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Jeff Koons & “Rabbit” (1986)

“When I hear “Commodity Art,’ I always feel I was never involved in that. My intentions with my work have always been philosophical and social. I’ve worked with objects, but it’s never been about a dialogue of money. It’s been about a dialogue of desire.

“But I think what happens during certain times you live in, you know, in the ’80s the market was very strong, and so people want to box everything up and package everything. It’s reduced to this level of being about money when it’s really about, I believe, communicating ideas.

“When I’ve worked with objects I always tried to remove critique, it’s really about the removal of judgment. Something can be accepted for being perfect as what it is.

“So it’s about removing hierarchy, removing judgment, removing discrimination and to use objects as metaphors for people.”

Jeff Koons in conversation with artists Peter Halley, Ashley Bickerton, Joan Wallace, and Barbara Bloom together with M.H. Miller, arts editor of T Magazine (April 2018)
Jeff Koons’ “Rabbit” (stainless steel, cast in 1986), from the collection of S.I. Newhouse Jr. Image: Christie’s

Jeff Koons’ “Rabbit” (stainless steel, cast in 1986) sold at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale of 15 May 2019 realizing a price of US$91,075,000 (hammer price of $80 million plus buyer’s premium net of any applicable fees) and achieving an auction record for a living artist.

From the collection of publisher Samuel Irving (S.I.) Newhouse Jr., co-owner of Advance Publications and long-time chairman of Condé Nast who passed away in 2017, “Rabbit,” cast in 1986 in an edition of three, plus an artist’s proof, was the last one in private hands.

The other “Rabbits” from the casting of 1986 are in the collections of the Broad Art Foundation in Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and, it is said (Laurel Wamsley, “Jeff Koons’ ‘Rabbit’ Fetches $91 Million, Auction Record for a Work by a Living Artist,” NPR, 16 May 2019), the National Museum of Qatar.

Jeff Koons, “Rabbit” (stainless steel, cast in 1986), from the collection of S.I. Newhouse Jr. Image: Christie’s
Jeff Koons’ “Rabbit” (stainless steel, cast in 1986), from the collection of S.I. Newhouse Jr., on view at Christie’s New York (May 2019)

“Considered the holy grail of Koons works among certain collecting circles”(Eileen Kinsella, “Jeff Koons’ Bunny Sets a New Record for a Living Artist in Christie’s Half-Billion-Dollar Postwar and Contemporary ArtSale,” Artnet News, 15 May 2019), bidding for “Rabbit” started at $40 million.

The bidder on the phone with Xin Li, Christie’s Deputy Chairman of Asia Pacific, conceded to dealer Robert Mnuchin, who placed the winning bid of $80 million on behalf of an anonymous client.

While there had been speculation that Mr. Mnuchin may have been working on behalf of either Mitchell Rales or Steven A. Cohen, Kenny Schachter of artnet News revealed the buyer to be Steven A. Cohen.

See:

M.H.Miller, “The Artists Who Defined the East Village’s Avant-GardeScene; For a short time in the early ’80s, the Manhattan neighborhoodwas the epicenter of experimental art. Jeff Koons, Peter Halley,Ashley Bickerton, Joan Wallace, and Barbara Bloom remember themoment,” T The New York Times Style Magazine, 17 April 2018

Kenny Schachter, “Kenny Schachter Reveals the Mystery Buyer of Jeff Koons’ Bunny – and Blurts Out Other Secrets from Auction Week as Well,” artnet News, 21 May 2019

Jacob Bernstein, “Robert Mnuchin Would Rather Not Discuss His Client (or His Son),” The New York Times, 19 May 2019

Laurel Wamsley, “Jeff Koons’ ‘Rabbit’ Fetches $91 Million, Auction Recordfor a Work by a Living Artist,” NPR, 16 May 2019

Scott Reyburn, “Jeff Koons ‘Rabbit’ Sets Auction Record for Most Expensive Work by Living Artist,” 15 May 2019

Eileen Kinsella, “Jeff Koons’ Bunny Sets a New Record for a Living Artistin Christie’s Half-Billion-Dollar Postwar and Contemporary Art Sale,”Artnet News, 15 May 2019

Jeff Koons (b. 1955), “Rabbit,” Christie’s Post-War and ContemporaryArt Evening Sale, New York, 15 May 2019, Lot 15 B | Jeff Koons: A Masterpiece from the Collection of S.I. Newhouse

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Trio of gallery greats commence sales of works from the Donald B. Marron Family Collection

Good contemporary art reflects the society, and great contemporary art anticipates.

