Auctions holding steady
Colin Gleadell
After the success of the Frieze week auctions in London, the harbingers of doom were again denied much satisfaction at the November sales in New York. These much higher value sales carried estimates set during the euphoric aftermath of the spring and summer sales in London and New York when 'subprime' was barely a glimmer in the eye of Wall Street financiers. And in order to secure the stock for sale, Sotheby's and Christie's had extended guarantees to sellers in the region of $1bn - the largest amount ever. Christie's Impressionist sale just about scraped by on the guarantees, but disaster struck at Sotheby's when a $35m van Gogh failed to sell. Sotheby's also lost money on several works it had guaranteed and overnight, as nervous investors hit the sell button, its share price plummeted by 30%. The question was whether Sotheby's had simply got its pricing wrong, or whether the bubble really was about to burst.
As the contemporary sales got under way, the answer was hanging in the balance. At first, it looked as if all doubts had been swept away. At Christie's main sale, eight records fell in the first 11 lots, all in excess of estimates. Thomas Struth's Pantheon, Rome, last sold in 2000 for $236,750, was bought by the dealer David Zwirner for $1.05m. Yoshitomo Nara's Princess of Snooze, 2001, sold to art advisor Nicholas MacLean for $1.5m. A 1989 painting by Rudolf Stingel, an artist barely seen at auction before last year but now enjoying the fruits of his exposure at the Whitney, soared to $1.2m. And Richard Prince's Piney Woods Nurse, a painting from the 2002 'Nurse' series that had originally sold at Barbara Gladstone for less $100,000, sold for $6.1m. The sellers were Californian collectors, Nora and Norman Stone, and the buyer - London dealer Jay Jopling. These were followed by a new record $4.39m for Chinese artist Zhang Xiaogang, and a $19.4m record for a living artist claimed by Lucian Freud's Portrait of Ib and her husband. But the pace didn't last. After that, only 13 more lots in the 67-lot sale were sold at hammer prices above estimates. Among these was Ed Ruscha's 60s classic, Burning Gas Station, sent for sale by US collector Kent Logan, which was bought by Gagosian for a record $6.98m (estimate: $4/6m), and Warhol's large portrait of Muhammad Ali that raced past the $2/3m estimate to sell for $9.2m.
Less convincing records were set for Gerhard Richter's fighter plane, Düsenjäger, 1963, bought for $11.2m against only one other bid, and Jeff Koons's Diamond (Blue), 1994-2005, estimated at $12m, but sold to Gagosian for $11.8m. Several top lots might have realised big profits for their owners, but struggled to meet estimates. Warhol's Liz, 1963, bought for $3.6m in 2001 by actor Hugh Grant, sold below the $25m estimate for $23.6m. A Rothko, bought by the designer Valentino in 1998 for $1.7m, sold for $21m, but that too had been estimated to make more. Christie's appears also to have barely covered its guarantees. Thirty-one lots with a combined low estimate of $173.5m had been guaranteed. Although all but one was sold, the total of the hammer prices amounted to just $175.75m. The $325m total for the sale fell short of its highest expectations and last season's total, halting the continuous upward spiral of the last few years.
Sotheby's $316m sale, on the other hand, was not only in excess of its pre-sale estimate ($223/284m), but its highest ever. Seventeen records were set, and only six of the 65 lots offered were unsold. Two paintings by Francis Bacon soared over estimates and headed the sale - the first time a British artist has Jules de Balincourt Media Information Transmission Center 2003 sold for $265,000 done so in New York. His Second Version of Study for Bullfight No 1, 1969, sold for $46m to the art adviser Philippe Segalot, believed to have been bidding for hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, while Bacon's small Self portrait, 1969, sold to Damien Hirst, bidding over the telephone, for $33m. Cohen was the first to kick-start the Bacon market when he bought an early painting from the artist's estate for $15m three years ago. Hirst has also been buying Bacons on the private market and now owns four.
Otherwise it was American art that dominated. Jeff Koons's Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold), 1994-2006, is one of four versions of the sculpture, and was being sold by US collector Adam Lindemann, who had bought it from Gagosian last year for a reported $4m. Estimated at $15/20m, it sold back to Gagosian for $23.6m. The sale made Koons the most expensive living artist at auction, surpassing Hirst and Freud.
