Art 2000-2004
2000 celebration of the yellow moon
2014 unsold
The series of Celebrations conceived by Jeff Koons from 1994 include twenty sculptures, each of them being executed in five versions of unique color. They have become the most recognizable works of contemporary art.
The sizes are monumental. When a Celebration is exhibited, it is impossible to ignore it. The themes are simple and symbolic enough to be understood anywhere in the world regardless of the culture of the visitor.
Celebrations have been surface coated in a process specially developed to offer an intense reflectivity and the smoothing curves are so perfect that the observer admires the sculpture without appreciating that it is a technical feat.
The monochrome subjects, probably less difficult to realize, were the first to be completed, in 1999 and 2000: diamond, hanging heart, balloon flower and balloon dog. The moon is one of these pioneering themes.
On November 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells the yellow specimen of the Moon, lot 33 estimated $ 12M.
This piece 315 cm in diameter and 102 cm thick completed in 2000 is notable for two reasons. Its color is logical for the popular interpretation of our satellite and its wide uniformly convex front side is certainly the most beautiful distorting mirror in the entire series.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
The sizes are monumental. When a Celebration is exhibited, it is impossible to ignore it. The themes are simple and symbolic enough to be understood anywhere in the world regardless of the culture of the visitor.
Celebrations have been surface coated in a process specially developed to offer an intense reflectivity and the smoothing curves are so perfect that the observer admires the sculpture without appreciating that it is a technical feat.
The monochrome subjects, probably less difficult to realize, were the first to be completed, in 1999 and 2000: diamond, hanging heart, balloon flower and balloon dog. The moon is one of these pioneering themes.
On November 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells the yellow specimen of the Moon, lot 33 estimated $ 12M.
This piece 315 cm in diameter and 102 cm thick completed in 2000 is notable for two reasons. Its color is logical for the popular interpretation of our satellite and its wide uniformly convex front side is certainly the most beautiful distorting mirror in the entire series.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
2000 The Universal Love of Indiana
2011 unsold
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In 1966, when the hippie movement is growing, Robert Indiana begins to spread his own LOVE all around the world.Everyone knows this collection of four letters as a square, with the O tilted in its diagonal.
Everything is good to support the message: aluminum, bronze, engraving, carpet, stamp. On databases, 60% of the works of Indiana are this LOVE, not including customized versions for other languages such as Hebrew or Hindi.
Of course, the large sculptures get the highest prices. On May 12, Christie's sold $ 4.1 million including premium aLove Red-Blue made in 1990 in aluminum, 366 x 366 x 183 cm. The front side is painted in red and the cross walls in blue.
In a similar build, a Love Gold-Blue made in 2000 is for sale on July 25 in Monte Carlo by Artcurial. Smaller, 182 x182 x 91 cm, it is offered with the reasonable estimate of € 700K.
In 1966, when the hippie movement is growing, Robert Indiana begins to spread his own LOVE all around the world.Everyone knows this collection of four letters as a square, with the O tilted in its diagonal.
Everything is good to support the message: aluminum, bronze, engraving, carpet, stamp. On databases, 60% of the works of Indiana are this LOVE, not including customized versions for other languages such as Hebrew or Hindi.
Of course, the large sculptures get the highest prices. On May 12, Christie's sold $ 4.1 million including premium aLove Red-Blue made in 1990 in aluminum, 366 x 366 x 183 cm. The front side is painted in red and the cross walls in blue.
In a similar build, a Love Gold-Blue made in 2000 is for sale on July 25 in Monte Carlo by Artcurial. Smaller, 182 x182 x 91 cm, it is offered with the reasonable estimate of € 700K.
2001 Julie Mehretu is building her Universe
2010 SOLD 1 M$ including premium
The sale held by Sotheby's on September 25 in New York follows the Lehman Brothers case. This will be a celebration of contemporary art, with 400 works made in the last two decades.
The auction house offers as the headline an abstract painting done in 2001 by Julie Mehretu, estimated $ 600K. It is illustrated in the press release shared by Fine Art Publicity. Fine abstract details are enhanced by colored rotating lines in a sign language reminiscent of Kandinsky.
Born forty years ago in Addis Ababa, Mehretu continues working on her creative process which is, like all great artists, to express her conception of the universe. This work of 2001 is built on a blank background. Inspired by New York, she now expresses on patterns of small repetitive architectural motifs.
Mehretu works in large formats, in parallel on several works in progress. She usually takes several months to position the elements to express the direction she has chosen. The size of the painting to be sold in September is not yet published.
POST SALE COMMENT
Well highlighted by Sotheby's, the painting was sold $ 1M including premium. Julie Mehretu's rating is worth to be followed.
Here is the size of the artwork, as promised: 152 x 213 cm.
The auction house offers as the headline an abstract painting done in 2001 by Julie Mehretu, estimated $ 600K. It is illustrated in the press release shared by Fine Art Publicity. Fine abstract details are enhanced by colored rotating lines in a sign language reminiscent of Kandinsky.
Born forty years ago in Addis Ababa, Mehretu continues working on her creative process which is, like all great artists, to express her conception of the universe. This work of 2001 is built on a blank background. Inspired by New York, she now expresses on patterns of small repetitive architectural motifs.
