Moveable Feast: Fresh Produce and the NYC Green Cart Program @MCNY

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing 112 black and white and color images from 5 different contemporary photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung in the entry and main divided gallery space on the first floor. An introductory room containing 19 vintage works from 12 different photographers/artists begins the exhibit and provides some historical context. The new work was commissioned by the NYC Green Cart Program, the Aperture Foundation, and the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. Newspaper style brochures of the work of each of the 5 main photographers are available for free in the galleries; these are high qaulity and worth taking. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers are included in the main exhibit, with the number of images on view and details in parentheses:

LaToya Ruby Frazier (6 archival pigment prints, 10 gelatin silver prints, 2009/2010)

Thomas Holton (19 chromogenic prints, 2009/2010)

Shen Wei (8 archival pigment prints, 2010)

Gabriele Stabile (48 chromogenic prints, 1 journal, 2010)

Will Steacy (21 archival pigment prints, 2010)

The introductory room contains vintage material from the following photographers, with the number of images on view and dates in parentheses:

Berenice Abbott (2, 1936/1938)

John Albok (1, 1935)

Byron Company (3, 1899/1900)

Nicolino Calyo (3 watercolors)

Ronald Dubin (1, 1947)

Alta Ruth Hahn (2, 1935)

Susan Lorkidkatz (1, 1978)

Edward Martin (2, 1997/1998)

Roy Perry (1, 1940)

Jacob Riis (1, 1895)

Anne Shanks (1, 1955)

Dan Weiner (1, 1951)

Comments/Context: On the surface, the idea of commissioning five contemporary photographers to take pictures of the sidewalk produce carts in New York city might seem like a project doomed to obscurity, mostly by its inherent narrowness – how many different ways are there, really, to make images of fruit and vegetable vendors? What is astonishing about this show is just how varied the approaches ended up being, and how compelling these stories actually are, especially when seen together as facets of the same whole.

Of the five bodies of work on view, I found Will Steacy’s photographs to be the most haunting, even though there isn’t a single produce cart in any of his images. Steacy took the unorthodox approach of making pictures of the environment in which the green carts reside, picking a single location in the Bronx, and then documenting the food options within a roughly 10 block radius of the cart. The result is a contextual map of the neighborhood, with a parade of dismal fast food, from pizza to burgers, deli sandwiches to Mexican, all cheap and easily accessible, and often discarded on the sidewalk. It’s a powerful, sometimes ugly, portrait of the problem the green carts are trying to solve.

Shen Wei also came at the green cart commission from an unexpected angle. His images are elegant still lifes of the food that came from the carts, laid out in pure light on white tablecloths (almost with a nod to Laura Letinsky). The effect is simple and quiet, where watermelons and bananas become sculptural, often still adorned by stickers or packing boxes.

Gabriele Stabile and Thomas Holton looked beyond the carts to the customers and vendors themselves. Both got to know the people involved, tracking them to their homes, seeing how their lives have been impacted by the buying and selling of fresh produce. Stabile’s images are full of family meals, where shopping and cooking are preludes and processes. Holton spent his time with two Bangladeshi vendors, following their struggles both at the cart and beyond.

LaToya Ruby Frazier’s images are more like traditional street photography than the work of any of the others. They capture the juxtaposition and connection of opposites and the mixing of different kinds of people on the city’s sidewalks, catching patrons with a handful of fruit or vendors standing idly waiting for the next sale.

Taken together, these different approaches create a surprisingly robust and multi-layered picture of the impact of these carts. This exhibit is far more nuanced and engaging than you would ever expect, finding subtleties of influence that spread out from the food to a wide range of lives and communities. The photography is consistently well executed, and the overall message is effective: while the battle may be uphill and the existing environment often hostile to their arrival, these produce carts really do work, in all kinds of less than obvious ways.

