Pablo Picasso, Buste de femme de profil (Femme écrivant) (1932), via Sotheby’s

The month’s Impressionist and Modern Evening Sales are now in the books, after the London headquarters for both Christie’s and Sotheby’s capped their sales in the British capital.  Seizing on the recent and continued expansion of the market for works from this era in past months, the week’s sales were an often complex, confusing set of outings, as results fluctuated considerably and market health was perhaps painted as a bit unpredictable.

Joan Miro, Peinture (1933), via Sotheby’s

At Sotheby’s, nearly a third of the sale’s 36 lots went unsold (10), with the final tally capped at £87,496,600.  Chief among the abortive works was a premier lot, Peinture, by Joan Miró, which stagnated on the auction block and missed its £8 to £12 million auction price, and ultimately contributed to the auction house missing out on its low estimate.  The much-trumpeted Pablo Picasso portrait of Marie-Therese, however, performed admirably, making up nearly a full third of the auction’s value with its £27,319,000 final price.  Also saving the sale was Alberto Giacometti’s Le Chat, which brought a strong price at £12,642,000.

Alberto Giacometti, Le Chat (1955), via Sotheby’s

Franz Marc, Drei Pferde (1916), via Christie’s

A similar situation marked the sale at Christie’s the following evening, where a 45-lot sale achieved a final of £128,081,750.  The sale was also marked by eight unsold lots over the course of the evening, but pushed through its offering on the strength of several strong works, chief among them Claude Monet’s La Gare Saint-Lazare, which reached a price of £24,983,750, as well as Picasso’s Femme dans un fauteuil, the Dora Maar portrait that performed to expectations at a final of £19,358,750.  Another achievement came with the setting of a new auction record for Franz Marc, whose Drei Pferde easily hit £15,421,250, resetting his record.

With results like this, the market picture has grown notably cloudy, or perhaps the market is trending towards saturation, the frequent sales and frequency of blue-chip trophies changing hands making for a less appealing environment for collectors.  No matter why, the major auction houses have only a few days to reflect, as the proceedings continue next week with the Contemporary and Post-War Sales.

Claude Monet, La Gare Saint-Lazare, vue extérieure (1877), via Christie’s

Pablo Picasso, Femme dans un fauteuil (Dora Maar) (1942), via Christie’s

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale [Sotheby’s]
Sotheby’s Fails to Reach Low Estimate at Modern Art Auction [Bloomberg]
Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale [Christie’s]

Pablo Picasso, Buste de femme de profil (Femme écrivant) (1932), via Sotheby’s

With the bustling week of sales and exhibitions in Basel now capped, the final major auctions of the spring are set to take place in London, as two weeks of auctions will look to test the waters of a market seemingly on the rebound after a strong outing earlier this season in New York.  Beginning this week with a pair of Impressionist and Modern Sales, the week’s proceedings should make for an intriguing wrap up of the first half of 2018.   (more…)

Wendy White, American Bleach Effect (Budweiser) (2018), via Marlborough Contemporary

It’s hard to estimate Leo Fitzpatrick’s impact on the course of Marlborough Contemporary’s programming.  The director, who joined the gallery in 2015, has dipped his toes into any number of puddles over the course of his time with the gallery, yet always bringing an equally studied and adventurous approach to curation across the gallery’s two story exhibition space. The shows have twisted in and out of the gallery’s broader curatorial vision, pulling both from the deeper reaches of contemporary art history and from the gallery’s list of frequent collaborators.  For his most recent exhibition project, BURNT, Fitzpatrick continues this trend, inviting a broad swath of artists to a show that manages to both unite diverse voices and focus them towards the modern American cultural landscape.  (more…)

Liu Wei, 180 Faces (detail) (2017-2018)All images © Liu Wei Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York and AYE Gallery, Beijing

