AO Art Observed™

“Untitled, boxer” (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat, sold by Metallica band member Lars Ulrich for $13.5 million via Artnet

CHRISTIE’S POST-WAR AND CONTEMPORARY ART, New York, Wednesday, November 12th

Total Lots Offered: 75
Total Lots Sold: 51
Total Sales Value: $113.62 million
Total Sales Pre-Auction Estimate: $227 million

Christie’s New York sale of contemporary art, held on the evening of Nov. 12, 2008, was dominated by American buyers and totaled $98,480,000 ($113,627,500 with premium) or about half of the low value of its estimate of $227,150,000 to $321,350,000. 51 of 75 lots sold, or 68%, with nearly a third failing to sell. Two lots sold for over $10 million, and 32 lots sold for over 1 million dollars. Buyers were 60% American, 18% European and Russian, 0% Asian and 24% “other.” Notable attendees were tennis legend John McEnroe and billionaire Eli Broad.

Like Sotheby’s evening sale a day before, Christie’s was also damaged by its guarantees of 39 lots when 12 were brought in with a combined low estimate of $48 million, (typically a price near where an auction house will guarantee). The total guaranteed low estimate was $90 million. Overall, 24 of the 75 lots failed to find buyers which indicates a buy-in rate of 32% by lot and 55% by value. The total for this sale does not compare well to Christie’s fall contemporary sale in 2007 which totaled $325 million. Christie’s reportedly reduced their reserves and as such 52% of the lots sold below the low estimate.

Several new auction records were set, including those by Paul McCarthy and Robert Irwin, however, prices were generally below pre-sale low estimates. Some positives came from the sale including a $15 million Richter and a $13.5 million Basquiat as well as new auction records for Joseph Cornell and Yayoi Kusama. The headliner lot Francis Bacon’s Study for Self-Portrait was unsold against a low estimate $40 million or more, but no bid approached even $30 million. Many other major lots went unsold, including five sequential lots including three Warhols and a Richter valued at up to $10.0 million to $15 million.

Credit crunch hits the art market [Guardian]
Mixed Results for Contemporary Art Sale at Christie’s [NY Times]
Christie’s New York Auction Sells 68% of Contemporary Artworks [Bloomberg]
Lehman’s Fuld and Wife Sell Drawings Below Estimate [Bloomberg]
Francis Bacon portrait pulled from sale after failing to attract bids [Telegraph UK]
Art market in shock as Christie’s calls halt to Francis Bacon sale [TimesUK]
Art Market Watch - $113.6 million at Christie’s Contemporary [ArtNet]
Crappy Art Market Fails to Take Revenge on Richard Fuld [NYMag]
No Bailout at Christie’s [Artinfo]
The art of avoiding the credit crunch [GuardianUK]
Credit crunch hits the art market [GuardianUK]

more with pictures after the jump…

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Duane Hanson’s “Flea Market Lady” staffs Emmanuel Perrotin’s booth at Frieze via New York Magazine

In the midst of perhaps the most spectacular global financial and credit market cave-ins ever experienced, The Frieze Art Fair in London, one of the three largest contemporary art fairs, felt a slowdown in some attendance indicators, sales volume and pricing; a harbinger of similar buyer sentiment reflected in anemic sales totals from all of the three major contemporary art auctions that followed in London over the weekend from Sotheby’s, Phillips and Christie’s respectively. In light of the true magnitude of the global wealth disrupted in recent weeks, overall, the output of the Frieze art fair and the concurrent contemporary art auctions likely could have been worse. The following is a roundup of the news and images looking back from the close of the Frieze fair as well as detailed summaries of each auction.

Takashi Murakami’s “Tongari-Kun” 2004. Though it was headliner of the Phillips Auction on Saturday, it failed to sell. Image via Phillips

Newslinks, images and more on the Frieze Art Fair and on the Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips auctions after the jump…

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Rubens’ The Apotheosis of James I - via the TimesUK

Before deadline, Tate raises £5.7m to keep Flemish master Paul Rubens sketch The Apotheosis of James I [GuardianUK]
The Queen’s composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies declared Damien Hirst’s art to be “bejewelled trinkets” [TimesUK]
Takashi Murakami’s bi-annual Geisai Fair, an upstart artist free for all, drew 1,176 applicants [TheArtNewspaper]
A weighty review of Louise Bourgeois’s art as: “a comprehensive assault on my sense of wellbeing” [GuardianUK]
An insightful summary of where the art market is headed [Wall Street Journal]
With his show at the Serpentine, Gerhard Richter interviewed [The National via ArtMarketMonitor]

