Some late details from Katya Kazakina’s story on Hydra and Athens as the new stopover between ArtBasel and the London sales:
♦ George Economou said he bought a canvas by postwar Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga, known for painting with his bare feet, at the fair in Basel. It was priced at $2.85 million at Dominique Levy.
♦ Economou also showed 2012 Rashid Johnson steel sculpture of a target lens, “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,”
♦ An earlier version of the work sold at Richard Gray Gallery at Art Basel last week for $135,000, the gallery said.
Greek Tycoons Host Fetes Where Art Markets Are Built – Businessweek.
Scott Reyburn hits the ground running for the International New York Times:
♦ Skarstedt Gallery found an unnamed private American buyer for a large 1986 Warhol “fright wig” silkscreen painting ($30m)
♦ a 1997 Gerhard Richter abstract, offered by the New York dealer Dominique Levy at $6 million
♦ WS, Dior,” a 2014 collage- and oil-on-canvas by Paul McCarthy, marked at $950,000 at the booth of Hauser & Wirth.
An ’80s Warhol Brings $30 Million at Art Basel (NYTimes.com)
Georgina Adam had these sales in the FT:
♦ Sprüth Magers: sold an Andreas Gursky ink-jet print at €500,000
♦ Cheim & Read: sold a Lynda Benglis’s gold-leafed wall sculpture “Indio” (1978) for $350,000.
Brisk business at the Basel fair (FT.com)
An attendee at the fair reports that Sadie Coles has sold out her booth of Urs Fischer’s new paintings with $600,000 price tags.
Carol Vogel reported these sales in her column:
♦ Almine Rech: two Jeff Koons “Gazing Ball” sculptures made this year, one priced at $2 million and the other at $1.6 million. Both sold to European collectors, she said.
At Art Basel, Works With a Museum Presence (NYTimes.com)
Katya Kazakina gathered more dealer reports including this picture of the Ad Reinhardt she says Steven Cohen showed up a few minutes too late to buy. It went to another buyer (details further down):
♦ David Zwirner: a $5 million sculpture of an inflatable dolphin by Jeff Koons and a pair of stacked wax heads by Bruce Nauman for $3.2 million.
♦ Skarstedt gallery found buyers for a large 1982 painting by Georg Baselitz, “Edward in front of the mirror Munch,” priced at $3 million, and Richard Prince’s 1987 painting, “You No Tell — I No Tell,” offered at $2.2 million.
♦ Simon Lee Gallery: An abstract painting by Jeff Elrod sold for $95,000 Sherrie Levine’s cast-bronze sculpture of an alligator’s head went for $300,000.
♦ A Miro-like abstraction by young Brazilian-born artist Christian Rosa sold for 25,000 euros ($33,870) at Berlin’s Contemporary Fine Arts gallery.
♦ Galerie Eva Presenhuber: Ugo Rondinone’s three new cloud-shaped paintings sold for 180,000 Swiss francs ($200,200) each. Joe Bradley’s sprawling painting consisting of several white canvases and one pink canvas, sold for $300,000.
In a second story, Kazakina added these sales to her previous report:
♦ Collectors from Kazakhstan bought a Murano-glass sculpture resembling an outsized necklace by French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel priced at 290,000 euros on the booth of Paris- and New York-based Galerie Perrotin.
“It’s crazy but why not?” said Othoniel, who attended the fair along with dozens of other artists. “There are new collectors all over the world.”
♦ A massive black painting by Glenn Ligon sold for $700,000 to a private collector, according to London-based Thomas Dane gallery.
♦ Michael Werner gallery: a Sigmar Polke painting once owned by Charles Saatchi depicting purple monkeys, an alligator and a penis was snapped up for $4.5 million.
Kazakina wasn’t satisfied with two reports, she came back with a third:
♦ Matthew Marks: a 1981 drawing by Willem de Kooning for $450,000 to Alberto Mugrabi
♦ Cheim &Read: a 1960s painting by Joan Mitchell for $1.5 million to Alberto Mugrabi
♦ $4 million for a David Hockney landscape
♦ $3 million for a Fernand Leger painting
♦ $250,000 for a towering sculpture by Thomas Houseago.
Warhol Sells for $32 Million at Art Basel’s Bull Run (Bloomberg)
Dolphin Balloon Sells for $5 Million in Art Basel Spree (Bloomberg)
Billionaires at Basel Bet Art Better Investment Than Cash (Businessweek)
Judd Tully reeled in the biggest fish:
♦ Spruth Magers: Sterling Ruby’s large-scale “BC (4805)” fabric, glue, paint, dyed canvas on panel abstraction from 2014 sold for $245,000.