Sean Kelly’s exhibition of 180 small scale portraits by Chinese artist Liu Wei offers an intimate and thought-provoking survey into the psychological layers of portraiture, a genre almost as archaic as art history itself.  Entitled 180 Faces, the exhibition of modest scale portraits of anonymous individuals are hung akin to the style of the salon, with a twist on the traditional display fashion as the frames’ sleek surfaces blend into the gallery’s contemporary white-cube interior. (more…)

Megan Marrin at David Lewis, via Art Observed

Offering a fitting counterpoint to the expanses of the Messe Basel, Liste Art Fair has returned to Warteck, a former schoolhouse on the banks of the Rhine now serving as an exhibition and performance space, for another year of exhibitions showcasing adventurous and exploratory proects from a range of galleries around the globe.  Liste continues to build on its position as one of the central hubs for the week of Art Basel, priding itself on a careful curation of young galleries, dynamic, forward-thinking works, and a roster of performances that remains one of the week’s main draws.

Edouard Montassut, via Edouard Montassut

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Robert Longo, Death Star, all photos via Ben Krieglstein for Art Observed

Art Basel has opened its doors, kicking off a marathon week of sales and shows in the Swiss city that marks another year for the landmark giant of contemporary and modern art selling.  Marking the terminus for the first half of the year’s major primary market activity, the fair once again showed why its impressive scale and appointments makes it such a draw for collectors, artists and dealers.

Carol Bove at Unlimited (more…)

Nick Cave, The Let Go (2018), all images via Greem Jellyfish for Art Observed

“Back in the day the club was my safe place-and losing myself on the dance floor has always kept me centered.”

The Let Go is artist Nick Cave’s new work at Park Avenue Armory, a multi-sensory performance using visual works, sounds, and movement to transform the Armory into a dance-based town hall aimed at bringing together visitors, performers, DJs, dancers and community members to participate in a collective act of catharsis. The audience is asked to let go of frustration and negativity, and to uplift one another as they participate in this powerful socially-engaged piece.  Stringing together a series of interrelated works, The Let Go is bounded by the installation Chase, and where a performance titled The Up Right, featuring one of Cave’s signature Sound Suits, is activated by a jazz keyboardist, choir and opera singer. Concluding the performance,  the “town hall” becomes a dance hall, complete with DJ. (more…)

Charles Ray, Reclining Woman (2018), via Matthew Marks

The work of artist Charles Ray draws particular strength from its deliberateness and commitment to concept.  The artist’s figurative sculptures are direct in their depiction, yet draw particular strength from the nuance of their subject matter, and the mastery of the artist’s hand.  Returning to New York for a show of new work at Matthew Marks this month, Ray has once again cemented this reputation, bringing a small but powerful selection of works to bear on the gallery space, and once again underscoring why he is a living legend in the world of contemporary sculpture.  (more…)

John Giorno and Robert Watts, Fun with Fluxus (1984-1988), via Supportico Lopez

As the days of summer tick by, and the weather grows ever warmer in Europe, the art world once again returns to the namesake home of the Art Basel fair, which takes over the Swiss city for its annual run of sales and project exhibitions, held in conjunction with a number of various exhibitions and shows across the city.  Marking the final run of market activity before a well-deserved summer recess, the fair should offer a last glimpse at the European art market’s health before the fall season. (more…)

Borna Sammak, Not Yet Titled (Couch) (2018), via JTT

The term “over-saturation” feels particularly apt in describing the work of artist Borna Sammak, who for the past several years has worked at a uniquely playful and disturbing juncture of pop culture iconography.  Perhaps best known for his canvases comprised of hundreds of heat-press t-shirt graphics layered with an almost machinic sense of repetition, Sammak’s approach to visual arrangements revels in chaos and confusion, yet almost always allows the viewer a moment to settle and find subtle rhythms and aesthetic logics within his swirling compositions.  (more…)

Wade Guyton, Patagonia (Installation view), All images via Petzel Gallery.