Collector’s POV: As this is a museum exhibit, there are no prices for these prints. The five main photographers in this show are represented by the following New York galleries:

LaToya Ruby Frazier: Higher Pictures (here)
Thomas Holton: Sasha Wolf Gallery (here)
Shen Wei: Daniel Cooney Fine Art (here)
Gabriele Stabile: unknown
Will Steacy: Michael Mazzeo Gallery (here)

In general, their work has not found its way into the secondary markets much (if at all), so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

Review: New Yorker (here)
LaToya Ruby Frazier artist site (here)
Thomas Holton artist site (here)
Shen Wei artist site (here)
Gabriele Stabile artist site (here)
Will Steacy artist site (here)

Moveable Feast: Fresh Produce and the NYC Green Cart Program

Through July 10th

Museum of the City of New York

1220 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10029

Auction Previews: Photography and Contemporary Art, May 30 and June 1, 2011 @Lempertz

Kunsthaus Lempertz has both a various owner Photography sale and a Contemporary Art sale (that includes a handful of photography lots) coming up in Cologne next week. As usual, it’s the typical mix of generally lower priced European material we’ve come to expect. Overall, there are a total of 214 lots of photography on offer across the two sales, with a Total High Estimate of 540550€.
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Here’s the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 204
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 315550€

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 7
Total Mid Estimate: 105000€

Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 3
Total High Estimate: 120000€

The top lot by High estimate is tied between three lots. Two of the lots are groups of 4 winding tower prints by Bernd and Hilla Becher (each individual image titled by location): lot 508 from 1974-1978, and lot 509 from 1966-1968. The third is lot 590, Andreas Gursky, Furkapass, 1989. Each of the lots is estimated at 30000-40000€.

Here’s the list of photographers who are represented by four or more lots in the two sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Albert Renger-Patzsch (7)
Umbo (5)
Lucia Moholy (4)
August Sander (4)
Toni Schneiders (4)
Jock Sturges (4)

(Lot 38, Umbo, Unheimliche Strasse, 1928/1975, at 2500€, at right, top, lot 42, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Gemeiner Lowenzahn. Samenstand, 1925-1929, at 3000-4000€, at right, bottom, and lot 193, Tatsumi Orimoto, Untitled from Tire Tube Communication: Mama and Neighbours, 1996, at 1500€, at right, middle, all via Lempertz.)

The complete lot by lot online catalogs can be found here (Photography) and here (Contemporary Art).

Photography
May 30th

Contemporary Art
June 1st

Kunsthaus Lempertz
Neumarkt 3
D-50667 Köln

Auction Preview: Oeuvres de Pierre et Gilles, May 30, 2011 @Christie’s Paris

Coming up next week, Christie’s has scheduled a single owner, single artist collection sale at its Paris location, bringing to market a selection of unique works by the French pair of Pierre et Gilles. This group of works is entirely made up of male nudes and male portraits, all in the lavish, fairytale, overpainted style which is their hallmark. Recent images by Pierre and Gilles to enter the secondary markets have performed well, with prices ranging between $10000 and nearly $200000; given their scarcity, I imagine these images will find buyers with ease. Overall, there are a total of 23 lots up for sale, with a Total High Estimate of 728000€.

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 0
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): NA

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 16
Total Mid Estimate: 373000€

Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 7
Total High Estimate: 355000€

The top lot by High estimate is lot 23, Pierre et Gilles, David et Jonathan – Jean-Yves et Moussa, 2005, at 35000-55000€.

(Lot 10, Pierre et Gilles, Gai Paris – Jean-Paul et Andreas, 1988, at 30000-50000€, image at right, top, and lot 6, Pierre et Gilles, Le footballeur blesse – Frederic Lenfant, 1998, at 20000-30000€, image at right, bottom, both via Christie’s.)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The eCatalogue is located here.

Oeuvres de Pierre et Gilles provenant d’une Collection privee
May 30th

Christie’s
9 Avenue Matignon
75008 Paris

Barry Frydlender, Travelogue in Pictures @Meislin

JTF (just the facts): A total of 7 large scale color images, framed in blond wood and not matted, and hung in the main gallery space (with a dividing wall) and the back alcove. All of the works are chromogenic color prints, ranging in size from 39×93 to 47×112. The works were made between 2010 and 2011, and have been printed in editions of 5. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: With the proliferation of powerful digital tools, it seems like the composite panorama has become a photographic subgenre all its own. Starting with fragments from hundreds of individual images, a photographer then stitches these pieces into a single large tableaux, often with multiple stories occurring simultaneously. The result is a hyper-real instant, where detail is crisp from edge to edge, and where the documentary reality is subtly transformed into an interpretive scene.

Barry Frydlender has been assembling large scale photographic scenes for many years now, so his craft has reached a point where the illusion is pretty well seamless: time seems to stand still while multiple stories play out in different portions of the composition. From Paris to Tel Aviv and from London to Los Angeles, broad panoramas capture inadvertent juxtapositions and relationships of people, all intertwined in the clustered bustle of the city. And while the viewer can stand and unpack the separate narratives all in one place, I think we’ve now reached a place where this kind of master digital construction isn’t enough anymore in and of itself.