Mehretu works in large formats, in parallel on several works in progress. She usually takes several months to position the elements to express the direction she has chosen. The size of the painting to be sold in September is not yet published.
POST SALE COMMENT
Well highlighted by Sotheby's, the painting was sold $ 1M including premium. Julie Mehretu's rating is worth to be followed.
Here is the size of the artwork, as promised: 152 x 213 cm.
2001 The Post Colonial Tiles of Adriana Varejao
2014 SOLD for $ 850K including premium
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Adriana Varejão expresses how South America assimilated its colonial period to build its own culture.
Her style is following Lucio Fontana, born in Buenos Aires to parents of Italian origin, who spent half of his life in Argentina. Parede com incisoes a la Fontana, 180 x 250 cm, painted by Varejão in 2001, was sold for £ 1.1M including premium at Christie's on February 16, 2011. That work is a wall of 900 small tiles scarred by eight large incisions .
The azulejo, a faience tile most usually in light blue, is a symbol of the spread of Portuguese culture into its former colonies. In 2001, Varejão built a series of light blue tiles 1 x 1m in oil and plaster on canvas before assembling them as polyptychs named the Macau walls.
Macau had actually received the same Portuguese impregnation as Brazil. In Varejão's elements, the Chinese allusion is marked by irregular abstract patterns loosely reminiscent of the cracked porcelain of the Song.
A triptych was sold for £ 506K including premium by Sotheby's on June 30, 2014. Another Macau Wall (Blue) made of two rows of three elements each is estimated $ 700K, for sale by Phillips in New York on November 24, lot 15.
I invite you to play the video shared by Phillips.
Her style is following Lucio Fontana, born in Buenos Aires to parents of Italian origin, who spent half of his life in Argentina. Parede com incisoes a la Fontana, 180 x 250 cm, painted by Varejão in 2001, was sold for £ 1.1M including premium at Christie's on February 16, 2011. That work is a wall of 900 small tiles scarred by eight large incisions .
The azulejo, a faience tile most usually in light blue, is a symbol of the spread of Portuguese culture into its former colonies. In 2001, Varejão built a series of light blue tiles 1 x 1m in oil and plaster on canvas before assembling them as polyptychs named the Macau walls.
Macau had actually received the same Portuguese impregnation as Brazil. In Varejão's elements, the Chinese allusion is marked by irregular abstract patterns loosely reminiscent of the cracked porcelain of the Song.
A triptych was sold for £ 506K including premium by Sotheby's on June 30, 2014. Another Macau Wall (Blue) made of two rows of three elements each is estimated $ 700K, for sale by Phillips in New York on November 24, lot 15.
I invite you to play the video shared by Phillips.
2002 studies in white
2016 sold for $ 10.8m including premium
Robert Ryman is a security guard in the MoMA from 1953 to 1960. He meets the minimalists Sol LeWitt and Dan Flavin and watches the abstract expressionist paintings recently acquired by the museum.
Ryman is interested in the act of painting. By a curious coincidence Brice Marden will follow in a similar path in 1963 : guard at the Jewish Museum, Marden discovered the pop art during an exhibition dedicated to Jasper Johns.
After Johns, Ryman rejects the narrative in art. Same as Manzoni on the other side of the Atlantic he refuses all the colors because they are already loaded with symbols. He desires not to be mingled with pre-existing artistic movements such as minimalism, conceptual art or abstract expressionism.
Like Donald Judd, Ryman watches the effect of lighting on his work. For half a century he produces his paintings in full white on various supports, usually in a thick impasto that creates surface asperities and generates brightness variations under the light. He states that his art is an experience. His achievement is like a meaningless material and the title is not significant.
Bridge, 192 x 183 cm made in 1980, was sold for $ 20.6 million including premium by Christie's on May 13, 2015 over a lower estimate of $ 10M. In the same size, Link realized in 2002 was sold for $ 11,4M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2014. Connect, 188 x 188 cm also painted in 2002, is estimated $ 10M for sale by Christie's in New York on November 15, lot 27 A.
Ryman is interested in the act of painting. By a curious coincidence Brice Marden will follow in a similar path in 1963 : guard at the Jewish Museum, Marden discovered the pop art during an exhibition dedicated to Jasper Johns.
After Johns, Ryman rejects the narrative in art. Same as Manzoni on the other side of the Atlantic he refuses all the colors because they are already loaded with symbols. He desires not to be mingled with pre-existing artistic movements such as minimalism, conceptual art or abstract expressionism.
Like Donald Judd, Ryman watches the effect of lighting on his work. For half a century he produces his paintings in full white on various supports, usually in a thick impasto that creates surface asperities and generates brightness variations under the light. He states that his art is an experience. His achievement is like a meaningless material and the title is not significant.
Bridge, 192 x 183 cm made in 1980, was sold for $ 20.6 million including premium by Christie's on May 13, 2015 over a lower estimate of $ 10M. In the same size, Link realized in 2002 was sold for $ 11,4M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2014. Connect, 188 x 188 cm also painted in 2002, is estimated $ 10M for sale by Christie's in New York on November 15, lot 27 A.
