty.
Mrs is the anonymous woman. She follows the fashion of her time like millions of other women. We will never know anything more about her, and there is no need to know. In her ordinary and outdated attitude, she is the opposite of the timeless woman. If she ever had a history, it vanished. Our history of today will follow the same path.
Mrs was sold for $ 1,08M including premium by Christie's on 15 November 2006. It is estimated £ 1.2M for sale by Christie's in London on February 11, lot 19.
1999 Three Nanas at the Fountain
2008 SOLD 750 K€ before fees
Have you noticed that? Nanas of Niki de Saint Phalle dislike indoors and museums. We see them in gardens and pools, and they are often photographed in such outdoor environments for the auction catalogs.
They come in all sizes, attitudes, colors. The most popular are those who dance with a lightness that defies the enormity of their bodies. It was in the garden of Nahon in Vence that the Nanas have really taken off in terms of auction, by Sotheby's on 18 July 2004. A Pink Dancer of 1968 in polyester 2.70 meters high was sold that day 410 K € fees included. At the same sale, a Nana of 1989, symbolizing the world with her arm raised and her proud position perched on a globe and on a machine of Tinguely, was sold 430 K € fees included.
Having visited the site of Sotheby's to find this information, it is impossible for me to keep the discovery of an athlete Nana with square shoulders and tiny head in a stabile position (as would have said Calder), which reached $ 1.1 million including expenses at Sotheby's New York in 2006.
In roughly the same size as the works above, Niki de Saint Phalle created in 1999 a set of Three Graces to decorate a pool fountain. It was done in three examples with ceramic and Murano glass on polyester.
One of these sets is coming on December 5 at lots 425 to 427 at Lempertz in Cologne. The particularly dynamic dancing attitude should attract fans. The lots will first be offered separately, then as a set. In bidding language, this means that after the three provisional auctions, the set is presented again as a whole, and if someone bids more than the sum of provisional auctions he takes it all ... in this case, with the help of an experienced mover. Each one is estimated 250 K €.
POST SALE COMMENT
Separating these three Nanas should have been a shame. They were sold together, 750 K € before fees. This price corresponds exactly to the total of the estimates.
This is a very good result.
They come in all sizes, attitudes, colors. The most popular are those who dance with a lightness that defies the enormity of their bodies. It was in the garden of Nahon in Vence that the Nanas have really taken off in terms of auction, by Sotheby's on 18 July 2004. A Pink Dancer of 1968 in polyester 2.70 meters high was sold that day 410 K € fees included. At the same sale, a Nana of 1989, symbolizing the world with her arm raised and her proud position perched on a globe and on a machine of Tinguely, was sold 430 K € fees included.
Having visited the site of Sotheby's to find this information, it is impossible for me to keep the discovery of an athlete Nana with square shoulders and tiny head in a stabile position (as would have said Calder), which reached $ 1.1 million including expenses at Sotheby's New York in 2006.
In roughly the same size as the works above, Niki de Saint Phalle created in 1999 a set of Three Graces to decorate a pool fountain. It was done in three examples with ceramic and Murano glass on polyester.
One of these sets is coming on December 5 at lots 425 to 427 at Lempertz in Cologne. The particularly dynamic dancing attitude should attract fans. The lots will first be offered separately, then as a set. In bidding language, this means that after the three provisional auctions, the set is presented again as a whole, and if someone bids more than the sum of provisional auctions he takes it all ... in this case, with the help of an experienced mover. Each one is estimated 250 K €.
POST SALE COMMENT
Separating these three Nanas should have been a shame. They were sold together, 750 K € before fees. This price corresponds exactly to the total of the estimates.
This is a very good result.
1999 artificial insanity with george condo
2018 sold for $ 590k including premium
George Condo begins as a punk musician. He meets Basquiat in 1979, long before the young tagger becomes famous. Attracted by the protesters, Condo is friend with the latest Beat poets and with Haring and occasionally works at Warhol's factory.
In Paris, Condo lives by chance in the same building as the psychotherapist Félix Guattari. Guattari enthusiastically observes that Condo does not respect the conventional psychological limits of portraiture. His characters do not show the minimum of mental steadiness that an observer requires for developing an emotional link.
Condo admires the deconstruction of heads and bodies by Picasso. His gallery of imaginary portraits with a graphic style inspired by the cartoons becomes a teratology of insanity in which the hysteria is no longer incongruous in our contemporary society. He defines these artworks as artificial realism, which may be grouped under themes such as Manic society or Female disasters.
On February 28 in New York, Phillips sells Nude homeless drinker, oil on canvas 165 x 183 cm painted in 1999, lot 43 estimated $ 500K.
This female exhibitionist brandishes her bottle in a raging circular arc decomposed into five gradual stages. At the penultimate position the cap has left, releasing the liquid in a big bubble. This circus scene is easy to follow but its motivation can only be explained by insanity. Freed from any risk of empathy, the viewer questions the monstrosities of modern life.
In Paris, Condo lives by chance in the same building as the psychotherapist Félix Guattari. Guattari enthusiastically observes that Condo does not respect the conventional psychological limits of portraiture. His characters do not show the minimum of mental steadiness that an observer requires for developing an emotional link.
Condo admires the deconstruction of heads and bodies by Picasso. His gallery of imaginary portraits with a graphic style inspired by the cartoons becomes a teratology of insanity in which the hysteria is no longer incongruous in our contemporary society. He defines these artworks as artificial realism, which may be grouped under themes such as Manic society or Female disasters.
On February 28 in New York, Phillips sells Nude homeless drinker, oil on canvas 165 x 183 cm painted in 1999, lot 43 estimated $ 500K.
This female exhibitionist brandishes her bottle in a raging circular arc decomposed into five gradual stages. At the penultimate position the cap has left, releasing the liquid in a big bubble. This circus scene is easy to follow but its motivation can only be explained by insanity. Freed from any risk of empathy, the viewer questions the monstrosities of modern life.
1999 By Manolo Valdes
2009 unsold
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In the last years of Franco, a group of young artists from Madrid inspired by pop art tries to protest against the regime. Of this movement called Equipo Crónica, the best known is Manolo Valdés.
Later his work combines the effects of textures with homages to the masters, and especially to Henri Matisse. Thus, Matisse como pretexto is the title of an important set of works. A copy of 1999, 200 x 146 cm, is estimated 250 K € by Versailles Enchères, at Versailles on July 5. This is a mixed media on canvas: oil, textile, collage and assemblage of burlap. A female face with severe look is cut in two by a median, but no detail is visible in the dark blue right side.
Of similar design, another face made the following year, 231 x 191 cm, this time divided into four parts, was sold 330 K € hammer price by the same auction house one year ago, July 6 2008.
In the last years of Franco, a group of young artists from Madrid inspired by pop art tries to protest against the regime. Of this movement called Equipo Crónica, the best known is Manolo Valdés.
Later his work combines the effects of textures with homages to the masters, and especially to Henri Matisse. Thus, Matisse como pretexto is the title of an important set of works. A copy of 1999, 200 x 146 cm, is estimated 250 K € by Versailles Enchères, at Versailles on July 5. This is a mixed media on canvas: oil, textile, collage and assemblage of burlap. A female face with severe look is cut in two by a median, but no detail is visible in the dark blue right side.
Of similar design, another face made the following year, 231 x 191 cm, this time divided into four parts, was sold 330 K € hammer price by the same auction house one year ago, July 6 2008.
