Just as the art market withstood the trauma of the September
11 attacks and the economic plunge of 2008, so did the purchasing of
high-priced paintings prevail at Sotheby’s on Wednesday during the first live contemporary auction since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
اضافة اعلان
Somehow, whatever crises convulse the world, the wealthy
continue to buy art.
In a deliberately sparse salesroom in Manhattan, with
auction specialists beamed in from London and Hong Kong on screens, business
was strong at Sotheby’s, which raised a total of $218.3 million from 32 lots.
Christie’s raised $210.5 million Tuesday evening from 37 lots in a fully
virtual sale.
Oliver Barker, a Sotheby’s auctioneer, seemed palpably
energized by the return to a live sale and the new format, at one point
pronouncing the market “back in fine form.”
The only clue that the world had changed over the past year
was that the focus seemed to have shifted from the usual blue-chip art market
darlings to artists of color, several of whom — Jordan Casteel, Mickalene
Thomas and Rashid Johnson — set high prices for their works at auction.
Among the lots that generated particular bidding excitement
was Robert Colescott’s take on Washington crossing the Delaware, placing
George Washington Carver in command. It was purchased for $15.32 million, with fees,
by the
Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, whose opening has been
delayed until 2023.
“This is such an essential work for our collection — it has
not been out there in the public sphere,” Sandra Jackson-Dumont, the director
and chief executive of the museum, said in a telephone interview after the
sale. “This work is a significant part of the history of artists doing
narrative work. It’s at once contemporary and historical.”
Also noteworthy was the competitive bidding for Salman
Toor’s 2019 painting “The Arrival,” which was recently on view in the artist’s
solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It sold for $867,000,
more than 10 times its estimate.
Other lots proved lackluster, like Jeff Koons’
phantasmagoric painting “Pancakes,” from 2001, which sold for $867,000 with
fees, under the $1 million low estimate. However, his kaleidoscopic “Quad
Elvis,” from 2008, in the same sale, sold for $9.5 million, exceeding the $6
million high estimate.
The anticipation was highest for the market’s blockbuster
Black artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who had delivered at Christie’s with a
skull painting that brought $93.1 million — the second-highest price ever paid
for the artist’s work at auction. But expectations for Basquiat fell short at
Sotheby’s when the artist’s “Versus Medici” sold for $50.8 million, squeaking
over the high estimate rather than going well beyond it.
To some extent, Wednesday’s sale represented a test of the
hybrid auction experience, with a new salesroom created by
Broadway set
designer David Korins and about 50 New York residents as a champagne-sipping
live studio audience, although most attendees tuned in via livestream.
“It’s like the NBC studio in there,” said Betsy Orchard, an
art collector who was present. “It feels safe here, and there’s a lot of
momentum in the air for bidding.”
But from their blue velvet lounge chairs, only a few
collectors raised their paddles to bid. The majority of the action happened
over telephones and internet portals, signaling that the digitization of the
art market could continue beyond this moment of global crisis.
And in many cases, works by newcomers brought the most
bidding activity. Asian collectors, for example, were particularly interested
in artists who are less frequently featured on the auction block, purchasing
works by artists of color including Nina Chanel Abney and Lynette Yiadom-Boayke
at Christie’s.
“There seems to be an incredible energy for a new generation
of artists that are looking at issues of our time, such as race, gender and
sexuality,” said Abigail Asher, an art adviser, who saw the bidding as partly a
response to current events like the Black Lives Matter movement. “There is a
dynamism both in the art that they are creating and the prices they are
achieving.”
In addition, Banksy’s “Love Is in the Air” sold for $12.9
million over a high estimate of $5 million, the first work at auction for which
Sotheby’s accepted cryptocurrency.
By contrast, the energy seemed to drain from the rooms when
it came to the more conventional contemporary market stars. At Christie’s, for
example, paintings by Gerhard Richter, Christopher Wool and Richard Prince sold
to their backers without any competition.
Strong bidding from collectors across the globe also helped
reinforce the idea that auction houses’ embracing of online sales, which
started during the pandemic, might finally be paying off after a year in which
global auction sales declined 26 percent.
Still, some industry experts warned that the auction houses
were hedging their bets this week with relatively few offerings compared with
years past, estimates below primary-market prices and a high proportion of guarantees
ensuring that lots would sell. More than 40 percent of lots in Tuesday’s sale
at Christie’s had such assurances.
“The guarantees are not great for the auction houses’
margins,” said Natasha Degen, chairwoman of art market studies at the Fashion
Institute of Technology. “And the relatively small number of lots will also
limit the sales’ profitability.”
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