2002 The Come Back of the Millionaire Nurse
2008 SOLD 4.7 M$ including premium
2010 SOLD 2.17 M£ including premium
2014 SOLD 3.3 M$ including premium
PRE 2014 SALE DISCUSSION
I maintain an ongoing relationship with the Millionaire Nurse by Richard Prince, since this is the third time it appears in my column. It was sold twice by Sotheby's : $ 4.7 million including premium on 14 May 2008 and £ 2.17 million including premium on 28 June 2010.
This painting made in 2002 in inkjet print and acrylic on canvas, 147 x 91 cm, is now estimated $ 3M for sale on May 14 by Sotheby's in New York, lot 32 in the catalog.
But let us admit that she is not the most exciting among Prince's Nurses. She shared my first discussion with the teasing Man-Crazy Nurse, 198 x 147 cm, sold for $ 7.4 million including premium on May 13, 2008 by Christie's.
Here is how I introduced this series in 2008 :
The paintings of Nurses by Richard Prince have all the ingredients necessary to achieve the highest price: they have already got it, and I have no doubt that they shall maintain it.
First there is sex and death: sex is the nurse, death is brought by the hospital attire with surgery cap and mask. It is clever as the mask itself is a symbol of enchantment seized upon by ethnologists in trendy magazines.
Then there is the recuperation of popular icons, after Lichtenstein and his comics, after the advertising by Warhol. Prince reused the book covers of cheap literature. He took the nurse and the title and ignored the rest.
Still more: they are large format works, an essential feature in contemporary art.
They use contemporary techniques: the digitization of the work allows a copy by ink jet on the canvas, before the finish in acrylic paint.
Prince is an artist whose success has been carefully orchestrated. With the above recipe, it's up to you to follow his path.
POST SALE COMMENT
Sold for $ 3.3 million including premium, the Millionaire Nurse confirms that it is not the best piece in this series.
Also made in 2002 but in a larger size, 198 x 148 cm, the Nurse of Greenmeadow was sold for $ 8.6 million including premium by Christie's on May 12, lot 11.
I maintain an ongoing relationship with the Millionaire Nurse by Richard Prince, since this is the third time it appears in my column. It was sold twice by Sotheby's : $ 4.7 million including premium on 14 May 2008 and £ 2.17 million including premium on 28 June 2010.
This painting made in 2002 in inkjet print and acrylic on canvas, 147 x 91 cm, is now estimated $ 3M for sale on May 14 by Sotheby's in New York, lot 32 in the catalog.
But let us admit that she is not the most exciting among Prince's Nurses. She shared my first discussion with the teasing Man-Crazy Nurse, 198 x 147 cm, sold for $ 7.4 million including premium on May 13, 2008 by Christie's.
Here is how I introduced this series in 2008 :
The paintings of Nurses by Richard Prince have all the ingredients necessary to achieve the highest price: they have already got it, and I have no doubt that they shall maintain it.
First there is sex and death: sex is the nurse, death is brought by the hospital attire with surgery cap and mask. It is clever as the mask itself is a symbol of enchantment seized upon by ethnologists in trendy magazines.
Then there is the recuperation of popular icons, after Lichtenstein and his comics, after the advertising by Warhol. Prince reused the book covers of cheap literature. He took the nurse and the title and ignored the rest.
Still more: they are large format works, an essential feature in contemporary art.
They use contemporary techniques: the digitization of the work allows a copy by ink jet on the canvas, before the finish in acrylic paint.
Prince is an artist whose success has been carefully orchestrated. With the above recipe, it's up to you to follow his path.
POST SALE COMMENT
Sold for $ 3.3 million including premium, the Millionaire Nurse confirms that it is not the best piece in this series.
Also made in 2002 but in a larger size, 198 x 148 cm, the Nurse of Greenmeadow was sold for $ 8.6 million including premium by Christie's on May 12, lot 11.
2002 pills for the four seasons
2007 result $ 7.4m including premium at Christie's, unpaid
2015 sold for £ 3.05m including premium
Damien Hirst has built his career on the psychological impossibility of death, which is nevertheless a real and inevitable fact. By 1992, only one year after his first immersions of animals in formaldehyde, he worships pharmacy considered as a beneficial link between life and death.
The twentieth century had experienced the development of abstract art. The basic symbol of his pharmacy is the pill whose geometry and color may vary on artist's discretion without imposing a realistic structure.
In the following of impressionism and expressionism, Hirst appropriates the seasons for a symbolist variation in the colors of his pills. This phase of creativity culminates with four models of pharmaceutical cabinets made in 2002 in stainless steel and glass. Each of these installations, 183 x 274 x 10 cm, displays several thousand of pills painted in various colors with a visual effect doubled by a back mirror wall.
Until 2008, Hirst managed to convince the art market about his mysticism. The 2002 Lullaby Spring cabinet was sold for £ 9.6M including premium by Sotheby's on June 21, 2007 over a lower estimate of £ 3M.
This success encouraged Hirst to produce new cabinets which were sold almost immediately at auction with grandiloquent titles by Sotheby's, respectively $ 7.1 million including premium on 14 February 2008 and £ 5.2 million including premium on 15 September 2008.