Donald B. Marron (quoted by Pace Gallery, “Acquavella Galleries, Gagosian and Pace to Handle Sale of Donald B. MarronFamily Collection”)

Kelly Crow of the Wall Street Journal has reported that two works by Pablo Picasso, “Femme au beret et la collerette” (Woman with Beret and Collar,” 1937) and “Seated Woman (Jacqueline)” (1962) have been sold from the Donald B. Marron Family Collection to collector Stephen Wynn. It is reported that Mr. Wynn paid approximately $105 million for the two paintings.

Sales of works from the family collection are being conducted by a collaboration of gallery greats – Pace Gallery, Gagosian, and Acquavella Galleries. Bill Acquavella (son of Acquavella Galleries founder Nicholas Acquavella), Larry Gagosian (founder of Gagosian), and Arne Glimcher (founder of Pace Gallery) each worked with Mr. Marron in the development of the collection.

The collaboration, “the first of its kind, signals a new way for families to handle the sales of their collections” (Gagosian).

Under the terms of the collaboration, the galleries are charged to work jointly and privately to place and sell the works in the market. They are charged, further, neither to disclose publicly what is or is not available for sale nor to disclose an estimate for the collection.

The collaboration appears to have been the brainchild of Marc Glimcher, son of Arne Glimcher and president of Pace Gallery.

Eileen Kinsella of Artnet News, reporting that the plan came together quickly, quotes Mr. Glimcher:

“’I heard that [the Marron family] were considering going to auction and I just picked up the phone and called Larry [Gagosian] and said, ‘We should really present an alternative to the family. It’s tragic for this collection to go to auction,’” Glimcher recalled.

“After reaching out to Bill Acquavella, who also had a longstanding relationship with Marron, “’we all came and presented an idea to the family of how we would do it” around a month ago.’”

The Acquavella family – sister, brothers, and father – came on board. Eleanor Acquavella, Bill Acquavella’s daughter, reports that they“’ liked the idea of competing with the auctions on a great estate.’” They acknowledged, however, that “it would be hard to pull off.'” The galleries would be required to “’compete financially,'” and otherwise, to win to the business.

Indeed. Financial guarantees for the collection, in the amount of $300 million, had been offered by auction houses Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips.

Especially in the face of those guarantees, “’“the key,’” observed Gagosian’s COO Andrew Fabricant, “’was to meet the fiduciary requirements of an estate, which is complicated.

“‘We had to convince the family and the lawyers. The challenge was to be in line and competitive and still have some daylight for running with an exhibition and sales.”

A joint New York exhibition of May and June, is being organized by the three galleries. Including works from the family collection together with loans from institutions,  the exhibition “will chronicle Marron’s collecting activities, including his early acquisitions in the 1960s and 1970s, his museum stewardship, and his pioneering work reinventing how corporations build art collections around a singular vision.”

See:

Kelly Crow, “Steve Wynn Pays $105 Million for Pair of Picassos,” The Wall Street Journal, 24 February 2020

Eileen Kinsella, “The $450 Million Marron Collection Is the Art Market’s Ultimate Prize. Now, Three of the World’s Top Rival Galleries Are Joining Forces to Sell It,” Artnet, 19 February 2020

“Acquavella Galleries, Gagosian, and Pace to Handle Sale of Donald B. MarronFamily Collection,” Gagosian

“Acquavella Galleries, Gagosian and Pace to Handle Sale of Donald B. Marron Family Collection,” Pace Gallery

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collecting Old Masters

From quattrocento to early 19th century Europe, the term “Old Master” generally refers to artists of skill who, in theory, were fully trained “Masters” of their local artists’ guilds and worked independently.

In practice, works produced by pupils, workshops, and studios of Masters are included in the term.

The term does not refer to a specific art historical style or movement.

Christie’s, using the term “Old Masters” to denote a category of painting that spans 500 years, is “redefining old masters for the 21st century global art market.”