Desmond by Jean Michel Basquiat, up for auction at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Auction, via Christie’s

In addition to selling a rare portrait by Francis Bacon, Christie’s October 19 auction catalogue features a long list of post-war luminaries. Several portraits of Mao and Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol figure prominently among the auction’s offerings. A sculpture by Jeff Koons, as well as pieces by Jean Michel Basquiat, Gerhard Richter, Richard Prince, Anish Kapoor, Willem de Kooning, Lucian Freud and a plethora of other artists account for the rest of the lots. The priciest of 48 lots is expected to be Lucio Fontana’s canvas, Concetto spaziale, la fine di Dio, which should fetch around £12 million pounds ($21.8 million).

Christie’s: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Christie’s: Press Release for Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Fontana work may fetch $21.8 million in Record Christie’s Sale [Bloomberg]
Bacon Portrait Expected to Sell for £7.5 million at Christie’s Auction in October [ArtObserved]

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Gerhard Richter’s 4900 Colours: Version II via Serpentine Gallery

London’s Serpentine Gallery is set to display celebrated German artist Gerhard Richter’s 4900 Colours: Version II today, September 23. The piece is comprised of 4900 brightly colored squares arranged randomly by a concept Richter has coined “controlled chance.” The squares have been painted on 100 aluminum panels. The panels can be viewed altogether as a single work of art that measures 69 square meters or the work can be displayed as 49 separate pieces. Serpentine will display the 4900 Colours: Version II as separate original works. The new piece strongly resembles both the artist’s previous color abstractions dating back to the 70’s as well as a recent stained glass piece the artist created for the Cologne Cathedral in Germany.

Richter Says Nouveau Riche Have Sent Art Market `to the Dogs’ [Bloomberg]
Gerhard Richter Brings 4900 Colors to Serpentine [Digital Art]
Richter’s all square at the Serpentine [Guardian UK]
Gerhard Richter: 4900 Colours: Version II [Serpentine Gallery]
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Naked Portrait with Reflection, Lucian Freud (1980) via Artinfo

Christie’s held its Postwar and Contemporary Evening sale on Monday, June 30th, setting new records and selling 83% of the lots. The four largest sales came from Jeff Koons, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Andy Warhol. Other artists who were featured in the finely curated sale were Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter, and Gilbert and George just to name a few. Out of the 48 lots that sold, 30 of them made over $1 million, and the total sale raised $172 million. This is Christie’s best result for a post-war and contemporary art sale in Europe.
Bacon Self-Portraits Fetch $34.5 Million at London Art Auction [Bloomberg]
Koons sculpture highlights record-breaking art sale [APF]
Koons record as London art sales draw to close [Reuters]
Christie’s London Bests Own Contemporary Record [Artinfo]
Record price for Koons sculpture [BBC]
Christie’s Post War and Contemporary Art Sale [Christie's]
Bacon Triptych Sells for $34.4 Million in London [NYTimes]
Dead Artists Breathe Life Into Auctions [Wall Street Journal]
Koons’s ‘Balloon Flower’ sits in St. James Square before sale at Christie’s June 30th [Art Observed]

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Chant 2, Bridget Riley (1967) via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s is holding its Contemporary Art Evening Auction on Tuesday, July 1st at its New Bond St. location in London. The sale’s highlights include works from Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Andy Warhol and a number of other notable contemporary artists. The complete body of works for this sale will be on view at Sotheby’s New Bond St. galleries Monday, June 30 from 9am-7pm and Tuesday, July 1 from 9am-12noon.

Bridget Riley’s piece, Chant 2, a unique color painting which will be in the sale, was part of a show which won the artist the esteemed International Prize for Painting at the 34th Venice Biennale in 1968 .

