Auction Results: Photographies, November 19, 2010 @Sotheby’s Paris

When the top four Edward Weston nudes all failed to sell at the beginning of the recent Photographs sale at Sotheby’s in Paris, it probably looked like it was going to be a tough outing. Luckily Josef Sudek rode to the rescue, with all 7 Sudek lots on offer selling above their estimate ranges, a couple of the pigment prints jumping by more than 10X the pre-sale estimates. Needless to say, a new auction record was set for Sudek, and another was set for Manuel Alvarez Bravo. All in, these surprises (and others) helped to cover up the failure of the high priced Westons, and to bring the Total Sale Proceeds into the middle of the range.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 152
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: 2286800€
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: 3228300€
Total Lots Sold: 101
Total Lots Bought In: 51
Buy In %: 33.55%
Total Sale Proceeds: 2704587€
.
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):
Low Total Lots: 39
Low Sold: 28
Low Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 28.21%
Total Low Estimate: 223300€
Total Low Sold: 243437€
Mid Total Lots: 98
Mid Sold: 64
Mid Bought In: 34
Buy In %: 34.69%
Total Mid Estimate: 1605000€
Total Mid Sold: 1589200€
High Total Lots: 15
High Sold: 9
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 40.00%
Total High Estimate: 1400000€
Total High Sold: 871950€
.
The top lot by High estimate was lot 41, Edward Weston, Nu (Anita Brenner), 1925, at 150000-200000€; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 89, Josef Sudek, Sans Titre (Etude de Nature-Morte), 1952, at 300750€, against an estimate of 18000-23000€.
86.14 % of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 16 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 11, Eugene Atget, Notre Dame, 1923, at 168750€
Lot 26, Edward Weston, Galvan Shooting, 1924, at 51150€
Lot 55, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Retrato de la Eterna, Mexico, 1935, at 228750€ (image at right, middle, via Sotheby’s)
Lot 68, Heinz Hajek–Halke, Erotik – Ganz Gross! (Erotisme Monumental!), 1928-1932, at 34350€
Lot 74, Heinz Hajek–Halke, Umarmung (Etreinte), 1947-1951, at 17500€
Lot 75, Heinz Hajek–Halke, Musik im Ather (Musique des Ondes), 1947-1950, at 17500€
Lot 83, Josef Sudek, Dans L’Atelier, Etude de Nu, c1952, at 22350€
Lot 85, Josef Sudek, Le Quai Ales, Panorama de Prague, c1955, at 42750€
Lot 86, Josef Sudek, Last Roses (Window of My Studio), 1956/1958, at 48750€
Lot 87, Josef Sudek, Arbre, Vue de L’Ile de Strelecky, 1958, at 39150€
Lot 88, Josef Sudek, Sans Titre (Vase et Rose Morte), 1952, at 228750€ (image at right, bottom, via Sotheby’s)
Lot 89, Josef Sudek, Sans Titre (Etude de Nature-Morte), 1952, at 300750€
Lot 92, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rue Mouffetard, 1954/Later, at 18750€
Lot 126, Russell James, Gisele, Virgin Gorda, 2004, at 16250€
Lot 131, Balthasar Burkhard, Le Zebre, c2000, at 12500€
Lot 135, Marina Abramovic, Balkan Baroque, 1997/1998, at 30750€

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.
76, Rue Du Faubourg Saint-Honoré
75008 Paris

Auction Results: Avedon: Photographies provenant de la Fondation Richard Avedon, November 20, 2010 @Christie’s Paris