Redefining, and re-positioning, the category for the 21st century global art market, the auction house is drawing interest from buyers in the contemporary art market and from around the world.

From artist to condition to subject to provenance, Christie’s has produced a helpful guide for buyers and prospective buyers in the Old Masters painting market: “Old Master paintings: 5 things for a new buyer to consider.

Pointers follow.

Price

Prices for Old Masters paintings realized at Christie’s range from a few thousand dollars to the hundreds of millions.

An exceptional $450,312,500 /£342,182,751 (including buyer’s premium) was realized in New York on 15 November 2017 for “Salvator Mundi”.

“Salvator Mundi” (c. 1500), attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, was sold to Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud of Saudi Arabia, friend and associate of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The painting was earlier included in the National Gallery’s 2011-12 exhibition of Leonardo’s surviving paintings.

Artist

“Is the artist an established name? Is the work from a good or particularly pivotal moment in the artist’s career or development? Is the attribution given in full (or qualified as ‘Studio’/‘Circle’/ ‘Follower’ of the artist)? Is the work included inthe key literature on the artist — and if not, have the currentexperts been consulted? Has the work been included in any recentseminal exhibitions on the artist?”

Christie’s, “Old Master paintings: 5 things for a new buyer to consider”

Provenance

Which collectors have been drawn to the work and “considered it worthy of their collections”?

Which exhibitions has the work been included in and where?

Restored? “Slightly neglected?” Rare?

“It is better to invest in a slightly neglected work, which can be treated relatively easily with sensitive restoration, than in one that has been subjected to numerous campaigns of restoration in the past, some of which may have resulted in the original surface beingabraded and over-painted. If in doubt, consult a restorer.”

Christie’s, “Old Master paintings: 5 things for a new buyer to consider”

In terms of rarity, research how prolific the artist was and how frequently his work appears on the market.

When excellent condition and rarity combine, magic happens. Works can realize exceptional prices.

Subject matter

Subject matter includes royal sitters, historical figures, topographical views, city views, university towns, landscapes, still lifes.

See:

“Old Master paintings: 5 things for a new buyer to consider,” Christie’s, 25 November 2019

“Old Masters,” Artsy

Old Masters,” Christie’s

“Old Master,” Wikipedia

“Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi makes auction history”, Christie’s, 15 November 2017

David D. Kirkpatrick,“Mystery Buyer of $450 Million ‘Salvator Mundi’ Was a Saudi Prince,”New York Times, 6 December 2017

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your money, your life, your choice ・ the painting that did not sell

The painting that did not sell.

While there may be a well-established “cartel of taste” (see Anna Louie Sussman’s article “Why You Can’t Always Buy a Work of Art Just Because You Have the Cash,” @artsy, 12 December 2018), market stakeholders can and sometimes do display independent judgment.

Gerhard Richter’s “Schädel” (oil on canvas), the first of a series of eight skull paintings painted in 1983, was held in the same collection for 30 years after a last public exhibition in 1988.

Based on a photograph taken by Richter himself, the painting demonstrates a “dialogue between painterly abstraction and photo-realist representation that had been simmering across separate stands of Richter’s practice for nearly two decades.”

This painting led the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale held at Christie’s London on 4 October 2018.

With an unpublished estimate, the painting was expected to sell for between £12 and £18 million (US$15 – US$23 million).

Bidding reached £11.5 million. The painting was not allowed to change hands.

Note also the instance of Edward Hopper’s 1972 painting, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” that sold at Christie’s in New York on 15 November. It closed narrowly, at what may have been a precisely agreed threshold of $80 million – with what appeared to be Christie’s bidding against itself to reach the sales price.

See:

“Why You Can’t Always Buy a Work of Art Just Because You Have the Cash,” Anna Louie Sussman, Artsy, 12 December 2018

“Seen for the first time in 30 years: Gerhard Richter’s ‘Schädel’ (‘Skull’),” Christie’s

“Gerhard Richter ‘Skull’ to Headline Christie’s Sale in London,” Fang Block, Barron’s, 4 September 2018

“Rare Richter’s a Bust, but Christie’s Moves $25.9 M. Bacon, $21 M. Fontana at London Sales,” Judd Tully, Artnews, 4 October 2018

 

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your money, your life, your choice | fashion & CO2

“It’s really about bringing everyone together as an industry, and instead of having a few people talk about it, it’s having everyone talk about it and the leaders… actually taking responsibility, putting our money where our mouth is and making an amazing change together.”

