Art 2000-2004
2000 The Fire Trails of Cai Guo-Qiang
2007 SOLD for HK$ 20.5M including premium by Sotheby's
2018 UNSOLD
PRE 2018 SALE DISCUSSION
When he launched his Projects for Extraterrestrials in 1990, Cai Guo-Qiang was paradoxically a humanist who wanted to symbolically destroy the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. Artist and pyrotechnician, he uses fire both for its creative and destructive characteristics in his Land Art.
The No. 10 is his most important achievement of that phase, and the only one made at that time on Chinese land. The Great Wall acquired the reputation of being the only monument visible from space. Its western end is at the entrance to the Gobi Desert. Cai installs in these dry dunes an undulating trail interspersed with pyrotechnic cartridges, under the title Project to extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 meters.
The happening took place on February 27, 1993 for 40,000 human spectators and an unidentified alien population. The fire takes fifteen minutes to extend over its 10 Km trail, offering in the dusk the vision of an extraordinary dragon.
Same as Christo, Cai makes preparatory drawings and reproductions for the trade. In 2000 the Taipei National Museum of History commissioned a drawing of his Project No. 10 for an exhibition on the Great Wall. This new pyrotechnic happening on ink and gunpowder is performed on five adjacent papers for a total size of 3 x 20 m.
This artwork was sold for HK $ 20.5M including premium by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 7, 2007. It returns in the same auction room on March 31, lot 1065 estimated HK $ 15M. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
The artificer artist continues to advance his humanist vision. In 2015 he set fire in a superb 80-second happening to a 500-meter ladder rising to the sky, suspended to an invisible weather balloon.
When he launched his Projects for Extraterrestrials in 1990, Cai Guo-Qiang was paradoxically a humanist who wanted to symbolically destroy the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. Artist and pyrotechnician, he uses fire both for its creative and destructive characteristics in his Land Art.
The No. 10 is his most important achievement of that phase, and the only one made at that time on Chinese land. The Great Wall acquired the reputation of being the only monument visible from space. Its western end is at the entrance to the Gobi Desert. Cai installs in these dry dunes an undulating trail interspersed with pyrotechnic cartridges, under the title Project to extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 meters.
The happening took place on February 27, 1993 for 40,000 human spectators and an unidentified alien population. The fire takes fifteen minutes to extend over its 10 Km trail, offering in the dusk the vision of an extraordinary dragon.
Same as Christo, Cai makes preparatory drawings and reproductions for the trade. In 2000 the Taipei National Museum of History commissioned a drawing of his Project No. 10 for an exhibition on the Great Wall. This new pyrotechnic happening on ink and gunpowder is performed on five adjacent papers for a total size of 3 x 20 m.
This artwork was sold for HK $ 20.5M including premium by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 7, 2007. It returns in the same auction room on March 31, lot 1065 estimated HK $ 15M. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
The artificer artist continues to advance his humanist vision. In 2015 he set fire in a superb 80-second happening to a 500-meter ladder rising to the sky, suspended to an invisible weather balloon.
2000 Yin and Yang in the Chinese Countryside
2009 SOLD 9.6 MHK$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In the photo released by Sotheby's, we see a huge arch of bronze, 279 x 420 x 156 cm, placed in a green countryside. From a distance it looks a bit like a dolmen. but its inspiration is not Celtic.
The sculptor is Zhu Ming (Ju Ming). In the tradition of Taichi, the supreme principle of Taoism, he produces powerful and elegant forms designed to fit into nature. At the edge of abstraction, this one shows two boxers. The arm of one of them is pointing at the head of the other to unite the yin and the yang.
This sculpture made in 2000 is nicely balanced despite its monumental size, making it a masterpiece of this Taiwanese artist. The sale takes place tomorrow, October 6 in Hong Kong. The lot is estimated 7.5 MHK$.