The depth of the demand for the work of Richard Avedon proved to be staggeringly deep at Christie’s in Paris last week. It was a white glove outcome (every lot sold), with the Total Sale Proceeds clearing the Total High Estimate by more than 2000000€. An amazing 86.15% of the lots sold above their estimate range. However you slice it, it was a thoroughly impressive result.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 65
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: 2271000€
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: 3395000€
Total Lots Sold: 65
Total Lots Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: 5467250€
.
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):
Low Total Lots: 6
Low Sold: 6
Low Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Low Estimate: 35000€
Total Low Sold: 72500€
Mid Total Lots: 40
Mid Sold: 0
Mid Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Mid Estimate: 880000€
Total Mid Sold: 1820150€
High Total Lots: 19
High Sold: 19
High Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total High Estimate: 2480000€
Total High Sold: 3574600€
The top lot by High estimate was lot 16, Richard Avedon, Dovima with elephants, Evening dress by Dior, Cirque D’Hiver, Paris, August 1955, 1955/1978, at 400000-600000€; it was also the top outcome of the sale (and a new auction record for Avedon) at 841000€. The next highest lot was lot 11, Richard Avedon, The Beatles Portfolio, London, England, 8-11-67, 1967/1990, at 250000-350000€; it sold for 445000€.
98.46% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate. There were a total of 18 surprises in the sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 3, Richard Avedon, Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, Dress by Dior, Place de la Concorde, Paris, August 1956, 1956/2002, at 217000€ (image at right, middle, via Christie’s)
Lot 23, Richard Avedon, Alberto Giacometti, sculptor, Paris, 3-6-58, 1958/1980, at 20000€
Lot 28, Richard Avedon, Pablo Picasso, April, 1958, 1958/1959, at 97000€
Lot 29, Richard Avedon, William Casby, born in slavery, Algiers, Louisiana, 3-24-63, 1963, at 56200€
Lot 33, Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol and Group, October 1969, 1969, at 301000€
Lot 34, Richard Avedon, Rudolph Nureyev, dancer, New York City, 5-31-67, 1967/1980, at $41800
Lot 35, Richard Avedon, Rudolph Nureyev, Paris, France, July 25, 1961, 1961/1999, at 39400€
Lot 45, Richard Avedon, Lauren Hutton, Great Exuma, the Bahamas, October 1968, 1968/1978, at 67000€
Lot 51, Richard Avedon, Samuel Beckett, Paris, France, April 13, 1979, 1979, at 92200€
Lot 55, Richard Avedon, John Ford, director, Bel Air, California, 4-11-72, 1972/1975, at 39400€
Lot 56, Richard Avedon, Chet Baker, singer, New York City, January 16, 1986, 1986/2002, at 39400€
Lot 58, Richard Avedon, Audrey Hepburn and Art Buchwald with Simone, Barbara Mullen, Frederick Eberstadt, and Dr. Reginald Kernan, Evening dresses by Balmain, Dior, Patou, Maxim’s, Paris, August, 1959, 1959/1997, at 73000€
Lot 59, Richard Avedon, Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, Evening Dress by Gres, Moulin Rouge, Paris, August 1957, 1957/1977, at 70600€
Lot 61, Richard Avedon, Malgosia Bela and Gisele Bundchen, Dresses by Dior Couture, New York City, March 13, 2000, 2000/2001, at 67000€ (image at right, bottom, via Christie’s)
Lot 62, Richard Avedon, Malgosia Bela, Body Jewel by Tom Binns, New York City, March 13, 2000, 2000/2001, at 49000€
Lot 63, Richard Avedon, Made in France, 2001, at 8750€
Lot 64, Richard Avedon, Richard Avedon: Portraits, 2002, at $16250
Lot 65, Richard Avedon, Richard Avedon, self-portrait, New York City, c1963, 1963/1993, at 103000€ (image at right, top, via Christie’s)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

9 Avenue Matignon
75008 Paris

Auction Preview: Photographs, November 26, 2010 @Christie’s King Street

Christie’s has a lower end King Street sale of Photographs scheduled for later this week in London. It’s a mixed bag various owner auction, dominated by works from the collections of Norman Hall and New York gallerist James Danziger. Overall, there are 159 photography lots on offer, with a Total High Estimate of £1141800.

Here’s the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 105
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £320800

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 47
Total Mid Estimate: £506000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 7
Total High Estimate: £315000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 51, Irving Penn, Picasso (B), Cannes, 1957/Later, at £60000-80000.
.
Here is the list of photographers who are represented by five or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Irving Penn (10)
Robert Doisneau (6)
Horst P. Horst (6)
Jeanloup Sieff (6)
Edouard Boubat (5)

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

(Images at right: lot 145, Irving Penn, Red Apples, New York, 1985/1995, at £25000-35000, top, and lot 91, Frank Horvat, Givenchy Hat, Jardin des Modes, Paris, 1957/Later, at £8000-10000, bottom, via Christie’s.)

Photographs
November 26th

Christie’s
8 King Street, St. James’s
London SW1Y 6QT

Leon Levinstein, Living in the Edge @Howard Greenberg

JTF (just the facts): A total of 56 black and white photographs, alternately framed in black or silver and matted, and hung in groups against light brown walls in the main gallery space and the book alcove. All of the works are gelatin silver prints, taken between 1952 and 1978. Sizes range from 9×11 to 17×14 or reverse, and no information was provided on image editions. Smaller exhibits of Levinstein’s work from Coney Island (8 images from 1955-1970) and from various foreign locales (7 images from Haiti, Mexico, and Spain, from 1958-1965) can be found in the small area outside Greenberg’s office and in one of the side viewing rooms. 2 portraits of Levinstein by Victor Obsatz and Harvey Shaman are also included in the show. (Marginal installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: This mini-retrospective of Leon Levinstein’s work is a natural gallery companion piece to the recent Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players show at the Met (reviews linked below). It provides a broad sample of his street photography across several decades, and echoes many of the subjects, themes, and visual motifs seen in the museum exhibition.

