Judd Tully tallies up the VIP sales at FIAC:
- Luhring Augustine had dedicated its entire stand to British sculptor Rachel Whiteread, and had almost immediately sold one of her 2009 works, Hive, in cast resin, to a prominent American collector for €215,000.
- Skarstedt Gallery, a FIAC newcomer:
- Christopher Wool’s If You (1992–2005) in enamel on aluminum — € 1 million
- Cindy Sherman’s color centerfold Untitled #93 (1981) — € 1 million
- Richard Prince’s early joke painting, A Husband Came Home (1988) for $750,000,
- several works by Martin Kippenberger, including Geschuetzen Palmen im langweiligen Frankfurt (Monument for Boring Frankfurt) (1985) in oil and stickers on canvas for $450,000 and a group of three bared-chested self-portraits executed in mixed media on hotel stationery, all titled Untitled (Medusa), that depict the late artist as he was dying, for $350,000. All three served as studies for paintings on view at the Paris’s Musée d’Art Moderne in “Deadline,” an exhibition of artists’ last works.
- Georges Mathieu’s mural-sized Bataille Japonaise (fond blanc) (1957), formerly in the important German collection of Helga and Walther Lauffs, for approximately €1 million at Paris’s Applicat-Prazan
- at Paris’s Galerie Daniel Templon, a striking, untitled dark figure painting by the young Bulgarian artist Oda Jaune, a former student of Jörg Immendorff, for €19,000, and two watercolors at €2,700 apiece.
Modern Masters Give FIAC a Boost (ArtInfo.com)