A first result is already achieved. Our artwork draws the attention of my fellow Western bloggers ! Two of them selected it as the symbol of this Sotheby's auction.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result confirms the importance of this sculpture in the work of Ju Ming: 9.6 MHK$ premium included.
In the photo released by Sotheby's, we see a huge arch of bronze, 279 x 420 x 156 cm, placed in a green countryside. From a distance it looks a bit like a dolmen. but its inspiration is not Celtic.
The sculptor is Zhu Ming (Ju Ming). In the tradition of Taichi, the supreme principle of Taoism, he produces powerful and elegant forms designed to fit into nature. At the edge of abstraction, this one shows two boxers. The arm of one of them is pointing at the head of the other to unite the yin and the yang.
This sculpture made in 2000 is nicely balanced despite its monumental size, making it a masterpiece of this Taiwanese artist. The sale takes place tomorrow, October 6 in Hong Kong. The lot is estimated 7.5 MHK$.
A first result is already achieved. Our artwork draws the attention of my fellow Western bloggers ! Two of them selected it as the symbol of this Sotheby's auction.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result confirms the importance of this sculpture in the work of Ju Ming: 9.6 MHK$ premium included.
2000 A Truck for Cinderella
2019 unsold
Banksy is existing. To meet him, it is better to be a personality of the alternative culture. In 1999 in Bristol, his fame was launched by the making of a mural named The Mild Mild West, starring a teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail on three policemen.
Mojo is one of the founders of Turbozone, a traveling psychedelic circus inspired by the Andalusian fiesta. Its intensive use of pyrotechnics is at the origin of the Rocket Festival held in 2008 near Granada, a city with a predestined name.
Banksy and Mojo meet in Spain in 1999. Turbozone are preparing their Cinderella show. Their truck is a 17 ton Volvo. Mojo commissions Banksy to decorate the entire exterior of the vehicle. This work is ready in 2000 to celebrate the millennium.
The image on the truck is threatening, with running soldiers in Soviet style and flying monkeys. A Stakhanovist worker knocks a television receiver with his hammer. The main slogan is apocalyptic : Laugh now but one day we'll be in charge. Later Banksy's monkeys will enjoy displaying this sentence on a sandwich board. Cuidado con el Toro appears as a reference to the Spanish origin of the project. All Systems Go is a mockery of the technocracy.
The Turbozone truck is a very rare example of an early work by Banksy whose original realization had no furtive circumstance. Curiously, its extreme violence and its iconographic entanglement are reminiscent of the ultra-conservative activism of Gilbert and George.
This artwork could well exceed the auction record for a Volvo truck. It is estimated £ 1M for sale by Bonhams to Goodwood on September 14, lot 212. Please watch the video shared by the auction house on Twitter.
Mojo is one of the founders of Turbozone, a traveling psychedelic circus inspired by the Andalusian fiesta. Its intensive use of pyrotechnics is at the origin of the Rocket Festival held in 2008 near Granada, a city with a predestined name.
Banksy and Mojo meet in Spain in 1999. Turbozone are preparing their Cinderella show. Their truck is a 17 ton Volvo. Mojo commissions Banksy to decorate the entire exterior of the vehicle. This work is ready in 2000 to celebrate the millennium.
The image on the truck is threatening, with running soldiers in Soviet style and flying monkeys. A Stakhanovist worker knocks a television receiver with his hammer. The main slogan is apocalyptic : Laugh now but one day we'll be in charge. Later Banksy's monkeys will enjoy displaying this sentence on a sandwich board. Cuidado con el Toro appears as a reference to the Spanish origin of the project. All Systems Go is a mockery of the technocracy.
The Turbozone truck is a very rare example of an early work by Banksy whose original realization had no furtive circumstance. Curiously, its extreme violence and its iconographic entanglement are reminiscent of the ultra-conservative activism of Gilbert and George.
This artwork could well exceed the auction record for a Volvo truck. It is estimated £ 1M for sale by Bonhams to Goodwood on September 14, lot 212. Please watch the video shared by the auction house on Twitter.
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.
