The Master, Judd Tully, reports from the floor of ArtBasel 42 for Artinfo.com:
“It’s harder for the dealers to find great works that don’t have auction history,” said New York private dealer Jim Jacobs, “so when you do, you’ve to ask a high price for it.”
“The market is so weird,” said London private dealer Wendy Goldsmith, “No one knows what anyone wants or what anything is worth.”
Marc Blondeau: Jim Shaw, Dream Object c. $150k
Waddington/Custot: Josef Albers, Study for Homage to the Square: Cool Illumination and Variant Adobe: Red Front both for c. $400k and Jean Dubuffet‘s Personage pour Washington Parade for more than $1m. Kenneth Noland‘s Bolton Landing No. 9 for an undisclosed amount.
L&M Arts: Mark Rothko from 1959 for $5m to an American collector.
Thomas Ammann Fine Art: 13 Warhol Campbell Tomato juice cartons from 1964, two had already sold for $1.1 million apiece.
Luhring Augustine:Albert Oehlen, “Sangerin von Urkunden” sold to an American collector for $550,000. Rachel Whiteread‘s “Threshold IV,” a 2010 sculpture went for $185,000, the same price fetched by Tom Friedman‘s new untitled 2011 work.
Galerie Thomas: Robert Dealunay,“Reflied-disques” from 1936 to a Swiss collector for €450,000 ($650,000) and Anselm Kiefer‘s “Sonnenreste (Remains of the Sun)” from 1998, to another Swiss collector for €295,000 ($425,000).
Acquavella Galleries: Sigmar Polke‘s “Untitled (Cycle 1990)” for somewhere near its $1.3 million asking price
Elvira Gonzalez: Richard Serra‘s forged-iron “Consequences of Apples and Oranges” from 1990 sold to a European collector for a sum in the region of $2 million.
Galerie Hans Mayer: Julian Schnabel‘s “Untitled (Jill + Sander)” from 1993, a huge 98-by-78-inch work on paper sold for €350,000 ($500,000)
Per Skarstedt: Mike Kelley‘s seven-panel silver gelatin assemblage “The Poltergeist” from 1979 sold to a European collector for $800,000; a 1990 Richard Prince joke painting, “Ordered,” for $1.3 million to an American collector, as well as George Condo‘s “Field of Figures” from 2011 for $450,000
Art Basel Blasts Off With Million-Dollar Sales at Its Turbo-Charged VIP Opening (ArtInfo.com)