A Lullaby Winter executed in 2002 was sold for $ 7.4 million including premium by Christie's on 16 May 2007. It is listed again on February 11 in London by Christie's, now estimated £ 2.5 million, lot 21.
2016 COMMENT
A post by Art Market Monitor tells that the Lullaby Winter remained unpaid in 2007 and was the property of Christie's when they sold it in 2015.
The twentieth century had experienced the development of abstract art. The basic symbol of his pharmacy is the pill whose geometry and color may vary on artist's discretion without imposing a realistic structure.
In the following of impressionism and expressionism, Hirst appropriates the seasons for a symbolist variation in the colors of his pills. This phase of creativity culminates with four models of pharmaceutical cabinets made in 2002 in stainless steel and glass. Each of these installations, 183 x 274 x 10 cm, displays several thousand of pills painted in various colors with a visual effect doubled by a back mirror wall.
Until 2008, Hirst managed to convince the art market about his mysticism. The 2002 Lullaby Spring cabinet was sold for £ 9.6M including premium by Sotheby's on June 21, 2007 over a lower estimate of £ 3M.
This success encouraged Hirst to produce new cabinets which were sold almost immediately at auction with grandiloquent titles by Sotheby's, respectively $ 7.1 million including premium on 14 February 2008 and £ 5.2 million including premium on 15 September 2008.
A Lullaby Winter executed in 2002 was sold for $ 7.4 million including premium by Christie's on 16 May 2007. It is listed again on February 11 in London by Christie's, now estimated £ 2.5 million, lot 21.
2016 COMMENT
A post by Art Market Monitor tells that the Lullaby Winter remained unpaid in 2007 and was the property of Christie's when they sold it in 2015.
2002 Cai Guo-Quang about Powder
2009 unsold
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Cai Guo-Qiang, specialist of installations, events and fireworks, brings an explosive glance on today's world. Like Christo, he makes many preparatory works. Like Warhol, he relies on most diverse contemporary themes: monuments, symbols, objects.
His technique is always the same, and deeply original: his works on paper are composed of gunpowder and ink, and his happenings are using pyrotechnics.
The invention of gunpowder is ascribed, as we know, to his ancient Chinese compatriots. Undoubtedly, this reference provides the thread of his art. But even his admirers regret the opportunism of his subjects.
For sale in Hong Kong by Sotheby's on October 6, Money Net No. 3 provides an interesting input to the understanding of his art. This work preparatory to the 2002 explosion of a purse tells the ambiguous relationship of current artists with money.
Like all significant works of Cai, Money Net No. 3 is huge: 4 x 6 m. It is estimated 4.7 MHK$. Much higher prices were recorded in the past, but on polyptychs.
Cai is a universally recognized artist since the exhibition of a retrospective of his work at the Guggenheim Museum of New York in 2008.
Cai Guo-Qiang, specialist of installations, events and fireworks, brings an explosive glance on today's world. Like Christo, he makes many preparatory works. Like Warhol, he relies on most diverse contemporary themes: monuments, symbols, objects.
His technique is always the same, and deeply original: his works on paper are composed of gunpowder and ink, and his happenings are using pyrotechnics.
The invention of gunpowder is ascribed, as we know, to his ancient Chinese compatriots. Undoubtedly, this reference provides the thread of his art. But even his admirers regret the opportunism of his subjects.
For sale in Hong Kong by Sotheby's on October 6, Money Net No. 3 provides an interesting input to the understanding of his art. This work preparatory to the 2002 explosion of a purse tells the ambiguous relationship of current artists with money.
Like all significant works of Cai, Money Net No. 3 is huge: 4 x 6 m. It is estimated 4.7 MHK$. Much higher prices were recorded in the past, but on polyptychs.
Cai is a universally recognized artist since the exhibition of a retrospective of his work at the Guggenheim Museum of New York in 2008.
2003 The Little Spider of Louise Bourgeois is growing, growing, growing
2008 SOLD 2.9 M€ including premium
A sculpture awaited to be millionaire, conceived by a nonagenarian artist, that could only come from Louise Bourgeois, the artist of French origin established in New York for 70 years.
In November 2006 in New York, Christie's sold for 4 M$ fees included a large spider bronze (239 X 244 X 213 cm). This one followed another specimen of the same model, sold for 3 M$ by Sotheby's in November 2005.
On May 27 and 28, it is in Paris that Christie's offers for sale another spider, smaller (74x 112 X 89 cm), also high on legs like the two others mentioned above. It is later (2003, which justifies my remark on the age of the artist). It is a unique stainless steel work. Its body is covered with tapestry. If it is not really a sculpture-object, it is at least an equipped sculpture! Works joining together several materials are appreciated more and more on the market. In spite of its small size, it shall not be satisfied to stay at its estimate of 1,8 M€ (lot 20). It makes its visit in temporary importation, proof of the confidence which the auction house puts in the place of Paris for this lot.
Bourgeois has just obtained in the day sale of Christie's New York on May 14 an interesting result which attests that her works are increasingly required: 2,5 M$ for a sculpture of older design which had been estimated half less.