♦ Metro Pictures: Robert Longo’s masterful faux Ab-Ex creation, “Untitled (Pollock Composite)” from 2014, in charcoal on mounted paper and measuring 59 7/8 by 120 inches, sold for $400,000 to an American collector.
♦ Dominique Levy: sold a 12 by 12 inch Frank Stella geometric abstraction, “Delaware Crossing” from 1961, for $1 million, as well as a major suite of eight large-scale paintings by German artist Gunther Uecker, “Weisse Bilder (White Pictures)” from 1989-92, that went to a European foundation for $5 million.
♦ Per Skarstedt: George Condo painting, “Smiling Girl” from 2014, for $500,000 to a German collector.
♦ Mitchell-Innes & Nash: Alexander Liberman’s target-like “Black and Red Circle” from 1960, a 24 by 30 oil on canvas, sold in the $50,000 range; Anthony Caro’s glass, bronze, and steel “Display,” from 2011-12, went for a bit over $100,000; and among the living artists, Virginia Overton’s Arte Povera-like “Untitled” wall piece sold for around $25,000.
♦ Paula Cooper gallery: Sherri Levine’s “Nature Morte: Purple and Red Roses,” sold for $150,000 each. Both sets of six floral compositions went to European collectors, according to gallery director Steven Henry; abstract works by Kelley Walker, including “Untitled,” a 15 panel, pantone four-color process with acrylic ink on MDF from 2012, at $225,000; Bruce Connor, “Religious Instruction” from 1990, comprised of three engraving collages, for $40,000; Tauba Auerbach, “Panes Trans/Step Ray,” for around $200,000; Rudolf Stingel, “Untitled” from 1996-97 sold at an asking price over $1 million.
♦ Barbara Gladstone Gallery: Jim Hodges’s electric blue “Untitled (Shadow Blue/Black”) from 2014, in the $700,000 range. Marisa Merz’s “Senza Titolo,” circa 1980s, in the region of 300-400,000 euros; Sigmar Polke “Laterna Magica” from 1990, sold somewhere between $1.3-1.6 million.
♦ White Cube: Julie Mehretu’s “Mumbo Jumbo” from 2008, at $4.85 million; Damien Hirst’s “Nothing is a Problem for Me,” a medicine cabinet vitrine from 1992, for $6 million; and Zhang Huan’s “Grand Canal,” for $1.8 million.
♦ David Zwirner: Richard Serra’s “Large Symmetry #5,” for $575,0000, and Luc Tuyman’s head shot portrait “DA” from 2014 for $750,000; Gerhard Richter’s “Farbtafel (Color Chart)” from 1966, in the region of the $2 million asking price; Though no price was released by the gallery, in deference to the work’s new owner, a stunning Ad Reinhardt canvas, “Blue Painting” from 1951-53, measuring 80 by 59 7/8 inches, sold to a European collection. An art advisor and former auction house expert with apparent knowledge of the transaction suggested the price was “north of $10 million” — if accurate, it crushes the auction record for the artist, which stands at $2.7 million.
Art Basel Kicks Off With a Big Bang of Serial Sales (BLOUIN ARTINFO)
Tully went for round two:
♦ Fergus McCaffrey: racked up over 25 transactions since opening day at prices ranging from $25,000 to $2.5 million, including Jiro Takamatsu’s impressive oil on wood and metal abstraction, an untitled shadow painting from 1966 that sold to a European collection for $475,000.
♦ Galeria Elvira Gonzalez sold Rudolf Stingel’s rather early “Untitled” painting from 1988 in the region of the $850,000 asking price and a striking, wall hung Donald Judd copper and red Plexiglas sculpture, “Untitled (Bernstein 81-8),” from 1981 that sold to another European collector in the realm of $1.5 million.
♦ Washburn Gallery: Mark Rothko 20- by 28-inch oil, “Heads,” from 1941-42 that sold to a European collector for $550,000 and a Jackson Pollock, “Untitled,” from circa 1944 in gouache, India ink, and graffito on paper that sold for $285,000. Myron Stout graphite on paper, “Momento,” from 1977-79, just 3 by 9 ½ inches that went to an American collector for $125,000.
