Judd Tully proves once again why he is called The Master:
- Blum & Poe: Takashi Murakami’s two-part “Shangri-La Blue/Shangri-La Pink” (2012) in acrylic on canvas, for around $1.5 million; Chinese artist Zhu Jinshi’s new paint-gob-scattered abstraction at $150,000, and an older work from 1990, the diptych, “The Rings Stay Open” for $125,000; and Matt Johnson’s painted bronze, “Styrofoam Girl” (2012), which sold for $60,000; Mark Grotjahn’s “Untitled (Orange Butterfly Blue MG03) #1” (2003) for around a million dollars; “Untitled (Turned and pretty blue and cream face 43.43)” in oil on cardboard mounted on linen from 2012 also sold for $225,000; Henry Taylor’s new wall relief, “You’re in it, we’re in it,” comprised in part of plastic bottles, black spray paint, a mop head, and nails, sold to a European collector for $40,000, while Scottish artist Michael Wilkinson’s impressive, mixed-media “Never Work 6 (triptych)” (2012) sold in the $15,000-20,000 range.
- Galerie St. Etienne: sold a rare Max Beckmann woodcut of his most important print, “Group Portrait, Eden bar” (1923), in the low six figures.
- Metro Pictures: two versions of Robert Longo’s fearsome “Untitled (Tiger Head No. 9) (2012), in charcoal on mounted paper, sold to Europeans for $295,000 apiece, and Olaf Breuning’s carved marble sculpture, “Flat Human (I want more)” (2009) sold to an American collector for $90,000; four out of six from the new Cindy Sherman edition, “Untitled” (2010-2012), at $450,000 each; 10 Jim Shaw airbrush drawings on paper dating from 1979, featuring some Hollywood stars and other creatures (including Doris Day), sold at around $10,000 apiece.
- Sperone Westwater, which sold three works byAlighiero e Boetti at prices ranging from $240,000 to $300,000, as well as Tom Sachs’s hand-painted bronze, “Saturn V” (2011) rocket, standing at its launch pad, for $125,000; “Mobile Home” (2012), a new Charles LeDray sculpture of a miniaturized outfit for $100,000 to a European collector,
- Christopher Wool “End Plate II,” an alkyd-on-aluminum and steel from 1986 to a European collector for $950,000.
- Pace sold Agnes Martin’s “Untitled,” a 12-inch-square oil, ink, and wash-on-canvas from circa 1961 for $1 million, Claes Oldenburg’s bronze and stainless steel “Clothespin” (1974) for $600,000, and Zhang Xiaogang’s somber oil-on-canvas “Face 2012 No.1” (2012) for $450,000.
- Hauser & Wirth: Philip Guston’s late and figuratively gutsy “Orders” (1978), which went to a European collector for $6 million, and Louise Bourgeois’s mixed-media sculpture, “Arched Figure” (1993), for $2 million to another European; all three versions of Thomas Houseago’s bronze wall piece, “Untitled” (2012) for $175,000 apiece, as well as a new Paul McCarthy black walnut sculpture, “White Snow and Prince on Horse,” for $1.8 million.
- Galerie Max Hetzler, a huge and new Albert Oehlen “Untitled” paper collage on canvas, replete with slivers of advertising images and strong colors sold for €315,0000 ($396,700), and Mona Hatoum’s “Witness” (2009), a porcelain biscuit sculpture from an edition of 10 and a miniaturized version of a Beirut Lebanon monument that was damaged by gunfire during the country’s civil war, sold for €40,000 ($50,000); Günther Förg abstraction, “Untited” (1990) for €150,000 ($189,000).
- Acquavella Galleries sold Andy Warhol’s large-scale, 100-by-80-inch “Joseph Beuys” (1981); two new paintings by Damian Loeb, including “Vega” (2012), for approximately $220,000, and Wayne Thiebaud’s 24-by-24-inch “Girl in White” (1979-1996) for somewhere in the vicinity of the $1.5 million asking price.
- Auriel Scheibler, the gallery sold Alice Neel‘s portrait, “Elsie Rubin” (1960) and “Spanish Harlem,” a circa 1938 drawing to a Chinese collector, for over $500,000. According to the gallery it is the first Neel heading to China.