POST SALE COMMENT
Our spider comes through the roof: 2.9 M € fees included.
Louise Bourgeois is definitely an artist whose work must be closely analysed in auction chronicles.
In November 2006 in New York, Christie's sold for 4 M$ fees included a large spider bronze (239 X 244 X 213 cm). This one followed another specimen of the same model, sold for 3 M$ by Sotheby's in November 2005.
On May 27 and 28, it is in Paris that Christie's offers for sale another spider, smaller (74x 112 X 89 cm), also high on legs like the two others mentioned above. It is later (2003, which justifies my remark on the age of the artist). It is a unique stainless steel work. Its body is covered with tapestry. If it is not really a sculpture-object, it is at least an equipped sculpture! Works joining together several materials are appreciated more and more on the market. In spite of its small size, it shall not be satisfied to stay at its estimate of 1,8 M€ (lot 20). It makes its visit in temporary importation, proof of the confidence which the auction house puts in the place of Paris for this lot.
Bourgeois has just obtained in the day sale of Christie's New York on May 14 an interesting result which attests that her works are increasingly required: 2,5 M$ for a sculpture of older design which had been estimated half less.
POST SALE COMMENT
Our spider comes through the roof: 2.9 M € fees included.
Louise Bourgeois is definitely an artist whose work must be closely analysed in auction chronicles.
2003 The Tricycle of the Enfant Terrible
2010 SOLD 3 M$ including premium
2013 UNSOLD
PRE 2013 SALE DISCUSSION
Charlie was sold for $ 3M including premium by Phillips de Pury on November 8, 2010. After the sale, Simon de Pury told it: "Thank you so much, Charlie, you can leave us now". Here is this lot, illustrated in the catalog shared by LiveAuctioneers.
Charlie is a multiple, but it is the same copy that comes again at auction. Here is my previous article, modified to indicate the information concerning the new sale :
Time passes, art evolves, the hyper-realistic characters in vinyl and fiberglass by Duane Hanson are in the past. Their successors can not remain immobile. The last decade has seen the development of an art inspired by animatronics techniques, developed for amusement parks.
Maurizio Cattelan, known as an "enfant terrible" of contemporary art, is participating in this trend. On November 12 in New York, Christie's sells a work entitled "Charlie", estimated $ 2M.
It is a child about 6 years old on a tricycle, with the head of the artist as a young adult. Made in 2003, the work of 82 x 92 x 56 cm is activated by a remote control that allows it to move and to change the expression on the face. Here, the tricycle is a cult object: The model has been used by the child medium in the horror film by Kubrick, the Shining.
Cattelan is a veteran of such self-portraits, where he is seen without being himself present, in funny or weird attitudes. We remember the life size burglar coming out of his tunnel whose head pops up at floor level, sold for $ 7.9 million including premium by Sotheby's in New York on May 12, 2010. Bravely, the auction house had made a hole in the floor of the showroom to offer the correct presentation of the work.
Charlie was sold for $ 3M including premium by Phillips de Pury on November 8, 2010. After the sale, Simon de Pury told it: "Thank you so much, Charlie, you can leave us now". Here is this lot, illustrated in the catalog shared by LiveAuctioneers.
Charlie is a multiple, but it is the same copy that comes again at auction. Here is my previous article, modified to indicate the information concerning the new sale :
Time passes, art evolves, the hyper-realistic characters in vinyl and fiberglass by Duane Hanson are in the past. Their successors can not remain immobile. The last decade has seen the development of an art inspired by animatronics techniques, developed for amusement parks.
Maurizio Cattelan, known as an "enfant terrible" of contemporary art, is participating in this trend. On November 12 in New York, Christie's sells a work entitled "Charlie", estimated $ 2M.
It is a child about 6 years old on a tricycle, with the head of the artist as a young adult. Made in 2003, the work of 82 x 92 x 56 cm is activated by a remote control that allows it to move and to change the expression on the face. Here, the tricycle is a cult object: The model has been used by the child medium in the horror film by Kubrick, the Shining.
Cattelan is a veteran of such self-portraits, where he is seen without being himself present, in funny or weird attitudes. We remember the life size burglar coming out of his tunnel whose head pops up at floor level, sold for $ 7.9 million including premium by Sotheby's in New York on May 12, 2010. Bravely, the auction house had made a hole in the floor of the showroom to offer the correct presentation of the work.
2003 The Dual Narration of Julie Mehretu
2015 SOLD for £ 2.2M including premium
Julie Mehretu provides a dual or even multiple narration in her large pictures on canvas. This intention is often heralded by a duality in the title of the work, offering within a few words an idea and its opposite.
A piece by Mehretu is a painting and a drawing, in acrylic and ink, abstract and figurative. This is an abstract firework of colors when viewed at a distance, and an unlimited cityscape or a tightly patterned map in a very close view. The fireworks alone are a sensory duality, delighting the viewer both by the explosion of colors and by belonging in a festive crowd.
On June 30 in London, Christie's sells a resolutely optimistic artwork titled Looking back to a bright new future. This acrylic and ink 241 x 303 cm painted in 2003 is estimated £ 1.8 million, lot 48. This picture provides an additional reading with lines converging on a vanishing point as in a ceiling by Balla in search of the fourth dimension 90 years earlier.