– Stella McCartney, founder of eponymous fashion company and brand

Consumers, investors, and the fashion industry, when deciding how to spend and where to put their money, are demonstrating a commitment to changing lifestyle choices, changing behaviors, redefining value, reducing emissions of atmospheric CO2 and greenhouse gases, and mitigating human-induced climate change.

The broader textile, clothing and fashion industry have worked during 2018 to specify ways in which, drawing on methodologies from the Science-Based Targets Initiative, they can direct themselves towards a holistic commitment to climate action, achieving net-zero emissions of atmospheric CO2 and greenhouse gases by 2050, while expanding economic opportunity and driving economic competitiveness and innovation.

The apparel and footwear industries together accounted in 2016 for an estimated 8.1% of global climate impacts with emissions of 3,990 million metric tons CO2eq (including emissions generated by processes used for raw material extraction, raw material processing, manufacturing, assembly, packaging production, transportation/distribution, and end-of-life).

The Ellen Macarthur Foundation estimates that “if nothing changes, by 2050 the fashion industry will use up a quarter of the world’s carbon budget.”

“It’s really about bringing everyone together as an industry, and instead of having a few people talk about it, it’s having everyone talk about it and the leaders… actually taking responsibility, putting our money where our mouth is and making an amazing change together.”

So observes Stella McCartney while attending an 11 December gala dinner hosted in London by Bloomberg and Vanity Fair. The gala was held to highlight fashion, climate change, climate change mitigation, and the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Change Action, signed in early December.

“There is no shortage of capital in the world that wants to go in this direction. The hearts and minds argument of the common man on the street, has been won. My feeling is that what the financial services business needs to do, is to be working with the real innovative companies of today,” said David Fass, Macquarie Group CEO for Europe the Middle East and Africa.

The founding signatories to the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Change Action are: adidas, Aquitex, Arcteryx, Burberry Limited, Esprit, Guess, Gap Inc., H&M Group, Hakro Gmbh., Hugo Boss, Inditex, Kering Group, Lenzing AG, Levi Strauss & Co., Mammut Sports Group AG, Mantis World, Maersk, Otto Group, Pidigi S.P.A, PUMA SE, re:newcell, Schoeller Textiles AG, Peak Performance, PVH Corp., Salomon, Skunkfunk, SLN Textil, Stella McCartney, Sympatex Technologies, Target and Tropic Knits Group.

Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Change Action, excerpts:

· the Paris Agreement represents a global response to the scientific consensus that human activity is causing global average temperatures to rise at unprecedented rates

· goals agreed in the Paris Agreement translate to reaching climate neutrality [read: reduced to zero emissions of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases from sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, use, and end-of-life of materials and products; reduced to zero use of hydrocarbon-based sources of energy in operations, manufacturing, distribution, retail, transport, etc.] in the second half of the twenty-first century. The fashion industry, as a major global player, needs to take an active part in contributing to the realization of these goals

· all companies, within fashion, retail and textile global value chain, regardless of size and geography, have opportunities to take actions that will result in a measurable reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

· establish a closer dialogue with consumers to increase awareness about the GHG emissions caused in the use and end-of-life phases of products, building towards changed consumer behaviors that reduce environmental impacts and extend the useful life of products

· current solutions and business models will not be sufficient to deliver on the current climate agenda. Fashion industry needs to embrace a deeper, more systemic change and scale low-carbon solutions

· the fashion industry stakeholders have a role to play in reducing climate emissions resulting from their operations, with an awareness that the majority of climate impact within the industry lies in manufacturing of products and materials

· all companies, within fashion, retail and the textile global value chain, regardless of size and geography, have opportunities to take actions that will result in a measurable reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

· actions that reduce GHG emissions are consistent with, among other things, expanding economic opportunity, using resources more efficiently, driving economic competitiveness and innovation, and strengthening resilience

· responding to climate change requires action on both mitigation and adaptation

[Signatories agree to]

11. Establish a closer dialogue with consumers to increase awareness about the GHG emissions caused in the use and end-of-life phases of products, building towards changed consumer behaviors that reduce environmental impacts and extend the useful life of products;

