Jean Dubuffet, Late Paintings (Installation View), all images via Timothy Taylor

Now through July 2, London’s Timothy Taylor Gallery presents an exhibition of Jean Dubuffet’s late works, featuring paintings, sculpture, and works on paper completed from the late 1960’s through to the 1980′.  Works from his L’Hourloupe cycle, pieces from the Théâtres de mémoire, as well as a selection from the Psycho-sites, Mires, and Non-Lieux series join together in the gallery space, marking the artist’s transition from traditional painter to sculptuor and conceptual architect in the late years of his prolific career. (more…)

The Telegraph notes the recent critical and market re-appreciation of the work of Jean Dubuffet, as a number of high-profile museum exhibitions and a moderately valued market see the artist gaining impressive exposure as of late.  Of particular note is a recent show at Timothy Taylor Gallery, which expands on the artist’s legacy beyond easy historical touchstones.  “It doesn’t have much to do with ‘art brut’,” Taylor says. (more…)

Brice Marden, Star (for Patti Smith) (1972-74), via Phillips Auction

Following in the footsteps of an early evening auction at Christie’s just an hour prior, Phillips has logged a staid but consistent auction into the books for its sole evening sale of the spring auction week.  The auction house’s 20th Century Sale achieved moderate success with a final tally of $46,576,000, with only 3 of the 38 lots going unsold.

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Jean Dubuffet will be the subject of a two floor exhibition at the Acquavella Gallery later this Spring, the New York Times reports.  “A lot of people don’t realize how good he is,” says curator Mark Rosenthal. “We’re hoping this will change that.” (more…)

Cy Twombly, Untitled (New York City) (1968), via Sotheby’s

Tonight Sotheby’s has logged its response to Christie’s moderate outing last evening, as the auction house’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale saw steady, albeit occasionally slow proceedings, bringing a final sales tally of $294,850,000 with 13 of the 57 lots offered going unsold. (more…)

Louise Bourgeois, Spider (1997), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Christie’s continued its impressive run of record-setting sales last night, with a steady, competitive sale tonight that ultimately brought a final tally of $331,809,000, with 13 of the 70 lots offered passing (barring several withdrawn, high-priced lots).  (more…)

Jean Dubuffet, Snack for Two, (1945) via Museum of Modern Art

Currently on view at New York’s Museum of Modern Art is a retrospective focused on the work of French artist and sculptor Jean Dubuffet. Bringing together the museum’s unmatched collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and illustrated books from Dubuffet’s prolific output, the exhibition focuses predominantly on the key years of his career: from the 1940’s to mid-1960’s.

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Sean Kelly Gallery, Los Carpinteros, Kosmaj Toy (2012).

All images by A.M. Ekstrand for ArtObserved, on location at Art Basel Miami Beach Fair.

Art Basel returned once again in Miami Beach this past week for the 11th annual Art Basel Miami Beach Fair. Featuring over 300 galleries representing 36 countries around the world, the show has exhibited marked growth from last year’s event, with well over 2,000 artists flocking to exhibit at what has become the internationally-renowned closing party for the world art market each year.  It is of course always an irony that tens of thousands will fly down for the events and parties, with many of them never visiting the vast aggregation of what it said to be roughly $1.5 billion worth of art in one (large) room, a collection that few museums in the world could compete with.   Below is a selection of some of the works we thought to be notable from the fair.

Helly Nahmad Gallery, Mark Rothko No. 1 (1957) and Alexander Calder, installation view

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Christie’s saleroom photo by ArtObserved

Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale broke the record for the highest ever grossing Contemporary Art auction in history, totaling over $412 million in sales. The auction came on the heels of Sotheby’s Postwar & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, which broke its own record for highest-grossing auction in Sotheby’s long history ($375 million). Christie’s achieved an astounding 92% sell by lot and 93% sell by value – of the 73 lots offered only 6 failed to sell.