Made in 2001, Retopistics - A Renegade Excavation, 257 x 530 cm, was sold for $ 4.6 million including premium by Christie's on May 15, 2013.
A work executed in 2008, 244 x 366 cm, is exemplary in the contradictory brevity of its title, Rising down. It was sold for $ 3.1 million including premium by Sotheby's in Doha on April 22, 2013.
A piece by Mehretu is a painting and a drawing, in acrylic and ink, abstract and figurative. This is an abstract firework of colors when viewed at a distance, and an unlimited cityscape or a tightly patterned map in a very close view. The fireworks alone are a sensory duality, delighting the viewer both by the explosion of colors and by belonging in a festive crowd.
On June 30 in London, Christie's sells a resolutely optimistic artwork titled Looking back to a bright new future. This acrylic and ink 241 x 303 cm painted in 2003 is estimated £ 1.8 million, lot 48. This picture provides an additional reading with lines converging on a vanishing point as in a ceiling by Balla in search of the fourth dimension 90 years earlier.
Made in 2001, Retopistics - A Renegade Excavation, 257 x 530 cm, was sold for $ 4.6 million including premium by Christie's on May 15, 2013.
A work executed in 2008, 244 x 366 cm, is exemplary in the contradictory brevity of its title, Rising down. It was sold for $ 3.1 million including premium by Sotheby's in Doha on April 22, 2013.
2003 Kaikai Kiki for Louis Vuitton
2013 SOLD 19 MHK$ including premium
It would be too simple if the art of Takashi Murakami was only absurd. The artist wants to disturb by animating characters close to the popular images of humanoid robots. He created his pantheon. The miracle of art is that the observers are looking for a meaning of Oval, Kaikai and Kiki.
To a Westerner, Kaikai and Kiki sound like an onomatopoeia, same as Kodak. In Japanese, it is instead a reference to an ancient taste for the supernatural and the bizarre.
Just like Koons, Murakami is as much an entrepreneur as an artist and Kaikai Kiki is the name of his company. It is also the name of an artists' cooperative of which he remains the leader.
An artistic entrepreneur must now seek a global effect. By dehumanizing his characters, Murakami leaves away from the manga and promotes his appreciation by the West. Pushed by Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton crossed the other half of the road. Their cooperation with Kaikai Kiki is a recognition of the universality of art.
On October 5 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells The World of Sphere, a diptych in acrylic forming a square of 3.50 m overall, painted in 2003 by Murakami for Louis Vuitton. As difficult to decypher as a Miro, this artwork is estimated HK$ 16M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
Sold for HK$ 19M including premium, this recent artwork remained around its lower estimate.
To a Westerner, Kaikai and Kiki sound like an onomatopoeia, same as Kodak. In Japanese, it is instead a reference to an ancient taste for the supernatural and the bizarre.
Just like Koons, Murakami is as much an entrepreneur as an artist and Kaikai Kiki is the name of his company. It is also the name of an artists' cooperative of which he remains the leader.
An artistic entrepreneur must now seek a global effect. By dehumanizing his characters, Murakami leaves away from the manga and promotes his appreciation by the West. Pushed by Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton crossed the other half of the road. Their cooperation with Kaikai Kiki is a recognition of the universality of art.
On October 5 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells The World of Sphere, a diptych in acrylic forming a square of 3.50 m overall, painted in 2003 by Murakami for Louis Vuitton. As difficult to decypher as a Miro, this artwork is estimated HK$ 16M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
Sold for HK$ 19M including premium, this recent artwork remained around its lower estimate.
2003 THE STYLIZED VIOLENCE OF TYEB MEHTA
2008 SOLD 1.5 M$ INCLUDING PREMIUM
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
The thirteen highest results found in Artvalue for Tyeb Mehta has been obtained over the past three years. So he is an artist who is being discovered by the international community. The presence of two works in the Indian art sales held this month in New York is an opportunity to look more closely at what this painter is doing.
His work manages to combine a sense of violence with a high degree of stylization.
At Sotheby's on September 18 Lot 32 is an important acrylic on canvas. Painted in 2003, this large (182 x 149 cm) Fallen Figure with Bird shows a tangle of forms from which nervously emerge concentric hands, beaks and feathers. The lack of vertical or horizontal marks expresses the anguish and fall. This work was chosen for the cover of the catalogue. It is estimated $ 1 million.
Oldest (1979), thus more similar as what we usually see from this artist, the oil on canvas to be sold by Christie's, lot 121 on September 16, 150 x 105 cm, shows three yellow heads above a tangle of body dominated by a bust, two legs and three arms, forming an incongruous and frightening package. Christie's expects $ 600 K.
POST SALE COMMENTS
1
The value of Mehta, like Gupta whom I mentioned in another article related to the same sale at Christie's, is growing. Lot 121, with its three yellow heads, got 900 K$ including fees.
I expect even more with the outcome of Sotheby's, for a much more recent work.
2
I was right to wait impatiently for the outcome of Sotheby's. With $ 1.5 million charge included, this terrible Fallen Figure with Bird brings the contemporary period of Mehta in the summits of the art market. It is deserved.