What I found most interesting (and in some cases perplexing) in many of Frydlender’s images is that he has quietly inserted a sense of upending time warp, where individual subjects can often be seen more than once in the large span of the image. This doppelganger effect is easy to miss if you don’t look closely, but once you see it, it transforms the scenes from quasi-documentary stills into something altogether more original and radical. Time has been collapsed, and the single image now represents a more cinematic place, where individuals seem to traverse the surface of the image as they jump from one instance of themselves to the next. This technique unfreezes the fabricated moment and instead creates fluid motion, where past and present are interlinked.

For me, this idea of time-based seriality inside the framework of a single static image is quite exciting, as it updates the concept of the multiple exposure for the digital age; it also changes the nature of the traditional photographic narrative. This seems like fertile ground for unexpected ways of thinking, and I hope Frydlender will take this straightforward thought and expand it in new and challenging directions.

Collector’s POV: All of the images in the show are priced at $75000 each, regardless of variations in size. Frydlender’s work has very little secondary market history, with just a few lots coming up for sale in the past few years; prices have ranged between roughly $50000 and $70000. Given such sparse auction activity, gallery retail is likey the best option for interested collectors at this point.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

Review: Wall Street Journal (here)
Exhibit: MoMA, 2007 (here)

Barry Frydlender, Travelogue in Pictures
Through June 18th

Andrea Meislin Gallery
526 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

Auction Preview: Photographies Modernes et Contemporaines, May 27, 2011 @Yann Le Mouel

Yann Le Mouel continues the Paris auction season for photographs later this week with its various owner sale. As usual, the material is heavily French/European and almost all at the lower end of the price range. Andre Villers is the total lot leader, helped by a selection of whimsical painted cutouts holding Rolleiflex cameras. Overall, there are a total of 342 lots on offer, with a Total High Estimate of 744200€.
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Here’s the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 332
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 592200€

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 10
Total Mid Estimate: 152000€

Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 0
Total High Estimate: NA

The top lot by High estimate is lot 32, Jaromir Funke, Composition a la bouteille, 1925, at 20000-30000€. (Image at right, top, via Yann Le Mouel.)

Here is a short list of the photographers who are represented by five or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Andre Villers (35)
Robert Doisneau (11)
Brassai 10
Man Ray 10
Edouard Boubat (9)
Andre Kertesz (7)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (5)
Lucien Clergue (5)
Izis (5)
Francois Kollar (5)
Nicolas Yantchevsky (5)
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(Lot 139, Walker Evans, House with Cast Iron Grill Work, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1936, at 10000-15000€. Image at right, bottom, via Yann Le Mouel.)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographies Modernes et Contemporaines
May 27th
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Yann Le Mouel
22, Rue Chauchat
75009 Paris

John Divola, Trees for the Forest @Wallspace

JTF (just the facts): A total of 26 black and white and color photographs, variously framed and matted, and hung in the main gallery space, the smaller back room, and the office area. The show contains work from 1971 to 2008. (Installation shots at right.)

The following series and projects are represented in the exhibit, with numbers of images and details in parentheses:

San Fernando Valley (6 images, vintage gelatin silver prints, each 6×9, 1971-1973)
Vandalism (5 images, vintage gelatin silver prints, each 7×7, 1974)
Zuma (5 images, archival pigment prints on rag paper, each 21×26, in editions of 10, 1977/2006)
As Far As I Could Get, Running (3 images, archival pigment prints on rag paper, each 60×40, in editions of 3, 1996)
Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert (1 set of 4 images, gelatin silver prints, each 16×23, in editions of 3, 1996-2001)
Abandoned Painting (1 image, archival pigment print on rag paper, 40×50, edition of 3, 2007)
Dark Star (2 images, archival pigment prints on rag paper, each 40×50, in editions of 3, 2008)

Comments/Context: This strong show gathers together a sampling of work by John Divola covering nearly forty years, mixing some of his well known projects from the 1970s with several more recent efforts. Surprisingly, this exhibit isn’t a mini-retrospective exactly; instead it explores a pair of important conceptual forms, with high quality, back and forth examples from across Divola’s long career.