Records at auction were broken for Richard Diebenkorn, Jeff Koons, Richard Serra, Franz Kline, George Condo, Jean- Michel Basquiat, and Mark Grotjahn. Additionally, Jean Dubuffet, Cy Twombly and Jean-Michel Basquiat set new records for their artworks on paper. A record was set for an Alexander Calder wire sculpture at auction with Policeman, which sold for $4.2 million.

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Toby Ziegler‘s The Cripples, image via Art Observed

Back in 2003 in Frieze’s first year, no major international art fair had ever been hosted in London before. Frieze Art Fair, organized by Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, has helped take London from being a city without a focused art scene to its current state at the center of the European art market. Now in its tenth year, Frieze Art Fair in London’s Regent’s Park has seen around 60,000 visitors, with 264 dealers from 35 countries hoping to sell work (valuing an estimated  £230m) created by more than 2,400 artists within 175 of the world’s leading galleries.

An Aaron Young motorcycle burn out work at Massimo de Carlo in Milan, photo via Art Observed

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‪‬Four stolen paintings by Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Fernand Leger, and Jean DuBuffet have been recovered in Cologne, Germany, now at an estimated value of $1 million. The six works were originally stolen in 1988 from Solomon Gallery in New York. When one by Karl Apfel and another by Motherwell were recovered previously in 2003 and 2012 respectively by art collectors, they prompted the now conclusive police investigation. [AO Newslink]

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Jean Dubuffet, Fluence (1984). All photos on site for Art Observed by Rachel Willis.

On January 19 The Pace Gallery debuted its newest exhibition, Jean Dubuffet: The Last Two Years. The show is made up of approximately 20 paintings chosen from the artist’s final body of work, from the years 1983-4. Viewers are immediately confronted with a yellow wall and a red neon sign, written in Dubuffet’s script, with the title of the show. The colors of the sign are evocative of the highly saturated primary colors present within the exhibition. The paintings are divided amongst the gallery’s two rooms; the front room is filled with the artist’s large, more cheerful paintings, while the back room hosts smaller, dark, more intimate and brooding works. These expressive acrylic paintings, with their minor figurative references, are adamantly abstract and indicative of Dubuffet’s uncompromising creative mindset during the last years of his life.

Front room at the Jean Dubuffet Opening at Pace Gallery

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Andy Warhol, Coca-Cola [4] [Large Coca-Cola], 1962 (est. $20-25 million, realized $34.5 million), via Sothebys.com

Auction goers at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale on Tuesday night were offered glass bottles of Coca-Cola before entering the saleroom in honor of the auction’s featured lot – Andy Warhol‘s Coca-Cola [4] [Large Coca-Cola]. The painting sold for $35.4 million against a high presale estimate of $25 million and was, like the Warhol for sale at Phillips Monday night, the evening’s top lot. The Sotheby’s auction was comprised of 54 lots (not including a work by Felix Gonzales-Torres, which was withdrawn) that brought in $222.5 million against presale estimates of $151.8-214.5 million. The sale had a sell through rate of 90.7% by lot and 97.1% by value with 5 of 54 lots unsold.

More after the jump…

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Peter Doig’s ‘Night Playground’ sold for £3 million, beating estimates of £1.5-2 million, via Artinfo

Rounding out the summer auctions, Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale took in £19.1 million, coming in around the lower end of estimates of £17.4-24 million.  35 out of 40 lots sold, with rates of 88% by lot and 86% by value.  The top selling lot was a large Peter Doig painting, ‘Night Painting,’ which sold for £3 million, quite above estimates of £1.5-2 million. According to the NY Times, collector François Pinault was overheard calling the sale “solid” and “serious.” Though the total value realized represents a 78% drop from last year, the high sell-through rate, consistent among the fine art auctions this season, shows that the market has settled enough for the auction houses to accurately gauge what buyers want.

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction [Christie’s]
Bidding Is Thin at Christie’s in London [NY Times]
Doig, Richter Sell as Christie’s London Auction Total Drops 78% [Bloomberg]
Market Motors Along at Christie’s Contemporary Sale [Artinfo]
Lot by Lot: Christie’s London Cont. Evening Sale [Art Market Monitor]
Lots of Profit at the Top [Artinfo] (more…)