The thirteen highest results found in Artvalue for Tyeb Mehta has been obtained over the past three years. So he is an artist who is being discovered by the international community. The presence of two works in the Indian art sales held this month in New York is an opportunity to look more closely at what this painter is doing.
His work manages to combine a sense of violence with a high degree of stylization.
At Sotheby's on September 18 Lot 32 is an important acrylic on canvas. Painted in 2003, this large (182 x 149 cm) Fallen Figure with Bird shows a tangle of forms from which nervously emerge concentric hands, beaks and feathers. The lack of vertical or horizontal marks expresses the anguish and fall. This work was chosen for the cover of the catalogue. It is estimated $ 1 million.
Oldest (1979), thus more similar as what we usually see from this artist, the oil on canvas to be sold by Christie's, lot 121 on September 16, 150 x 105 cm, shows three yellow heads above a tangle of body dominated by a bust, two legs and three arms, forming an incongruous and frightening package. Christie's expects $ 600 K.
POST SALE COMMENTS
1
The value of Mehta, like Gupta whom I mentioned in another article related to the same sale at Christie's, is growing. Lot 121, with its three yellow heads, got 900 K$ including fees.
I expect even more with the outcome of Sotheby's, for a much more recent work.
2
I was right to wait impatiently for the outcome of Sotheby's. With $ 1.5 million charge included, this terrible Fallen Figure with Bird brings the contemporary period of Mehta in the summits of the art market. It is deserved.
2004 Colors are playing with Richter
2013 SOLD 8.4 M£ including premium
The Abstraktes Bild from the 1990s are now the stars of the contemporary art market. Richter's rake is structuring the surface of the canvas where the colors clash. To our delight, Richter continued to explore the limitless language of abstraction.
On February 13 in London, Christie's sells an Abstraktes Bild, 225 x 200 cm, made in 2004.
The shiny surface of the canvas does not provide any more contrast but a wonderful blend of rare tones from green to purple, like a huge painter's palette where the colors were mixed together before drying.
Only interrupted by one small horizontal rectangle, the overall movement is much vertical, like a cathedral of colors or maybe like a great musicalist inspiration at a time when the artist was captivated by John Cage.
With such a work that has lost all idea of shape, with his unconventional colors that mix in a supreme harmony, Richter in his recent works is possibly overcoming Rothko.
Cautiously, the auction house does not publish an estimate. No large work from that period had yet appeared at auction. On 27 June 2012, Christie's sold £ 2.7 million including premium a 2005 Abstraktes Bild of smaller size, 113 x 75 cm.
POST SALE COMMENT
Recent works can be difficult to sell. Richter, fortunately, is an exception: £ 8.4 million including premium.
On February 13 in London, Christie's sells an Abstraktes Bild, 225 x 200 cm, made in 2004.
The shiny surface of the canvas does not provide any more contrast but a wonderful blend of rare tones from green to purple, like a huge painter's palette where the colors were mixed together before drying.
Only interrupted by one small horizontal rectangle, the overall movement is much vertical, like a cathedral of colors or maybe like a great musicalist inspiration at a time when the artist was captivated by John Cage.
With such a work that has lost all idea of shape, with his unconventional colors that mix in a supreme harmony, Richter in his recent works is possibly overcoming Rothko.
Cautiously, the auction house does not publish an estimate. No large work from that period had yet appeared at auction. On 27 June 2012, Christie's sold £ 2.7 million including premium a 2005 Abstraktes Bild of smaller size, 113 x 75 cm.
POST SALE COMMENT
Recent works can be difficult to sell. Richter, fortunately, is an exception: £ 8.4 million including premium.
2004 THe Six Qualities of Prince's Nurses
2010 sold 6.46 M$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Acting permanently on the borders of scandal, Richard Prince became famous. He
is actually one of the most pioneering artists of our time, probably the only one who has made a voluntary combination of all elements known to generate success.
His series of Nurses, painted from 2002 to 2004, is iconic. It is a diversion in large format of covers of cheap novels, digitized and inkjet copied before an acrylic finish.
Artists are familiar with the three powers that attract and retain the public's attention, love, death, money. Prince adds three qualities: the current topic, the large size and the computer-assisted technique.
Contemporary art has no future unless if it shows the life of today. This subject is so vast that there is room for many small Prince's. I had the pleasure of discussing a Gursky photo that united the three powers and three three qualities as introduced hereabove: his admirable Madonna of September 2001 (Photo group on the network).
Nurse in Hollywood # 4, for sale by Phillips de Pury on May 13 in New York, is dated 2004. A nurse in close-up bears her cap and mask as if it were a burqa, and starts an insisting look toward the observer. Hollywood provides the idea of money, and this title stands like letters from Ed Ruscha.
This painting, 175 x 107 cm, is not one of the largest. With its estimated $ 5 million, it is even more interesting to follow since the art of Richard Prince had virtually disappeared from the top sales in 2009, the year of the crisis of confidence among sellers.