The first framework is a classic from the world of California conceptual photography: the quirky, unexpected series. Spin back to the early 1970s and you’ll see Divola’s black and white deadpan documentary images of women watering their lawns with hoses, complete with a splash of irony and oddity simmering underneath the surface. Fast forward a few decades, and the series form has now become now a grid of threatening black blurs, which turn out to be dogs chasing Divola’s car as he travels across the desert. Even better are the images taken with a time delayed shutter, where Divola runs directly away from the camera until his ten second head start expires. The settings vary from woodland paths to deserted roads, but the centered framing and arrow-straight vanishing point remain the same. These works are at once warm and slightly ridiculous, with a strong, thought-provoking questioning of how time operates in photography. This body of work was also assembled into an intimate hand sized artist’s book which I came across a year or two ago; it’s a spectacular little gem worth looking out for.

The second framework explores the idea of manipulated environments, where the artist has deliberately intervened and altered the particular site, adding a layer of performance and sculpture to photography. Back in the 1970s, Divola used patterns of spray paint and piles of construction debris to modify and stage abandoned houses, creating chaotic scenes almost like installations. His Vandalism series explored these spaces in crisp black and white tonalities, while his now-famous Zuma series captured them in vibrant, saturated color. Even today, both have a sense of energy and riskiness (almost latent horror) that keeps them fresh. Divola has reprised this approach with his contemporary Dark Star series, where he has painted glossy black circles in empty houses, photographing them from different distances and in different light conditions, the blackness becoming alternately absorbent and reflective. These works play with geometries, but also have a symbolic sense of ominous foreboding.

Together, these various projects show Divola to have been remarkably consistent over the years, even when using disparate methods and visual vocabularies. Every series on display has strong conceptual underpinnings, each idea embodied in striking and memorable images. While Divola’s work may not be underrated, I do think that it surely deserves more attention than it generally gets. As such, this show should be a potent reminder for those New Yorkers who may have overlooked or forgotten his many talents.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows, based on the series or project:

San Fernando Valley: $10200 each or NFS
Vandalism: $8200 each

Zuma: $4400 each

As Far As I Could Get, Running: $10200 each

Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert: set of 4 $10000

Abandoned Painting: $10000

Dark Star: $9000 each

Divola’s work has only been intermittently available at auction in recent years. Prices have generally ranged between $1000 and $10000, but these few data points may not be particularly representative of the market for his work.

Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

Artist site (here)
Review: NY Times (here), LA Times, 2009 (here)

John Divola, Trees for the Forest
Through June 18th

Wallspace
619 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction Preview: Photographie, May 26, 2011 @Villa Grisebach

Villa Grisebach has its various owner photographs sale in Berlin later this week, with a typical selection of European material (both vintage and contemporary) on offer. Overall, there are a total of 190 lots available in this sale, with a Total High Estimate of 673500€.

Here’s the statistical breakdown:
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Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 176
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 442500€

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 14
Total Mid Estimate: 231000€

Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 0
Total High Estimate: NA

The top lot by High estimate is lot 1409, Oskar Schlemmer/Kurt Bryner, Zwei Alben mit Photographien der familie Schlemmer und Freunden, 1937-1940, at 25000-30000€.

Here is the list of the photographers who are represented by three or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Helmar Lerski (8)
Thomas Ruff (4)
Thomas Struth (4)
Herbert Tobias (4)
Aenne Biermann (3)
Ilse Bing (3)
Robert Doisneau (3)
Gisele Freund (3)
Hosrt P. Horst (3)
Germaine Krull (3)
Arnold Newman (3)
Martin Parr (3)
Leni Riefenstahl (3)
Michael Ruetz (3)
Stephen Shore (3)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (3)
Paul Wolff (3)

(Lot 1364, Germaine Krull, Tour d’Eiffel, Paris, 1928, at 3000-4000€, image at right, top, lot 1398 Albert Renger-Patzsch, Zechenturme, Turmforderung (Zeche Grimberg, Bergkamen), 1950, at 2000-3000€, image at right, bottom, and Lot 1439, Thomas Demand, Wurstplatte, 1995, at 3000-4000€, at right, middle; all via Villa Grisebach.)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographie
May 26th
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Villa Grisebach Auktionen
Fasanenstraße 25
D-10719 Berlin

