Jerry Saltz is excited about Wade Guyton undermining the sale of one of his works:
Wade Guyton’s smallish but beautiful black, blue, and red Untitled is estimated to sell for between $2.5 and $3.5 million tonight, and rumor has it that there’s a guarantee of $4 million. Guyton makes his art on inkjet printers and photocopiers, and last week, he began printing scores of new paintings from the same 2005 file that produced this one, perhaps an attempt to erase the singularity of this painting and torpedo its price. […] two pundits told me quietly that Christie’s is worried about this, that the house fears that “other artists might try to do something to offset the auction houses.” Whatever happens tonight, I admire an artist willing to tank his own market by flooding it with confusing real-fake product. I appreciate Guyton’s trying to throw a tiny spanner into the well-oiled auction works.
Also, it would be quite unusual, and somewhat contrary to the goal of offering or taking a guarantee, for the Guyton to be underwritten at $4m with an estimate range significantly below the guarantee.
Update: It is worth pointing out that there is one school of thought that feels the likely outcome of Guyton’s producing many more of this work will be to enhance the value of the one selling tonight, not decrease it. Call it the art world’s version of the Barbra Streisand Effect.