Eight Warhols sold for $45.6m. A late Self Portrait (Green Camouflage), sold for $12.4m ($9/12), and the 1962 Campbell's Soup Can (Pepper Pot), last sold in 2003 for $2.4m, sold to UK collector Laurence Graff for $8.4m ($7/9m). Other buyers of Warhol material included Philippe Segalot, who bought the large Shadow, 1978-79, for $7.6m ($4.5/6.5m), dealer Jose Mugrabi, who bought the 1964 Four Jackiesfor $5.6m ($4/6m); and Gagosian, who bought the 1962 drawing Campbell's Beef Noodle (Crushed)for $2.4m ($1.2/1.8m). In spite of the unusually large supply of works by Rothko on the market at high prices, demand held up. A dark Untitled, 1969, bought in 1996 for $800,000 by US collectors John and Mary Pappajohn, sold for $12.1m ($9/12m), while an untitled oil on paper from 1968 sold to a private US collector for $7.9m ($3.5/4.5m).
The Basquiat market also held steady with all three works offered selling in spite of rising estimates. Untitled (Electric Chair), 1981, sold for $11.8m ($8/10m) - the second highest price for a Basquiat at auction, while another untitled painting from 1981, consigned by US collector Peter Brant with a guarantee, sold for $7.8m ($7/9m). Brant was also among the consigners to benefit from the rising market for Richard Prince. He sold a joke painting, He Ain't Here Yet, 1988, bought two years ago for $587,000, for $1.4m.Records for younger generation artists that fell at the sale were for an Anish Kapoor's untitled 1999 alabaster sculpture which sold for $2.8m; and Matthew Barney's presentation video, Cremaster 2, which sold for $571,000. But the Barney work was one of several by well known artists, including Hirst and Mike Kelley, that failed to attract much bidding. By the end, 24 works had sold either on or below low estimates, or not at all. The few contemporary Chinese works on offer, however, all flew above estimates: records fell for Fang Lijun ($4m), Yan Pei Ming ($1.6m) and Zhang Xiaogang ($4.9m). There was a very high level of guarantees for the sale, in which 36 guaranteed works, estimated at between $174m and $220m, brought $216m before buyer's commission was charged, but overall Sotheby's appeared justified.
Phillips de Pury & Co brought the week to an end with a tortuous three-hour evening session which raised $8.2m for the New Museum of Contemporary Art in the Bowery with generous donations from Koons and Richard Prince, and then a further $42.3m in the regular sale.Among the sellers were Steve Cohen, whose late de Kooning ribbon painting, Untitled XVI, 1982, sold after little competition for $5.8m, and Charles Saatchi, still honouring his deal with Phillips, which has sponsored free entry to his new gallery. Coming from his collection was Cecily Brown's The Girl who had Everything, 1998, which sold to her dealer Gagosian for $1.1m ($600/800,000), Wilhelm Sasnal's Untitled, 2000, which sold for $157,000 ($80/120,000); Michael Raedecker's The Getaway, 1997, which sold for $169,000 ($120/180,000); and Kai Althoff's Untitled, 2001, which sold for $109,000 ($100/150,000). However works by Daniel Richter ($350/450,000) and Franz Ackermann ($300/400,000) from his collection went unsold.
There was more action on the Prince 'Nurse' front, when Registered Nurse, 2002, sold for $4.3m ($1.5/2.5m) - the second highest price for Prince at auction - and his joke painting, Untitled (Protest Painting), 1994, sold to Jay Jopling for $385,000 ($150/200,000). Records were set for several artists whose auction market only recently took off. Jules de Balincourt's Media Information Transmission Center, 2003, sold for $265,000 ($100/150,000) and Mark Grotjahn's Untitled (Orange Butterfly MO2G), 2002, sold for $937,000 ($300/400,000) to the Richard Grey Gallery. Prices for Steven Parrino, the subject of a recent retrospective exhibition at Gagosian, which now represents his estate, have leapt in the aftermath, reaching $657,000 at this sale for Blue Idiot, 1986, ($400/600,000). And Stingel saw his record move up to $1.9m with a winning bid from Segalot for an untitled 2000 work in styrofoam ($500,000/700,000). By the end of the week $950m of contemporary art had changed hands - far more than the $800m commanded by the Impressionist sales the week before, and nearly double the amount sold a year earlier. Only 12% of the 1,500 lots offered were unsold. In spite of a few close calls where there were optimistic estimates and guarantees, the market was carried by what Christie's CEO, Ed Dolman, called 'a wall of money'. This month, as the credit crunch looks more serious, we will see if that wall of money is still intact for the big London sales.
Originally published February 2008 / No 312, pp43-44.
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