12. Partner with the finance community and policymakers to catalyse scalable solutions for a low-carbon economy throughout the sector

“Stella McCartney and friends hit Bloomberg and Vanity Fair gala dinner,” Stephanie Takyi, The Standard, 13 December 2018

“Stella McCartney Slams Fast Fashion as a Threat to the Environment,” Lucca de Paoli, Bloomberg, 12 December 2018

“Inside the Bloomberg Vanity Fair Climate Exchange,” VF X Bloomberg, 11 December 2018

“Milestone Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action launched,” UNFCCC, 10 December 2018

“About the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action,” UNFCCC

“Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action,” UNFCC

“Measuring Fashion, Environmental Impact of the Global Apparel and Footwear Industries Study,” Quantis, 2018

“A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future,” November 2017, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation & Circular Fibers Initiative

“Report: A positive vision for a system that works, and summons the creative power of the fashion industry to build it,” Ellen MacArthur Foundation

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Hans Hofman ・pictorial space & the hidden inherent laws of the picture surface.

Across time, space, and generations, the magic and spirit of Hans Hofmann, teacher to many, continues.

A composition of warm and vivid hues, geometric blocks of color, a surface that is rich in both visual and textural details, highlighting the materiality and thickness of the paint and the flatness of the canvas.

“Into Outer Space,” Hans Hofmann (oil on panel, 1957), at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA (Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 1971)

Action painter? Abstract expressionist?

“While critic Robert Coates first used the term Abstract Expressionism in his review of Hofmann’s 1946 solo exhibition at the Mortimer Brandt Gallery in New York, histories of postwar American art, have always focused on the youth, vitality, and uniquely American experiences of the generation of artists who matured in the 1940s.”

Lowery Stokes Sims, former Curator of 20th Century Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and organizer of the exhibition of 1999, “Hans Hofmann at the Metropolitan Museum of Art“.

Hofmann does not fit the narrative of such postwar histories. Born in 1880, Hofmann immigrated to the US from Germany in 1932 when in his fifties, developing a new style and creating a whole new body of work in his seventies and eighties.

During the course of his life Hofmann was a contemporary of and acquainted with Picasso, Braque, Matisse, and the Delaunays (both husband and wife). He had a lifelong interest in nature, science, music, poetry, and science. He crossed more significant barriers, national and aesthetic, than almost any other twentieth-century painter.

He was never a follower, nor an expressionist, fauvist, a cubist, or a surrealist.

“I am often asked how I approach my work,” Hofmann wrote in 1962 on the importance of the act of painting.

“Let me confess: I hold my mind and my work free from any association foreign to the act of painting. I am thoroughly inspired and agitated by the actions themselves which the development of painting continuously requires….This seems simple but it is actually the fruit of long research”

H. Hofmann, “Hans Hofmann on Art,” in Art Journal, Vol. 22, Spring 1963, p. 18; quoted in Lot Essay, Hans Hofmann, “Auxerre,” Lot 36B, Christie’s, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York, 13 May 2015

William Chapin Seitz, the first scholar to receive a PhD from Princeton University in the field of modern art (it took him more than a year to convince the Princeton art history graduate committee that the work of living artists was a topic worthy of graduate study) and formerly Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, organized the 1963 MoMA exhibition, “Hans Hofmann”.

Dr. Seitz observes,

“When one looks back at the years after 1945, when the “New American Painting” was taking form, it is apparent that one of its aesthetic determinants was the desire felt by many artists to incorporate in their work tendencies of style and feeling previously thought to be contradictory. Both the temper of Hofmann’s mind and his supranational development led him in this direction.”

“It has been said that Hofmann is an “automatic” painter; he has also been called an “action painter” because of his direct enactment of emotional content. Yet his automatism has never been mere psychic catharsis, his activity is never purely physical, and his fury, like his delicate lyricism, is that of nature as well as himself. And even in the most passionate of his works the adjustment of formal relationships can be as precise as in the compositions of Mondrian or Malevich.”

“Hofmann admired Mondrian for the purity of his abstract structure. He admired Kandinsky — whom he once called an “anti-plastic” painter — for his automatism and fluid color.

“The architectural basis of his own painting derives from a study of Cezanne, and from cubism, yet (at least in his representational paintings).