♦ Helly Nahmad Gallery: three Calders had sold at prices ranging between $1 to 2.5 million. Lucio Fontana, “Concetto Spaziale attese” from 1964-65, measuring 25.7 by 21.3 inches and bearing four vertical cuts in the canvas, for approximately $3 million.
♦ Thomas Ammann Gallery: two large-scale works by the artist collective Bruce High Quality Foundation, as “Olympia,” a unique silkscreen from 2014 and measuring 72 by 108 inches and framed by slender and lit neon tubes, sold in the region of the $200,000 asking price. Enoc Perez’s “Nude” from 2012-13 at 80 by 60 inches sold for around $220,000 as did “Untitled (Yves Klein Blue)” from 2013 and scaled at 60 by 48 inches in oil, acrylic, silver leaf, and inkjet on canvas.
♦ Marc Blondeau: Louise Lawler’s C-print, “18-20” from 2003, from an edition of three, depicting a group of Marcel Duchamp objects as they were being prepared for a Phillips de Pury auction, sold for more than $100,000. A smaller Lawler, just three by three inches, “Diamonds” from 1989, titled after two-diamond shaped paintings by Piet Mondrian, sold for approximately $18,000.
♦ Thaddaeus Ropac: Georg Baselitz’s “Self-Portrait as Rodin’s Thinker,” which sold to an American collector for 2.3 million euros. Joseph Beuys’s “Unbetitelt,” for 2.2 million euros. A 20- by 16-inch acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas Andy Warhol from 1980, “Joseph Beuys,” also sold for 325,000 euros. A trio of 74-inch high Alex Katz “Chance (Anne),” “Chance (Vivien),” and “Chance (Darinka),” from 1989-90 sold as a group to a Swiss collector for $1.5 million.
♦ 303: two untitled abstract paintings by Jacob Kassay at $150,000 apiece and Kim Gordon’s “Chelsea Series (Silver Wreath 2) from 2014 in spray paint on canvas for $30,000.
♦ Galerie Chantal Crousel: Wade Guyton’s super-scaled “Untitled” canvas from 2013, sold to an otherwise unnamed museum for $350,000. Five other like-sized works and similarly composed by Guyton sold for the same price at his other primary market dealers stationed in Basel, including galleries Capitain, Marconi, Pia, and Petzel.
Strong and Steady Sales Continue at Art Basel (BLOUIN ARTINFO)
Melanie Gerlis tweeted this sale:
♦ Domenico Gnoli‘s “Dormiente no.2” 1966 sold from Luxembourg & Dayan, one of the finest booths at Art Basel (price undisclosed)
Gallerist sent someone around to tell tales on the parties who happened to gather a sale too:
♦ Gavin Brown’s Enterprise: an enormous Joe Bradley for $185,000.
Basel or Bust: The Art World Flexes Its Muscle, Strains Its Wallet in Switzerland (Gallerist)
A source in Basel has these:
♦ Dominique Levy sold a Calder in the range of $1.1m.
♦ Seroussi another Calder with an asking price of €380k.
♦ Gray a 1954 Dubuffet gouache of a cow for an asking price of $1.1m.
Art in America gathered these sales:
♦ Andrea Rosen: an untitled 1957 wood sculpture by Carl Andre that sold for $275,000
♦ Galeria Starmach: two pieces from , Krakow, in the first two hours of the preview. What for? (1964), by Edward Krasinski, for $41,700; the other was a Henrik Stażewski untitled constructivist-style painting, for $30,000.
♦ Sabine Knust Gallery: Two works by Daniel Richter (in editions of between three and five), priced around $6,000 each, sold before the fair started, while an additional four sold in the first two hours of the preview.
♦ Thomas Zander: sold a large series of unique photographs by Albert Renger-Patzsch, a photographer who influenced Bernd and Hilla Becher for only $250,000 as a series
♦ Bruce Silverstein: a series of nine photos by the Bechers for $145,000.
History Makes a Comeback at Art Basel (Art in America)
The Art Newspaper gathered these sale:
♦ Galerie Karsten Greve: Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, 1960, $4.7m
♦ Van de Weghe Fine Art: Fernand Léger, Les Deux Soeurs, 1932, $3m
♦ Edward Tyler Nahem: Jean-Paul Riopelle, Ombre d’Espace, 1954, $2m
Warhol tops fair’s big-ticket sales (The Art Newspaper)
♦ Mitchell-Innes & Nash: Anthony Caro sculpture Display (2011–12), which sold in the region of $100,000, and two André Kertész photographs taken in Piet Mondrian’s studio, which went for up to $100,000.
