Art Market Monitor

ArtInfo covers the sale of works direct from artists organized by Ryan McGuinness:

The greatest surprise, though, may have been the joy on many of the bidders’ faces as they vigorously competed for the evening’s prizes, goading one another to bid higher — it was for a good cause, after all — pushing most of the works into or beyond their estimates. Yorgo Alexopoulos’s bright blue and green print of a lone mountain range soared past its $3,500 high estimate, for example, stopping at $4,000, while Romon Yang’s effervescent abstract print on Indian handmade paper, Praefectus Astana, beat its $1,000 estimate as dueling bidders sent it $1,300.

Fittingly, McGinness’s offering, one of his trademark, multi-colored circles, measuring two feet in diameter, finished as the evening’s top lot at $11,500 (est. $12,000–$14,000), with Marc and Sara Schiller, founders of the street art documentary group the Wooster Collective, snapping up the bargain. [...]

McGinness, for his part, plowed funds earned in the sale of his work into acquiring other pieces hitting the auction block, as did José Parlá, who competed intensely for some of the 15 works that sold, ducking out of the room only when his Name and Note (2009), an acrylic and oil painting, came up on the block, selling for $7,000 (est. $10,000–$12,000).

Bidding proved equally fierce for smaller works and lesser-known artists, as a screen print by Todd James estimated at $250–$350 soared to a remarkable $1,500. Number 36 of an edition of 150, the print could normally be purchased for approximately its low estimate, though bidders seemed inspired by the evening’s event, perhaps bidding for the story they could one day tell about the work’s unusual provenance.

From the Auction Block to the Artist’s Pocket (ArtInfo.com)

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