“By synthesizing such diverse materials, Hofmann developed his own metier: the unhampered autonomy of lines and planes; the elevation of color to a primary means; the maintenance of clear “intervals” between color planes; the preservation of physical gestures in pigment. He cast aside the dross of systematic perspective, tonal modeling, literature, and illusionism.”

“Hans Hofmann with selected writings by the artist,” William Chapin Seitz, The Museum of Modern Art, 1963

Believing in the innate integrity of the pictorial space, Hofmann theorized the “push and pull” within a painting, describing how he used balance and contrast between colors and forms to create pictorial dynamism. Rejecting the traditional practice of creating depth through graduations of tone, Hofmann created space without denying the flatness of the picture’s surface.

Hofmann wrote in a late essay,

“Pictorial space is an aesthetically created space and is as such as real as nature. Its reality is based on the reality of the hidden inherent laws of the picture surface.”

H. Hoffman, quoted in S. Hunter, Hans Hofmann, New York, 1963, p. 44.

See:

“Hans Hofmann with selected writings by the artist,” William Chapin Seitz, The Museum of Modern Art, 1963.

“Hans Hofmann,” September 11 – December 1, 1963, The Museum of Modern Art

“William C. Seitz: Defending the Modern,” The Museum of Modern Art

“Hans Hofmann at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” April 13 – October 17, 1999,

“Hans Hofmann at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” exhibition catalogue, Lowery Stokes Sims, 1999.

“Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale,” Lot 36B, Hans Hofmann’s “Auxerre,” Christie’s, New York, 13 May 2015, Lot Essay

“Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale,” Lot 20B, Hans Hofmann’s “Lava,” Christie’s, New York, 15 November 2017, Lot Essay

#art #artmarket #arthistory #history #hanshofmann #science #physics #pictorialspace #modernart #postwarart #contemporaryart #picasso #braque #delaunay #matisse #mondrian #malevich #jacksonpollock #actionpainting #abstractexpressionism #met #metropolitanmuseumofart #moma #museumofmodernart #christie’s #germany #newyork #sanfrancisco #london #berlin #oslo #vienna #milan #dubai #hongkong #seoul #tokyo #architecture #design #luxury #urban #urbanliving #realestatedevelopment

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Zao Wou-ki’s “29.01.64” (oil on canvas, 1964)

abstraction | a kind of inner imaginary landscape

The grand and bold “29.01.64” (the date of its completion; oil on canvas) sold at Christie’s Hong Kong in May 2017 for $19.7 million, then an auction record for the artist, “to bidders who clearly wanted this picture.”

Zao Wou-ki (1920-2013) moved to Paris from Beijing, where he was born, in 1948, began working with New York dealer Samuel Koontz (who encouraged him to experiment with larger formats) in 1956, and took a larger studio in the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris in 1961.

Christie’s Paris’ specialist Clara Rivollet highlights the very complex composition:

“There’s actually a structure of very deep, black brushstrokes an then you can see around a kind of dilute-ink-wash-like oil around it and then on top of it he adds a whole network of intricate lines.

“You have very controlled sinuous lines that remind us of Chinese calligraphy. But also this very kind of loose movement in white paint is very inspired by Jackson Pollock’s painting.

“The painting could be a Western painting because it’s abstract. But actually in its essence it remains very Chinese because for Zao Wou-ki abstraction always represents a kind of inner imaginary landscape like the Chinese literati painting would do.”

“29.09.64”, at 230 x 345 cm. (90 1/2 x 135 7/8 in.), is one of the two largest that Zao painted in the 1960s.

It was purchased directly from the artist in 1969 by a French architect who built hospitals, research centers, and administrative buildings throughout France and Algeria in the years of rapid modernization following World War II.

“29.09.64” remained in the family’s collection for 48 years. The original owner’s son consigned the painting to Christie’s.

In an early 2017 exhibition, New York gallery Lévy Gorvy paired the works of Willem de Kooning and Zao Wou-ki. A little boost to the market?