Wolfgang Tillmans, Out of the Boxes @Rosen

JTF (just the facts): A total of 60 color photographs, framed in white but not matted, and hung in double rows in the small, single room back gallery. The c-prints are displayed in two sizes: 12×16 or reverse, in editions of 10+AP, and 20×24 or reverse, in editions of 3+AP. There are 23 images in the medium size and 37 images in the small size in the show. The works were made between 1991 and 2010 and are arranged roughly chronologically. (Installation shots at right.)
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Comments/Context: Given how prolific Wolfgang Tillmans is, it’s not at all surprising that his gallery would have a large number of boxes of his prints in different sizes back in the storage room, in the event a potential collector or client might like to review a selection of works. With this exhibit, the gallery has begun a multi-part series where it will invite an individual curator to look through these boxes of ready prints and to select a group to be displayed in the small single room space near the offices. The show builds on Tillmans’ own idea of a living, growing artistic archive, one that can be remixed and re-edited to generate alternate views. The difference here is that instead of Tillmans carefully doing the choosing and sequencing (as is normally the case), someone else is jumping into the complexity of his work and drawing his or her own conclusions.

This first incarnation was organized by Beatrix Ruf, director of the Kunsthalle Zurich, and takes a subtly formalist approach to Tillmans’ work. Rather than explore groupings of common subject matter or overarching theme, she has opted for a generally chronological plan, where the images are double hung in dense ribbons around the room. In sifting through the boxes, her eye seems to have been attracted by echoes and patterns of form; the show has a sense of forward momentum that draws the viewer around the circle of the space, and visual ideas and motifs are continually repeated and refrained using pairs of images, either hung side by side, or just nearby enough to make sure the doubling effect doesn’t get lost. There are obvious subject matter pairs, like two chairs, two flowers, two furled book pages, or two architectural details, as well as pairs of color (purple shirt followed by purple sky or red shirt followed by red leaves), pairs of form (the moon and a male nude), and pairs of theme (man washing in the Ganges with a man taking a shower). I’m sure that if this show was parsed even more carefully, it would be found to be full of these echoes, puns, and connections.

What these repackaged juxtapositions tell us about Tillmans’s photography that we didn’t already know is less clear; quite a few of the images on view here will be familiar to those that saw his last show at the gallery in 2010 (review here). This selection and arrangement imposes a framework that often focuses the viewer on elements of composition, showing us that Tillmans may have consciously repeated similar ideas across relatively short periods of time, the structures explored serially and then sometimes returned to in modified form again and again. Or perhaps some of these connections were completely unconscious, only visible when seen at the aggregate level across many years.

Rather than pin too much on one intepretation or another or to unnaturally overthink things, I think it is best to see this show as a cleverly selected Tillmans playlist, with hits and rarities in equal measure, and with a conscious set of smart connections to make you think as you shuffle from one image to the next.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The 12×16 prints are $8000 each, while the 20×24 prints are $16000 each. Tillmans’ work is consistently available in the secondary markets, with prices ranging between $2000 and $50000 in recent years.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

Artist site (here)

Wolfgang Tillmans, Out of the Boxes
Through June 11th

Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction Results: Contemporary Art, Parts I and II, May 12 and 13, 2011 @Phillips

Phillips was resoundingly bested by its two larger rivals in terms of photography results in the Spring Contemporary Art season. Only 3 out of the top 9 photo lots in these sales found buyers and the Total Sale Proceeds missed the Low end of the range by a meaningful margin. With Sotheby’s at roughly $10M and Christie’s at roughly $12M for photo proceeds, Phillips tally at $1.5M looks pretty paltry indeed.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 50
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2270000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $3338000
Total Lots Sold: 39
Total Lots Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 22.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1508975
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Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 12
Low Sold: 10
Low Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 16.67%
Total Low Estimate: $86000
Total Low Sold: $100375
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Mid Total Lots: 26
Mid Sold: 23
Mid Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 11.54%
Total Mid Estimate: $652000
Total Mid Sold: $654100
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High Total Lots: 12
High Sold: 6
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 50.00%
Total High Estimate: $2600000
Total High Sold: $754500

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 45, Andreas Gursky, Brasalia Plenarsaal II, 1994, at $500000-700000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sales was lot 43, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #422, 2004, at $350500.

89.74% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 4 surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 246, Vik Muniz, After Yves Klein (Pictures of Color), 2001, at $56250 (image at right, top, via Phillips)
Lot 248, Vik Muniz, Tackle (Pictures of Chocolate), 2001, at $84100
Lot 249, Sharon Core, Various Cakes, 2004 at $27500 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)
Lot 396, Paul McCarthy, Dick & Broom, 1997, at $12500
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Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Part I) and here (Part II).

