Kate Taylor is out on the floor and digging up deals:
Galerie Michael Schultz from Berlin has red dots next to two of the big paintings in its booth: a 2003 abstract painting by Sigmar Polke and “Bye bye my friend” (2009) by the Korean artist SEO. The Polke was purchased by a German collector for $340,000.
“Bye bye my friend” was fought over by two collectors; the winner, a German, paid $88,500.. A vice director of the gallery, Till Woeske, said that the painting will be exhibited at a museum in Korea and then a museum in Haifa. Mr. Woeske said that SEO, who lives in Berlin (and is a woman), had been commissioned to decorate the new Art’otel in Cologne.
Meanwhile, local galleries are also reporting good news: Harris Lieberman said that they had sold out half of their booth.
And collectors are praising the quality of the works dealers brought to the show. “I think people understood that this was not a fair to clean out the storeroom,” Ray Learsy said.