2000-2001 Tradition and Modernity of Arpita Singh
2010 SOLD Rs 9.6 crores (worth US $ 2.24M) including premium
The artistic press of India is excited with a work of Arpita Singh titled Wish Dream that Saffronart offers in an online sale on 8 and 9 December.
Both a gallery and an auction house, Saffronart is an important player in the artistic life of Mumbai. Founded in 2000, the company has set itself the goal of promoting modern and contemporary art of India, a vast area that remains largely to be discovered and to which they have recently added the jewelry.
Wish Dream is an oil on canvas, 729 x 404 cm, painted in 16 panels forming a truncated rectangle like a giant wall hanging to be inserted between two fireplaces.
It is a kind of Buddhist paradise with numerous figures engaged in symbolist and dreamlike occupations. This work is inspired by Tibetan plays. Centuries ago, it would have been a thangka. Realized in 2000-2001, it is a modern painting where soft colors enhance spirituality.
Saffronart indicates for this artwork a lower estimate of 8 crores and translate this amount in U.S. $: 1.86 M. They understood that, unlike from the time of thangka, women have a role to play in the artistic creation of India. Saffronart insists that Wish Dream will get the highest price ever recorded on a painting made by an Indian woman artist.
To enter into this complex narrative work, I invite you to read the article shared by The Times of India, which is illustrated with a global picture and a reproduction of major central details.
POST SALE COMMENT
Success for Saffronart: Rs 9.6 crore including premium for Wish Dream. This lot, after Bharti Kher's sculpture sold in June by Sotheby's, confirms the opening of the market for works that have not been influenced by international art.
The auction house publishes the conversion into dollars: 2.24 M.
Both a gallery and an auction house, Saffronart is an important player in the artistic life of Mumbai. Founded in 2000, the company has set itself the goal of promoting modern and contemporary art of India, a vast area that remains largely to be discovered and to which they have recently added the jewelry.
Wish Dream is an oil on canvas, 729 x 404 cm, painted in 16 panels forming a truncated rectangle like a giant wall hanging to be inserted between two fireplaces.
It is a kind of Buddhist paradise with numerous figures engaged in symbolist and dreamlike occupations. This work is inspired by Tibetan plays. Centuries ago, it would have been a thangka. Realized in 2000-2001, it is a modern painting where soft colors enhance spirituality.
Saffronart indicates for this artwork a lower estimate of 8 crores and translate this amount in U.S. $: 1.86 M. They understood that, unlike from the time of thangka, women have a role to play in the artistic creation of India. Saffronart insists that Wish Dream will get the highest price ever recorded on a painting made by an Indian woman artist.
To enter into this complex narrative work, I invite you to read the article shared by The Times of India, which is illustrated with a global picture and a reproduction of major central details.
POST SALE COMMENT
Success for Saffronart: Rs 9.6 crore including premium for Wish Dream. This lot, after Bharti Kher's sculpture sold in June by Sotheby's, confirms the opening of the market for works that have not been influenced by international art.
The auction house publishes the conversion into dollars: 2.24 M.
2001 City Downgrade by Thiebaud
2012 SOLD for $ 4M by Christie's
Artist and teacher, Wayne Thiebaud cannot be reduced to his most popular theme, sweets and cakes. Throughout his very long career, his main concern is the balance of a wide range of pure colors. He had been for that reason wrongly associated with pop art, but his pastry has indeed nothing to do with the consumer society.
Landscapes and cityscapes with or without car traffic are his other preferred themes. He enjoys a pure geometry but he is bored by perspective and by horizon.
City Downgrade, oil on canvas 102 x 75 cm painted in 2001 when the artist was 81, is a good example of his surrealistic processing of a cityscape, irreverent even when it features his beloved hometown San Francisco.
A blacktop highway with two rows of three empty tracks is leading to a vertical busy section of the same road raised to the sky like a featured San Francisco hill street in Steve McQueen's Bullitt.