Estimate: $4,000,000 - $6,000,000 (Pictured above)

London Contemporary Art Evening Auction [Sotheby's]

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Marlene Dumas fromThe New York Times

Marlene Dumas, most expensive living woman artist at auction (until recently exceeded by Bourgeois) coming to MOMA in December [NYTimes Mag]
How the proliferation of private museums affects the buyer/dealer system [The Independent]
A reduced-size Antony Gormley ‘Angel of the North’ a Bacon, a Basquiat, a Richter coming on the block at Sotheby’s [Artinfo]
Profile of Lauren Cornell, director of New Museum website: Rhizome [TimeoutNY]
Herzog & de Meuron to design new museum of modern art in Calcutta [The Arts Newspaper]
The art works Jeff Koons collects [NYTimes]
Update: New York Mag covers the Shafrazi show,[NYMag] covered by AO here [AO]
FT’s Jackie Wullschlager reviews Royal Academy Exhibition in London [Financial Times]

Sekretärin via Gerhard Richter

From May 15, until July 2nd, the National Art Museum of China is presenting a selection of works of Gerhard Richter painted between 1963 until 2007. The exhibition will show at least 56 paintings. Gerhard Richter is considered as one of the greatest and most expensive contemporary artist of his generation.

Gerhard Richter. Paintings 1963-2007 at The National Art Museum of China [Art Daily]
Gerhard Richter [Gerhard Richter]
Richter, Top German Artist, Shuns `Crazy’ Market, Opens Show [Bloomberg]

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Sonic Youth via Aquarium Drunkard

Richter’s “Kerze,” famously a Sonic Youth cover, for auction at Sotheby’s [Cinemablend]
Sonic Youth’s new touring art exhibit could be featured at the Whitney [NYMag]
New Saatchi Gallery in West London, will show only Contemporary [UK Times Online]
Video: Interview with Damien Hirst [Charlie Rose]
Review Contemporary Art on the Lower East Side [Bloomberg]

Video Still of Sotheby’s Francis Outred introducing auction items via Sotheby’s (Click to View)
Sotheby’s director, Francis Outred, gives a walkthrough of various contemporary pieces available in their upcoming auction in London. He details works from Lucio Fontana, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, and Andreas Gursky. The auction will take place February 27th at 7:00pm.

Sotheby’s Private View [Sotheby's]

Tagged Murakami Billboard via Boing Boing

Murakami Billboard in Los Angeles tagged [Art Fag City] and subsequently kept by Murakami [Boing Boing]
Russian Art Prices continue to grow [FT]
London Auctions buoyed by Expressionists [NYSun]
Detailed Summary of LACMA and Eli Broad Controversy [NYT]
NYC Evening Museum Party Schedule [NYT]
Gagosian maintains Schnabel Oscar plans despite writers strike [NY Observer]
Proenza Schouler inspirated by Donald Judd on MARFA, Texas trip [Style]
Richter’s “Zwei Liebespaare” sells for £7.3M, exceeds expectations [Christies]
Art forced out of Britain by Tax Laws: 40% of work’s value [Times Online UK]
Auction houses are increasingly financiers versus exchange agents[Economist]

Damien Hirst “All You Need is Love” via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s Lowers Estimate for (RED) Auction by 28% [Bloomberg]
Damage to Antiquities Caused by Tax Scheme Accounts for Art Raids [New York Times]
Ryan McGinley to Shoot Ads for Converse by John Varvatos [GQ Magazine]
Picasso Exceeds Auction Estimate at Christie’s London [Bloomberg]
Met Hires Headhunter to Find New Director [Wall Street Journal]
Guy Cogeval Appointed Director of Musée d’Orsay [Art Info]
Saatchi buys Contemporary Heinrich Himler portrait [UK News]
Richard Prince and Terry Richardson create artwork for controversial James Frey novel [New York Post]
Gerhard Richter at Serpentine Gallery in September [Guardian UK]

Gerhard Richter via Marian Goodman Gallery

Starting today, the Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris debuts Gerhard Ritcher’s new exhibition. The 75 year-old artist is widely considered Germany’s top contemporary artist. A retrospective of Richter’s work is also concurrently on display at the Baden Baden Gallery in Germany. The Marian Goodman exhibition runs until the 1st of March.

Gerhard Richter’s arts success [Bloomberg]
Marian Goodman Gallery [Marian Goodman Gallery]

Gerhard Richter via Deutsche Welle

Gerhard Richter opened his retrospective exhibit on January 19th at the Baden-Baden Gallery in Germany. It includes over 60 Richter paintings coming from private collectors and himself.

Four Decades of Richter’s Work [Deutsche Welle]