 

See:

  1. “An inner, imaginary landscape: Zao Wou-ki’s ‘29.09.64,” Christie’s
  2. “Contemporaries: Voices from East & West / Asian 20th C. and Contemporary Art,” lot 4, Christie’s HK, 27 May 2017;
  3. “Zao Wou-ki’s 29.09.64 Sets Record in Hong Kong with $19.7m Sale,” Marion Maneker, Art Market Monitor, 29 May 2017.

 

 

#art #artmarket #zaowouki #arthistory #contemporaryart #postwarart #paris #france #newyork #abstraction #abstractexpressionism #jacksonpollock #literatipainting #songdynasty #oiloncanvas #inkonpaper #calligraphy #hongkong #beijing #berlin #vienna #milan #dubai #algeria #africa #realestatedevelopment #architecture #design #luxury #christie’s #LévyGorvy

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“Suprematist Composition” (Kazimir Malevich, 1916) to be sold in May

Loïc Gouzer, Christie’s Co-Chairman of Post-War and Contemporary Art, has announced that he will be selling the painting “Suprematist Composition” (Kazimir Malevich, oil on canvas, 1916) in May. Estimate: $70 million.

“Suprematist Composition” was last sold at Sotheby’s on 3 November 2008 by the heirs of the artist (after being in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam for several decades). Art dealer David Nahmad purchased the painting for US $60,002,500.

Mr. Gouzer is confident of the art historic, and current market, value of this work. “‘A work like this one should be the corner stone of every major collection or museum and if the market was indexed to the art historical importance of works, then this should be a billion $ painting (although we as specialists have to sadly take into account the laws of gravity and the estimate will be in the region of $70m).'”

Sixth sense matters. “’I relate it a lot to my spearfishing—you don’t know why, but you know that if you dive now the big fish is going to come. When you’re at the surface, you don’t see anything, but you just have this instinct that it is going to happen. In art, it is the same thing—this instinct sometimes that I know a painting is going to move.’”

Company matters too. “’If you start putting works around another work, they give each other meaning. Each of the works are in dialogue, and they help each other.'”

 

See:

“Loïc Gouzer’s $70m Malevich for May,” Marion Maneker, Art Market Monitor, 10 April 2018

“The Daredevil of the Auction World,” Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 4 July 2016

Sotheby’s “Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale,” Lot No. 6, Kazimir Malevich, “Suprematist Composition,” 3 November 2008, New York

 

#art #artmarket #kazimirmalevich #christie’s #loïcgouzer #russia #suprematism #suprematistcomposition #modernism #abstraction #geneva #switzerland #vienna #austria #brittany #france #sothebys #davidnahmad #luxury #beijing #shanghai #hongkong #taipei #seoul #jakarta #singapore

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Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ sells for US$450,312,500, makes auction history

Breaking (smashing through) auction records, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” (oil on panel, painted circa 1500) has sold today at the Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Manhattan for $450,312,500 (hammer price plus buyer’s premium, net of any applicable fees).

The New York Times quotes art advisor Todd Levin as saying, “This was a thumping epic triumph of branding and desire over connoisseurship and reality.”

Alan Hobart, director of London’s Pyms Gallery, observes, “It’s been a brilliant marketing campaign. This is going to be the future.”

See:

Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale | Christie’s, New York, 15 November 2017

“Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi makes auction history” | Christie’s, 15 November 2017

“Leonardo da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3 Million, Shattering Auction Highs” | Robin Pogrebin and Scott Reyburn, The New York Times, 15 November 2017

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Max Beckmann’s “Hölle der Vögel” (Birds’ Hell) (1937-1938) Sells for US$45,834,365

Max Beckmann’s “Hölle der Vögel” (Birds’ Hell) sold for US$45,834,365 at Christie’s London Tuesday evening (June 27).

The painting, executed in oil on canvas in 1937 – 1938, drew three bidders and sold to Larry Gagosian. It is understood that Mr. Gagosian was bidding on behalf of the New York collector Leon Black.

Art dealer Richard Feigen acquired the painting in 1983. Hölle der Vögel” (Bird’s Hell) has remained in his collection until now.

See:

“Boosted by Gagosian’s Record Bid on Beckmann, Christie’s Notches a $190 Million Impressionist and Modern Sale” | Colin Gleadell, Artnet.com, 27 June 2017

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, London, 27 June 2017, Results | Christie’s

Max Beckmann Hölle der Vögel, 1937-38 (special catalogue) | Christie’s

 

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