POST SALE COMMENT
Good news that the crisis is over, judging by the result of that lot that I considered as a test, at $ 6.46 million including premium ($ 5.7 million hammer). Nurse in Hollywood is exceeded only by two of her sisters sold in May and July 2008, at the very end of the period of euphoria. Here is the photo on the catalog shared by LiveAuctioneers.
My personal euphoria is limited to works of very high level. It is easier to sell a lot in 2010 if it is in the multimillionaire range. Buyers become more selective. Their quality standards are leading to see the history of art with new eyes. It's exciting.
Acting permanently on the borders of scandal, Richard Prince became famous. He
is actually one of the most pioneering artists of our time, probably the only one who has made a voluntary combination of all elements known to generate success.
His series of Nurses, painted from 2002 to 2004, is iconic. It is a diversion in large format of covers of cheap novels, digitized and inkjet copied before an acrylic finish.
Artists are familiar with the three powers that attract and retain the public's attention, love, death, money. Prince adds three qualities: the current topic, the large size and the computer-assisted technique.
Contemporary art has no future unless if it shows the life of today. This subject is so vast that there is room for many small Prince's. I had the pleasure of discussing a Gursky photo that united the three powers and three three qualities as introduced hereabove: his admirable Madonna of September 2001 (Photo group on the network).
Nurse in Hollywood # 4, for sale by Phillips de Pury on May 13 in New York, is dated 2004. A nurse in close-up bears her cap and mask as if it were a burqa, and starts an insisting look toward the observer. Hollywood provides the idea of money, and this title stands like letters from Ed Ruscha.
This painting, 175 x 107 cm, is not one of the largest. With its estimated $ 5 million, it is even more interesting to follow since the art of Richard Prince had virtually disappeared from the top sales in 2009, the year of the crisis of confidence among sellers.
POST SALE COMMENT
Good news that the crisis is over, judging by the result of that lot that I considered as a test, at $ 6.46 million including premium ($ 5.7 million hammer). Nurse in Hollywood is exceeded only by two of her sisters sold in May and July 2008, at the very end of the period of euphoria. Here is the photo on the catalog shared by LiveAuctioneers.
My personal euphoria is limited to works of very high level. It is easier to sell a lot in 2010 if it is in the multimillionaire range. Buyers become more selective. Their quality standards are leading to see the history of art with new eyes. It's exciting.
2004 hidden in the park
2017 sold for £ 850k including premium
Cecily Brown involved herself in painting in the 1990s with an unprecedented but quite logical target : the viewer must be fascinated by the art to the point of not being able to turn his gaze away. She builds her recipe with simple elements : large size, impasto, sex without shame.
Her paintings are a mingle of colors in heavy layers. The flesh is recognizable by its color but often hidden in the folds of the impasto. The viewer cannot perceive from a single angle all the secrets of the composition and stays in front of the canvas until he believes having fully elucidated its mystery. In her style she associates the thick flesh by Lucian Freud with the torments of Francis Bacon in a boundary between expressionism and abstraction that follows de Kooning.
Painted at the end of that first period in 1998 with an enticing title and nude buttocks in the foreground, The girl who had everything, oil on canvas 253 x 280 cm, was sold for £ 1,87M including premium by Sotheby's on 28 June 2017.
The artist manipulates with a clever humor the desires of the voyeurs. At the turn of the 2000s she knows that her art has acquired such a pornographic reputation that she no longer needs to hide sex in her compositions. Without changing her technique, she quietly turns her painting toward other subjects such as the illustration of poems, musicals or films mentioned in her titles.
Painted in 2004, Park is an oil on linen from that second period. The two 196 x 140 cm elements of this diptych have an opposite density : on the left a sparse garden, on the right a lush vegetation, the whole without an erotic imagery.
Park was discussed in this column before being sold for £ 420K including premium by Phillips de Pury on October 12, 2011. This artwork comes on October 6 in London in the same auction house that became Phillips in the meanwhile, lot 7 estimated £ 400K.
Her paintings are a mingle of colors in heavy layers. The flesh is recognizable by its color but often hidden in the folds of the impasto. The viewer cannot perceive from a single angle all the secrets of the composition and stays in front of the canvas until he believes having fully elucidated its mystery. In her style she associates the thick flesh by Lucian Freud with the torments of Francis Bacon in a boundary between expressionism and abstraction that follows de Kooning.
Painted at the end of that first period in 1998 with an enticing title and nude buttocks in the foreground, The girl who had everything, oil on canvas 253 x 280 cm, was sold for £ 1,87M including premium by Sotheby's on 28 June 2017.
The artist manipulates with a clever humor the desires of the voyeurs. At the turn of the 2000s she knows that her art has acquired such a pornographic reputation that she no longer needs to hide sex in her compositions. Without changing her technique, she quietly turns her painting toward other subjects such as the illustration of poems, musicals or films mentioned in her titles.
Painted in 2004, Park is an oil on linen from that second period. The two 196 x 140 cm elements of this diptych have an opposite density : on the left a sparse garden, on the right a lush vegetation, the whole without an erotic imagery.
Park was discussed in this column before being sold for £ 420K including premium by Phillips de Pury on October 12, 2011. This artwork comes on October 6 in London in the same auction house that became Phillips in the meanwhile, lot 7 estimated £ 400K.