Now through June 16, Petzel Gallery’s Chelsea location presents Patagonia, an exhibition of 11 new works by Wade Guyton.  As the brief and succinct Press Release states, this show features images of paintings drying, scraps of linen, lunch remains, and other details of the studio. The images featured are large-scale prints made from an Epson UltraChrome K3 inkjet printer, complete with glitches and streaks left from this printing process. The use of the inkjet printer to produce large-scale images on canvas has become a signature feature of the work of the artist’s ‘post-conceptual’ ouevre, much like the color black and X symbol had previously been incorporated into his works. (more…)

Oscar Tuazon, (Installation View), via Art Observed

For the last few years, artist Oscar Tuazon has meandered ever closer to a unique framework in socially-engaged sculpture, and art-making more broadly.  Creating sites and objects dedicated towards folds and fissures in public space, his pieces have delved into the act of living; how bodies animate space, or ultimately serve to preserve or reify distinct functions and/or patterns of use within a defined space.  For his first exhibition at New York’s Luhring Augustine this month, Tuazon brings this unique philosophy to bear in the gallery, erecting a series of works that draw on past projects and seek to explore functionality in new spheres. (more…)

Dan Colen, Merope (2018), via Levy Gorvy

It’s been some time since there was a full show of works by Dan Colen on view in New York.  Having decamped upstate to explore a more deliberate, meditative practice in conjunction with running his own farm, the artist’s modes of practice, and now even his representation, has undergone a slow but deliberate shift.  Now, with a body of new works in tow, the artist has opened his first exhibition with his new gallery, Lévy Gorvy.  Grouping together a body of sculptures and paintings, the artist returns to familiar ground, exploring and manipulating previous modes of working to create a striking, and mature, selection of pieces.

Dan Colen, Mother (2017-2018), via Levy Gorvy

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A Luta Continua (Installation View), via Hauser and Wirth

Over the course of his life, diamond magnate Sylvio Perlstein has built up one of the most ambitious collections of contemporary art in the world, spanning the full history of the avant-garde from Dada and Surrealism to Abstraction, Land Art to Minimalism, Arte Povera, Nouveau Réalisme, and more, all united by his unwavering eye for strong pieces and equally strong concepts.  Shining throughout the collector’s holdings, however, is his passion for the work, a fascination with the artist’s practice that shines well above and beyond any single work on view. (more…)

Andreas Slominski (Installation view), all images via Metro Pictures, New York.  Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.  Photo: Genevieve Hanson.

Known for his intriguing humor and sleek aesthetic, German artist Andreas Slominski presents artifacts of consumerist desire in their most pristine forms, well before their wearing out over time through consumer use. His most recent exhibition at Metro Picture presents a group of fresh-from-the-factory portable plastic toilets, complete with stainless surfaces and bright colors. Instead of the foreseeable contrast they would orchestrate with a hygienic white cube space, these non-used bathrooms comply with the all-white atmosphere thanks to their immaculate exteriors and unusual display concepts. (more…)

Artist Robert Indiana, the pioneering pop-artist behind the iconic “LOVE” sculpture and a broader body of work that investigated the subtle meanings of symbols, text and images, has passed away at the age of 89.  The artist passed away this past Saturday at his home.  (more…)

Mark Van Yetter, Damn Forest at Night (2018), photo by Gregory Carideo, copyright Mark Van Yetter, courtesy of the artist and Bridget Donahue, NYC

There’s an innate fascination with mystery that winds its way in and out of the work of Mark Van Yetter.  The painter and sculptor’s work is flush with unspecified narratives, moments of confusion and abstraction that manages to carry all of his works up into an ever-shifting series of relationships and interactions.  For his new show at Bridget Donahue, the artist has turned this interest towards the architectural twisting his narrative arcs through an interest in physical space, and its impacts on the objects within it. (more…)

Carroll Dunham, Any Day (2017), via Gladstone

Embracing an elaboration and expansion of his interests in the nude form, and a continued interest in the possibilities for abstraction in exchange with approaches to portraiture and figuration, artist Carroll Dunham returns to Gladstone Gallery this month, bringing with him a body of new paintings created over the past year.  Drawn from his Wrestlers series, Dunham uses the visual language of mythological depictions of wrestling, mined from art historical sources and his own memory, to propose new through lines in his practice that are both formal and autobiographical in nature. (more…)

Installation view of Ellsworth Kelly: Black & White Works at The FLAG Art Foundation, 2018. Photography by Steven Probert.