Phillips De Pury & Company
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening, Morning and Afternoon Sales, May 11 and 12, 2011 @Christie’s

The demand for Cindy Sherman’s work continue to grow by leaps and bounds. All 10 Sherman lots in these sales sold above their estimates, including the image at right which became the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction, at a whopping $3890500. In general, the photography in these sales performed admirably, with a low Buy-In rate (just 10%) and Total Sale Proceeds that topped the high end of the range by more than $3M.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 50
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $6102000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $8696000
Total Lots Sold: 45
Total Lots Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 10.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $11965225
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Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 4
Low Sold: 4
Low Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Low Estimate: $31000
Total Low Sold: $24375

Mid Total Lots: 18
Mid Sold: 16
Mid Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 11.11%
Total Mid Estimate: $605000
Total Mid Sold: $673600

High Total Lots: 28
High Sold: 25
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 10.71%
Total High Estimate: $8060000
Total High Sold: $11267250

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 6, Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 1981, at $1500000-2000000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $3890500. (Image at right, top, via Christie’s.)

95.56% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were only 2 surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
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Lot 377, Cindy Sherman, Untitled (Bus Rider Series), 1976/2000, at $206500 (image at right, bottom, via Christie’s)
Lot 448, Vik Muniz, Flag, after Jasper Johns (Pictures of Pigment), 2007, at $120100 (image at right, middle, via Christie’s)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening), here (Morning) and here (Afternoon).

Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, May 10 and 11, 2011 @Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s took a risk by placing so much photographic value on offer in its Contemporary Art sales last week, and for the most part, pulled it off. The Total Sale Proceeds topped $9.5M, near the top end of the pre-sale range. 9 out of 10 of the top lots found buyers, including both top end Gursky prints, one of which crossed the $2M mark. While there weren’t many surprises, to source and move this much merchandise was an amazing achievement in and of itself.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 58
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $7131000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $10114000
Total Lots Sold: 44
Total Lots Bought In: 14
Buy In %: 24.14%
Total Sale Proceeds: $9599625
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Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 0
Low Sold: NA
Low Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total Low Estimate: $0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 25
Mid Sold: 20
Mid Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 20.00%
Total Mid Estimate: $744000
Total Mid Sold: $658125
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High Total Lots: 33
High Sold: 24
High Bought In: 9
Buy In %: 27.27%
Total High Estimate: $9370000
Total High Sold: $8941500
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The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 9, Andreas Gursky, Rhein I, 1996, at $1000000-1500000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $2098500.
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95.45% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 2 surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 582, Vik Muniz, Dora Maar, After Picasso (Pictures of Pigment), 2007, at $170500 (image at right, top, via Sotheby’s)
Lot 592, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #75, 1980, at $122500

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Sotheby’s
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Auction Results: Photographs, May 10, 2011 @Bonhams

In terms of generating solid results in an auction, there’s nothing like selling 24 out of the top 25 lots you have available. Bonhams did just that in its recent Photographs sale in New York, led by a long string of Sugimoto prints that all found buyers. Overall, the Buy-In rate was nicely below 20% and the Total Sale Proceeds bumped up against the High end of the range.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 170
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $871000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $1283600
Total Lots Sold: 140
Total Lots Bought In: 30
Buy In %: 17.65%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1204018
.

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 139
Low Sold: 111
Low Bought In: 28
Buy In %: 20.14%
Total Low Estimate: $673600
Total Low Sold: $536068

Mid Total Lots: 31
Mid Sold: 29
Mid Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 6.45%
Total Mid Estimate: $610000
Total Mid Sold: $667950

High Total Lots: 0
High Sold: NA
High Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total High Estimate: $0
Total High Sold: NA

The top lot by High estimate was tied between two lots: lot 122, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Colors of Shadow C1018, 2006, and lot 123, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Colors of Shadow C1027, 2006, both at $30000-50000; lot 122 sold for $30500 and lot 123 sold for $24400. The top outcome of the sale was lot 101, Irving Penn, Alfred Hitchcock, New York, May 23, 1947/1955, at $54900.

75.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 4 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 70, Lucien Clergue, Picasso a la Cigarette a la Californie, Cannes, 1956/1977, at $6710
Lot 93, Flor Garduno, Basket of Light, Sumpango, Guatelmala, 1989/1993, at $4270 (image at right, bottom, via Bonhams)
Lot 101, Irving Penn, Alfred Hitchcock, New York, May 23, 1947/1955, at $54900 (image at right, top, via Bonhams)
Lot 110, Richard Avedon, Humphrey Bogart, Actor, New York, 1953/1970, at $30500 (image at right, middle, via Bonhams)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Bonhams
580 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022

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