This plunging road bears the shadows of skyscrapers from out of the field. It is flanked on both sides by non-significant buildings which leave a narrow visibility on the city painted in various soft colors like a row of delicious candies : yellow, blue, green, orange, pink.
City Downgrade was sold by Christie's on May 8, 2012 for $ 4M from a lower estimate of $ 1.5M, lot 50 and for $ 3.8M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021, lot 18.
Landscapes and cityscapes with or without car traffic are his other preferred themes. He enjoys a pure geometry but he is bored by perspective and by horizon.
City Downgrade, oil on canvas 102 x 75 cm painted in 2001 when the artist was 81, is a good example of his surrealistic processing of a cityscape, irreverent even when it features his beloved hometown San Francisco.
A blacktop highway with two rows of three empty tracks is leading to a vertical busy section of the same road raised to the sky like a featured San Francisco hill street in Steve McQueen's Bullitt.
This plunging road bears the shadows of skyscrapers from out of the field. It is flanked on both sides by non-significant buildings which leave a narrow visibility on the city painted in various soft colors like a row of delicious candies : yellow, blue, green, orange, pink.
City Downgrade was sold by Christie's on May 8, 2012 for $ 4M from a lower estimate of $ 1.5M, lot 50 and for $ 3.8M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021, lot 18.
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 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 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 The Vitality of Bacchus
2016 SOLD for $ 15.4M including premium
In 2004, Cy Twombly works in his studio in Gaeta. Aged 76, he gathers in a series of paintings dedicated to Bacchus the major themes of his career. On May 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells Untitled (Bacchus 1st version V), lot 25.
This painting in acrylic, oilstick and wax on wood panel is monumental: 266 x 200 cm. The artist uses a brush attached to a long pole, as Matisse had done for murals. This leverage increases the physical strength, offering an unexpected parallel between Twombly and Shiraga's Gutai.
The legend of Bacchus interested Twombly by his earthiness that reaches pornography and transcends time. The paint is blood-red, to be considered here as a sign of vitality. The thick and energetic loops form a puddle from which the gravitation generates drippings.
This work is totally abstract but its unambiguous theme is reinforced by the words Baccho Mainomenos inscribed with the same red color at the top of the image, evoking the most licentious pursuits of this very special god who invited his followers to indecency.
The press release of March 18 indicates that this lot is expected in excess of $ 20M.
This painting in acrylic, oilstick and wax on wood panel is monumental: 266 x 200 cm. The artist uses a brush attached to a long pole, as Matisse had done for murals. This leverage increases the physical strength, offering an unexpected parallel between Twombly and Shiraga's Gutai.
The legend of Bacchus interested Twombly by his earthiness that reaches pornography and transcends time. The paint is blood-red, to be considered here as a sign of vitality. The thick and energetic loops form a puddle from which the gravitation generates drippings.
This work is totally abstract but its unambiguous theme is reinforced by the words Baccho Mainomenos inscribed with the same red color at the top of the image, evoking the most licentious pursuits of this very special god who invited his followers to indecency.
The press release of March 18 indicates that this lot is expected in excess of $ 20M.
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 Kimpsons for NIGO
2019 sold for hk$ 58m including premium
Brian Donnelly is a street artist. He began his career by adding zany attributes to posters in the New York bus shelters. He chooses KAWS as his artist name because he finds that the alignment of these four block letters is pretty.
He populates his universe with specific characters, as Disney had done. Like Koons and Murakami, he operates derivative products. His little toys are very popular. The largest of his inflatable dolls reaches 37 m and weighs 40 tons. The eyes in X, as on Haring's characters from beyond grave, are a signature feature of his art.
KAWS re-appropriates fictitious characters recognizable by the general public : Snoopy, Garfield, the Smurfs, Spongebob, Bibendum, and of course the Simpsons who take a parallel life under the name of Kimpsons.