The show begins with a cross section of peep show and flop house players: go-go girls, hookers and pimps brazenly loitering in doorways, and furtive men hanging around on sidewalks, flanked by bold store window graphics to entice them in. Levinstein’s pictures capture funky threads, short shorts, gritty salesmanship, and the boredom of waiting. A nearby group of pictures follows this fashion trend further, with passersby in foot-high white afros, zoot suits, bold stripes, flared pants, and fancy white shoes.

Many of the images in the show are faces and heads pulled out of the diverse chaos of street crowds, where hats, expressions, cigarettes and folds of skin tell individual city stories. Sometimes the angled compositions crop out the noise, centering full frame on a single face, while other images force the viewer to peer through layers of out-of-focus movement to identify an interesting subject. Levinstein goes on to fragment the action further, abstracting bodies into triangles of elbows and legs, or capturing arms in variety of tender embraces. His city throbs with energy and vitality, full of colorful personalities and fleeting human moments.

All in, this is a solid follow-up offering, unearthing a representative sampler of Levinstein’s work for those collectors that found themselves wowed by the Met exhibit and wanting to learn more.

Collector’s POV: The works in this show are generally priced between $6500 and $15000, with a variety of intermediate prices ($7500, $8000, $9000, and $12000). Levinstein’s prints have been intermittently available at auction in recent years, with prices ranging between $1000 and $9000.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Reviews: New Yorker (here), Wall Street Journal (here, scroll down)
  • Met Exhibit Reviews: DLK COLLECTION (here), NY Times (here), New Yorker (here)

Leon Levinstein, Living in the Edge
Through December 4th

Howard Greenberg Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Lucas Samaras: Poses/Born Actors @Pace

JTF (just the facts): A total of 118 color photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung against grey walls in a winding series of connected spaces. All of the works are pure pigment on paper, each sized 32×18 and printed in editions of 3. The images were made in 2009 and 2010. A catalogue of the exhibition is available from the gallery for $40. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Lucas Samaras has made a career out of transforming portraiture, extending its boundaries in new and unexpected directions. Long before the advent of Photoshop, he was playing with ways to alter reality, from distorted manipulated emulsions to wild colored stage lighting. His newest works continue to upend conventions, taking the standard beauty of the headshot portrait and digitally recasting it as a buoyantly ghoulish riff.
Gathering his subjects from the art world, Samaras has amplified the photographic drama by lighting the faces from below, creating weird shadows and exaggerated highlights. Many of his sitters have agreed to wear glasses, either normally or perched lower on their noses, adding another layer of reflection and refraction, often drawing angled shadows like horns or wings across their faces. While these effects might be enough to add an element of theatrical performance, it is Samaras‘ splashes of outrageous color that create the eye-popping oddities. In otherwise normal black and white images, metallic, opalescent color is selectively introduced, making irises bright yellow or lime green, the edge of a shirt neon blue or hot pink, the shadow under a chin a psychedelic rainbow of heat. Swirling oil slicks of color are poured into neutral backgrounds and shimmering streaks are applied to powerful, wrinkled faces like crazy eye makeup or lipstick. Normal faces become diabolical and demonic, surreal in their hidden malevolence. In one startling distorted portrait, a man’s neon yellow face peels away to reveal another layer underneath, his eyes blue in one layer and green in the next.
Samaras‘ approach has been applied to a parade of famous artists, collectors, curators, writers, gallery owners, and museum trustees, creating a gallery of well known faces, from Jasper Johns, Chuck Close and Cindy Sherman, to Leonard Lauder, Agnes Gund and Glenn Lowry, seen not with perfect respect, but with a tinge of playful malignancy. It’s a thoroughly entertaining approach, for those both known and unknown, as the series of everyday faces becomes something altogether more alien and sinister. The show is certainly one of the most gleefully mischievous exhibits I’ve been to in quite a while, showing once again that Samaras has a nearly endless reserve of ways to undermine traditional portraiture.
Collector’s POV: All of the works in this show are priced at $16000 each. Samaras‘ work has not been widely available in the secondary markets in recent years, with only a few lots coming up for sale here and there. Aside from the recent Polaroid sale, where a new record was set for his work ($194500) and many of his other vintage images sold for five figure prices, Samaras’ work has been relatively affordable, with most lots selling at auction for under $10000.
In my view, these Samaras portraits have the potential to be the next hot commission, the must have of the moment for many collectors. I suppose that for those that take themselves too seriously, there is the potential to hate these pictures. But for others with a more playful sense of humor, a portrait in this freakish style could become an amazingly fun family heirloom.
Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:
  • Reviews/Features: Artinfo (here), Daily Beast (here), Vanity Fair (here), Interview (here), W (here)
534 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art, Evening, Morning, and Afternoon Sales, November 10 and 11, 2010 @Christie’s

