Christie’s is making its big push to convert the auction calendar with this year’s Frieze sales. First the February auctions moved to March. Now the Frieze comes quite early in the month of October and the sales are being pushed as part of a huge travel and art opportunity:
The art fairs, museums, galleries and auction houses together attract a huge global audience. This year the exhibitions in London’s museums and galleries are of the highest calibre: Jasper Johns at the Royal Academy, Jean-Michel Basquiat at Barbican, Rachel Whiteread at Tate and Brice Marden at Gagosian Gallery all stand out as highlights. Christie’s presentation this year is unlike anything we have ever seen before in October. When I began in this business, eighteen years ago, October was a mid-season auction with a value of around one million pounds and now we will have five auctions and one exhibition that cross all aspects of creative visual production in the 20th and 21st centuries. I am particularly excited by the ‘Masterpieces of Design and Photography’ auction since these two fields have huge potential
The cycle will include five auctions: Post-War & Contemporary and Italian Evening sales, the design and photography cross-category sale, a day sale and Christie’s own version of Sotheby’s ill-fated small works sale. Among the highlights are:
- Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Red Skull (above), one of around five known major skull paintings executed during the pivotal year of 1982
- Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, In piazza San Marco di notte con Teresita (1961, estimate on request)
- Alighiero Boetti che guarda un negativo (1967, estimate: £2,500,000 – 3,500,000)
- Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild(1986, estimate: £2,200,000-2,800,000)
- Andy Warhol, Coke Bottle