Judd Tully, the dean of Art Market reporters, logs the sales at Art Basel 39
The Basel fair opened yesterday. First reports are positive with plenty of sales and a strong mood–it’s the same old story, few Americans but Europeans picking up the slack. Plenty of money for gilt-edged names like this Richter (left):
Still, inside the spacious Gagosian stand, works by John Currin, Mark Grotjahn, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and Anselm Reyle had sold in the first few hours of the preview at prices ranging from $100,000 to $2.5 million. The one primary-market Currin had four holds on it before it sold in the $400,000 range.
There wasn’t any shouting or shoving at Sadie Coles, either, though the London gallery sold most of the works on view during the orderly late-morning opening. According to Coles, sales included John Currin’s 2008 X-rated oil After Courbet, at 18 by 23 inches; two new untitled watercolors by Elizabeth Peyton; and the large, unique Untitled (Cabinet) by Urs Fischer, in cast aluminum, mirror, and local plants, at prices ranging from $50,000 and $600,000.
Art Basel Sets Out at Orderly Sprint (ArtInfo)