An artwork painted in 2003 shows the Kimpson family sitting on a sofa. The father holds the TV remote control. This acrylic on canvas 102 x 102 cm painted in 2003 was sold for HK $ 21M including premium by Sotheby's on April 1, 2019 over a lower estimate of HK $ 4M. The sofa collapses without awakening its sitters : in the same sale, a painting of same date and size was sold for HK $ 20.6M including premium.
The meeting of the Japanese fashion designer Nigo, creator of the clothing line Bape, is decisive for KAWS. A work painted in 2004 on a commission from Nigo shows the same sofa but now the family floats in weightlessness. This 275 x 244 cm acrylic on canvas is estimated HK $ 48M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 6, lot 1136.
Also commissioned by Nigo and painted in 2005, The Kaws Album displays the entire Kimpson family and their neighbors in a compact group that is a second-level appropriation, directly from the Yellow Album of the Simpsons and indirectly from Sgt. Pepper of the Beatles. In the April 1, 2019 auction referred above, this 102 x 102 cm acrylic on canvas was sold for HK $ 116M including premium over a lower estimate of HK $ 6M.
He populates his universe with specific characters, as Disney had done. Like Koons and Murakami, he operates derivative products. His little toys are very popular. The largest of his inflatable dolls reaches 37 m and weighs 40 tons. The eyes in X, as on Haring's characters from beyond grave, are a signature feature of his art.
KAWS re-appropriates fictitious characters recognizable by the general public : Snoopy, Garfield, the Smurfs, Spongebob, Bibendum, and of course the Simpsons who take a parallel life under the name of Kimpsons.
An artwork painted in 2003 shows the Kimpson family sitting on a sofa. The father holds the TV remote control. This acrylic on canvas 102 x 102 cm painted in 2003 was sold for HK $ 21M including premium by Sotheby's on April 1, 2019 over a lower estimate of HK $ 4M. The sofa collapses without awakening its sitters : in the same sale, a painting of same date and size was sold for HK $ 20.6M including premium.
The meeting of the Japanese fashion designer Nigo, creator of the clothing line Bape, is decisive for KAWS. A work painted in 2004 on a commission from Nigo shows the same sofa but now the family floats in weightlessness. This 275 x 244 cm acrylic on canvas is estimated HK $ 48M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 6, lot 1136.
Also commissioned by Nigo and painted in 2005, The Kaws Album displays the entire Kimpson family and their neighbors in a compact group that is a second-level appropriation, directly from the Yellow Album of the Simpsons and indirectly from Sgt. Pepper of the Beatles. In the April 1, 2019 auction referred above, this 102 x 102 cm acrylic on canvas was sold for HK $ 116M including premium over a lower estimate of HK $ 6M.
2004 No body in the Park
2020 SOLD for HK$ 19.4M including premium
Park by Cecily Brown was sold for £ 420K including premium by Phillips de Pury on October 12, 2011. It passed at Phillips on February 12, 2015 and was sold by the same auction house for £ 850K including premium on October 6, 2017, lot 7.
It is now estimated HK$ 12M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on July 9, lot 1132. I narrated it as follows before the previous sales.
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.
The artist manipulates with a clever humor the desires of the voyeurs. Around 2000 she knows that her art has acquired such a risque reputation that she no longer needs to include sex figures in her compositions.
Without changing her technique, she quietly turns her painting toward other subjects such as the illustration of poems, musicals or films referred in her titles. Meanwhile she undoubtedly applies de Kooning's famous statement : "Flesh is the reason (why) oil paint was invented".
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.
It is now estimated HK$ 12M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on July 9, lot 1132. I narrated it as follows before the previous sales.
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.
The artist manipulates with a clever humor the desires of the voyeurs. Around 2000 she knows that her art has acquired such a risque reputation that she no longer needs to include sex figures in her compositions.
Without changing her technique, she quietly turns her painting toward other subjects such as the illustration of poems, musicals or films referred in her titles. Meanwhile she undoubtedly applies de Kooning's famous statement : "Flesh is the reason (why) oil paint was invented".
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.