- Galerie Gmurzynska, which sold a small scaled and pretty Fernand Leger composition, “Etude pour ‘La Baigneuse au tronc d’Arbre'” (1930) for $600,000, and a stunning Wilfredo Lam gouache on paper laid on canvas, “Figure Assise (Anamu)” (1943), for somewhere under $3 million.
Despite Gripes About Thwarted VIPs (Artinfo)
The Art Newspaper’s Charlotte Burns and Riah Pryor have these sales:
- Helly Nahmad Gallery: Picasso’s Untitled (2 June 1971), 1971, a work on paper for $300,000.
- David Zwirner: a $2.6m Donald Judd from 1981.
- OMR: five editions of Artur Lescher’s ZU, 2012, which found homes in Russia, Eastern and mainland Europe for $45,000 each.
- Hotel gallery: sold five out of six editions of Arbeit, 2012, a video piece by Duncan Campbell, for £20,000, with three going to museums.
Collectors Expect—and Find—the Best (The Art Newspaper)
From a fairgoer:
- Richard Feigen: Ray Johnson collage.
- Galerie Thomas: Dubuffet gouache, from 1947 $185 000
Judd Tully reports from Art Basel:
- Gerhard Richter’s large, richly textured, and riotously polychromatic 1986 oil painting “A.B. Courbet, ” a highlight of the Pace Gallery’s booth at this week’s Art Basel, was sold today during the second day of the fair’s VIP preview. The work was listed in the $25 million range.
Some of the very best fair reports aren’t coming from journalists but through social media as art world habitués share their enthusiasm and skepticism about various works on display. Since Facebook is semi-public, we’ll wait on identifying the sources until they give their approval. But two observations that have already come up are the recognition that Edward Keinholz’s work is receiving much more attention from secondary market dealers and that Calder-mania may be peaking if one is too judge by the work on view:
- L & M Arts Ed KIENHOLZ “Untitled” 1959 $300,000 sold immediately at opening
Juxtapositions are the soul of art fairs. (Yes, yes, we’re aware of all the horrible aspects too.) This comes from an eager collector snapping the booths as he goes.
Scott Reyburn was prowling the aisles in Basel:
- Marlborough is getting a lot of press for its £50m Rothko: “We’ve got serious clients from South America and Russia who are interested in the Rothko,” Marlborough’s director Gilbert Lloyd said in an interview. Frank Auerbach’s 1985 painting “Head of J.Y.M.,” priced at 550,000 pounds ($857,200), featured among the gallery’s first-day sales.
- “I sold works priced at more than $1 million to a Scandinavian and an Israeli buyer I hadn’t met before,” said the Swiss dealer Karsten Greve, who has the 1966 Cy Twombly blackboard painting “Hill (Rome),” tagged on his booth at more than $12 million.
- Per Skarstedt, who sold a 1984 Albert Oehlen self-portrait for between $1.5 million and $2 million. The 1987 Rosemarie Trockel knitted painting “Made in Western Germany” sold for $1 million.
- The U.S. artist Rudolf Stingel was one of the blue-chip names in demand. His “Untitled (Paula),” based on an old black and white photograph of the New York gallerist Paula Cooper smoking a cigarette, was sold by Cooper to a European private institution for about $3 million in the Art Unlimited sector. (Carol Vogel names the buyer as François Pinault.)
- Hauser & Wirth sold the 1978 Philip Guston canvas “Orders” for $6 million and the 1993 Louise Bourgeois mixed media sculpture “Arched Figure” for $2 million. Both were bought by European collectors
Hedge Funder Cohen, Basel VIPs Eye $78 Million Rothko (Bloomberg)
Ben Gennochio covers the fair for Artinfo:
- Marian Goodman: Gerhard Richter’s “Strip (922-1)” (2011) for an undisclosed sum.
- L&M Arts had a fabulous Frank Stella painting from 1967 that went for around $2 million.
- Karsten Greve sold a Twombly, a Fontana, and a Chamberlain all before lunch.
- Hans Kraus sold in the first few hours two photographs, one to an American institution and another to a German museum.
- Kukje sold a Richard Prince
- Lelong devoted a sizeable chunk of its booth to a major Luciano Fabro sculpture, which sold quickly
ArtBasel Report (Artinfo)