How many articles need to be written about some indicator that the “CONTEMPORARY ART MARKET IS BACK”? It’s as if everyone is vying for credit for fixing the economy, when in reality, this is all happening at the same time because the economy is slowly rebounding. So, what is the big indicator?
Yves Klein Relief éponge
This sucker went for over $9 million last night at Christie’s…Now I don’t want to get all picky, but if I was going to spend that kind of dough on a Klein, I would want it to be IKB, you know?
Laura Vere-Hodge of Christies walks along a gallery containing Picasso’s “Femme et Fillettes” (L) and “Flag” by artist Jasper Johns at the auction house in London.
LONDON.- Christie’s is honored to announce that it will offer at auction this spring in New York major works from the collection of the late Michael Crichton. Best-selling author and screenwriter, film director and producer, Crichton is renowned for his terrifying and sometimes controversial scientific thrillers such as The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Timeline, The Lost World, Rising Sun, and State of Fear, and for creating the television series ER.
Crichton is also acknowledged as a leading authority on the American artist Jasper Johns.…
Early in his career, Crichton developed a keen interest in contemporary art and friendships with David Hockney (who made a portrait of Crichton in 1976), Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg. In the 1970s, Crichton also became a close friend and an avid collector of Jasper Johns. He was asked by Johns to write the catalogue for his major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1977. This publication and its revised and expanded edition are considered one of the preeminent studies on America’s foremost living artist. via…
Edgar Allan Poe Tamerlane and Other Poems First Edition
A volume of poetry and a partial poem handwritten by Edgar Allan Poe also set world records during an earlier auction Friday, Christie’s said.
A bidding war over the poem was won by an American collector who bid $830,500, a world record for a 19th-century literary manuscript, Christie’s said. The eight verses of the 16-verse poem “For Annie” was estimated to sell for $50,000 to $70,000.
A rare first edition of Poe’s first book, “Tamerlane and Other Poems,” sold for $662,500 at the same auction, the highest price ever paid for a 19th-century book of poetry.
Only 12 copies of the 40-page volume of poetry, published in 1827, are known to remain. It had a pre-sale estimate of between $500,000 to $700,000.
A Christie’s spokeswoman did not immediately have a previous auction record for works by Poe.
The metal Olivetti typewriter Cormac McCarthy used while writing his novels, including “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men,” sold at the afternoon auction for an eye-popping $254,500. It had been estimated to sell for $15,000 to $20,000.
McCarthy also invited the winner to join him for lunch at the Sante Fe Institute. The 76-year-old writer donated the auction’s proceeds to the nonprofit institute in New Mexico. via…
See guys, print isn’t dead, it’s just really, really old.
“As women in five inch heels and men in made-to-measure suits headed to their assigned seats at Christie’s on Tuesday night, a man dressed for dog walking slipped unnoticed into a middle row toward the back. Peter Doig had never been to an auction before. He is not a Warholian “business artist,” so you wouldn’t expect him to relish the spectacle of art’s liquidation.”
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Ahh, to be Peter Doig…
» Saatchi to Sell in China and at Christie’s
LONDON—Charles Saatchi certainly knows how to read the fine print. Despite a widely publicized partnership that he forged with Phillips de Pury & Co. last year in which he agreed to sell predominantly through the auction house, the super-collector has now stated that he will sell some of his Chinese contemporary art in China and unload a handful of other works at Christie’s in London.
A spokesperson for Saatchi defended the moves, explaining that there are no Western auction houses competing in China and that the sales at Christie’s are designed to fulfill “obligations we already had.” Martin Kippenberger’s Paris Bar Berlin (1993) will be among the works to hit the block in London.
I’m a little sick of all this Martin Kippenberger hoopla.
César Compression
Remember the first Yves Saint Laurent auction? It brought back the Paris auction market, some scandalous Chinese sculptures were returned to their owners, and everyone had a great time remembering and mourning a great artist and designer. Don’t worry though if you missed it, there’s going to be another one!! Christie’s, in collaboration with Yves Saint Laurent’s partner Pierre Bergé, is putting up over 1200 works, on November 17-19 in Paris and the proceeds will go to HIV and AIDS research. The sale is estimated to realize €3-4 million, which, even after Christie’s cut will be a substantial donation to an amazing cause!
» Christie's New York Contemporary Art Sale did better than Sotheby's.
This was so predictable it’s not even funny. I wish I had some money to put on this. They sold through 91% with a few records for artists and blah, blah, blah. Sorry, I’m already bored with this.
The bronze rabbit head figures “looted” from the Zodiac Fountain in China that were falsley bought at the Yves Saint Laurent Estate Auction by Christie’s in Paris have finally found their buyer.
After the original winning bid was found out to be false and a protest against the ethically-gray area Christie’s was treading for going through with the auction, the buyer turns out to be a London based Chinese businessman who had the second highest bid and is planning on donating the pieces back to the Chinese government. via…
Must be nice to have that kind of dough just laying around…
