Let’s call this an imaginary conversation with The Master, Judd Tully. In bullets are quotes from his ArtInfo wrap up of London’s Contemporary sales. In bold are the questions we never put to him that might have gotten those true responses:
Why did Michael Day Jackson’s Bucky sell for fifty times his previous record price?
- Could it be that Francois Pinault’s recent private acquisitions of a number of Jackson works for his Punta della Dogana museum in Venice boosted the artist’s standing? (The question remains whether Jackson’s New York dealer Peter Blum can hold on to his rising star.)
Why can’t you tell us who bought the two Kleins last week?
- There’s an I.D. bounty out on the heads of the German-speaking Swiss couple who snapped up a handful of pricey works at both houses last week […] An impeccable source insists they’re actually private dealers buying for a super-secretive Swiss collector.
Was the success of the Lenz sale of Zero Group works simply a flash in the pan?
- The market for the underappreciated and even less understood Zero Group […] has gone haywire. New Yorkers will collectively kick themselves for not paying closer attention to Sperone Westwater’s stunning show of the Zero Group that passed under the radar at the end of 2008 in Chelsea.
Bullet Points (ArtInfo)