Organized by Ellsworth Kelly’s long-time life partner photographer Jack Shear, Black and White Works at the FLAG Art Foundation sheds light on the pioneer colorist’s paintings using primarily black and white, a body of work occupying one fifth of his entire repertoire. Coinciding with the Blanton Art Museum’s unveiling of Kelly’s monumental 2,715 square-foot architectural work Austin, which also introduced a new path in the late artist’s expansive career, the exhibition proposes a fresh approach Kelly’s legacy. Containing sculptural experimentation and geometric curiosity, the works on view demonstrate his unending interest in pushing the boundaries of abstract precision, architectural balance, and optic illusion within the limits of two seemingly opposite and mute colors. Contrasted with the artist’s signature exuberance and his equally precise monochromatic color palette, the works Shear brought together both evoke characteristics from Kelly’s most iconic while and challenging the viewer to expand their interpretation and appreciation of his larger oeuvre. (more…)

Kerry Marshall, Past Times (1997), Price:$21,114,500 via Sotheby’s

With two nights of auctions now concluded, a choppy look at the contemporary art market has emerged, as Sotheby’s, Phillips and Christie’s strung together a series of occasionally surprising, mixed sales over the course of last night and this evening.  The auctions, which mark the last major sales for the U.S. outposts of the international houses before summer recess, saw a number of impressive auction records, as well as a series of high profile works that failed to find a buyer, a note that left many puzzling over the immediate future of the Contemporary field.

Mark Rothko, Untitled (1969), Price:$18,856,500, via Sotheby’s  (more…)

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition (1916), Price: $85,812,500, via Christies

With another auction come and gone in New York, Christie’s has posed quite a challenge to its competitors last night, closing out a well-run sale with strong results and a set of major auction records broken.  The 37-lot sale was well-appointed, and the sale moved steadily through its paces, ultimately finishing at a final tally of $416,040,000 with only 4 lots going unsold. (more…)

Jenny Saville, Fate I (2018), via Josie Berman for Art Observed

Jenny Saville returns to Gagosian this month in New York, bringing her iconic painterly style and remarkably attentive perspective towards the human body with her.  The artist, whose past 25 years of practice have seen her delve into an ever-evolving interest in the nuanced erotics and endlessly narrative capacities of the human form, returns here to her frequent interest in couples and pairings of form, using intertwined bodies and interlocked figures to explore human relation and emotion.  (more…)

Harold Ancart, Untitled (2018), via Clearing

The painterly technique of Harold Ancart draws particular strength in accumulation and mass.  Accenting his rough line-work with thick layers of paint and broad fields of paint, Ancart’s compositions have long drawn on the grey areas between addition and subtraction, as if his paintings and sculpture existing in a state where void states are always present, yet somehow, always just beyond comprehension. Past works have seen the artist negotiate between different perceptions of space with masterful skill, creating pieces where the accumulation of paint only draws additional strength from its later removal, or vice versa, ultimately creating complex interactions between time and space, depth and flatness. (more…)

Harmony Hammond, Inappropriate Longings (detail) (1992), via Alexander Gray

Alexander Gray’s exhibition of the work of Harmony Hammond highlights the artist’s work from the 1990’s, mixing together a divergent series of works using wallpaper, linoleum and other decaying materials plucked from a world between the constructed and cosmetic.  Her objects have seen better days, truth be told, eerily reminiscent of slowly rotting farms in the Midwest, or the nefarious forces of Capote’s dark American landscapes.  In Hammond’s hands, the two-dimensionally sculpted debris, peppered with brand names of long-gone industrial companies, invoke a yearning for something other than what we experience: the passage of time, the sense of a specific battered place, vague violence, foul weather or foul play. (more…)