After the usual holiday and mid-winter lull, the auction market kicks back into gear in early February with a swing of Contemporary Art sales in London. Phillips gets us started with Evening and Day sales generally thin on top end photographic material; a recent Gursky ocean image will quantify the short term turn around arbitrage from gallery to auction (if any). Overall, there are 30 photography lots available in these sales, with a Total High Estimate of £1229000.
Here’s the statistical breakdown:
| Preview Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000) | 0 |
| Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of low lots) | £0 |
| Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000) | 17 |
| Total Mid Estimate | £239000 |
| Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000) | 13 |
| Total High Estimate | £990000 |
The top lot by High estimate is lot 9, Andreas Gursky, Ocean IV, 2010, estimated at £300000-500000.
Here’s the very short list of photographers with more than one lot in the sales, along with the number of lots on offer:
| Multiple Lots For Sale | |
|---|---|
| Vik Muniz | 3 |
| Walead Beshty | 2 |
Other lots of interest include lot 125, Sam Falls, Untitled (PP10), 2011, estimated at £5000-7000 (image above, right), lot 167, Cory Arcangel, Photoshop CS: 84×66 inches. 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient “Blue, Red, Yellow”, mousedow…, 2011, estimated at £20000-30000 (image above, left) and lot 210, Ed Templeton, Untitled, 1996-2005, estimated at £10000-15000 (image above, middle, all via Phillips.)
The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).
I would say that there are 2 Falls photographs in this auction. The one cited and the Val Verde.
The Val Verde piece Craig refers to is one of Falls’ cotton/dye works, where sunlight creates patterns on the cloth. Including this or not depends on where we draw the fuzzy definitional boundary of “photography”.