It has to feel pretty good for the specialist team when the photography lots in a set of Contemporary Art auctions top their Total High Estimate by nearly $2 million dollars. This is exactly what occurred at the frothy sales at Christie’s last week, when more than 75% of the lots that sold came in above their estimate range. All 4 of the Cindy Sherman lots on offer more than doubled their high estimates, as did all 3 lots from Vik Muniz.

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

Total Lots: 35
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2858000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $4030000
Total Lots Sold: 29
Total Lots Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 17.14%
Total Sale Proceeds: $5926500
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: 17
Mid Sold: 13
Mid Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 23.53%
Total Mid Estimate: $540000
Total Mid Sold: $688500

High Total Lots: 18
High Sold: 16
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 11.11%
Total High Estimate: $3490000
Total High Sold: $5238000

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 58, Cindy Sherman, Untitled (#88), 1981, at $400000-600000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $1426500.
96.55% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 10 surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 58, Cindy Sherman, Untitled (#88), 1981, at $1426500
Lot 101, Man Ray, Le Violon d’Ingres (Kiki of Montparnasse), 1924/Later, at $128500
Lot 395, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still (#32), 1979, at $722500 (image at right, top, via Christie’s)
Lot 398, Louise Lawler, Alligator, 1982, at $92500
Lot 399, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #98, 1982, at $602500 (image at right, middle, via Christie’s)
Lot 422, Vik Muniz, Waterlilies, After Monet (Pictures of Magazines), 2005, at $254500
Lot 423, Doug Aitken, West, 2008, at $326500
Lot 426, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still (#17), 1978, at $218500 (image at right, bottom, via Christie’s)
Lot 455, Vik Muniz, Flag, After Jasper Johns (Pictures of Pigment), 2007, at $134500
Lot 459, Vik Muniz, Still, After Cindy Sherman (Pictures of Ink), 2000, at $56250

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

20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Garry Fabian Miller @Danziger

JTF (just the facts): A total of 15 color photographs, variously framed in black and white frames and unmatted, and hung in the single room gallery space and the display area facing the street. All of the works are unique cibachrome prints, made between 2007 and 2008. There are 13 single images and 2 diptychs; 5 of the images are part of a single group. No dimensions were given. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Garry Fabian Miller’s abstract camera-less photograms are like meditative exercises in color theory. Squares and rectangles in saturated primary colors float on backgrounds of pure black, buzzing with blurred energy at the edges.

I think it would be nearly impossible to see this show and not come up with connections to the disciplined, minimal forms of Josef Albers and Donald Judd. While there are plenty of familiar layered squares and ladders of rectangles, I think the difference lies within the intensity of the light that emanates from Miller’s richly colored prints. These are not flat studies in red versus yellow or blue versus pink; on the contrary, the perfect geometric shapes seem to vibrate, as though filled with electricity. The edges throb as purple and orange intersect and repel each other.
While some of the formal characteristics of these images have echoes in the realms of painting and sculpture, there are likely other tangents to follow (Dan Flavin, James Turrell) that consider the qualities of light itself. Miller has clearly immersed himself in light sensitivity, and in the particular way color is created and captured photographically. I think his work will be best understood not when it is lumped in with other photogram artists across the history of photography (which it often is), but when it is placed within the larger context of hard edged abstraction, regardless of medium.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The group of 5 prints on the first wall is being sold together as a group for $45000. The single images of roughly equivalent size near the reception desk are $9000 each. The largest vertical images are $35000 each, and the diptychs are $17500 as pairs. The medium sized prints in the window are $11500 each. Miller’s work has very little secondary market history. For the handful of lots that have sold at auction in recent years, prices have ranged between $1000 and $12000.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Review: Artinfo (here)
  • Exhibit: Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photograhy @V&A (here)
Through December 23rd

Danziger Projects
534 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, November 9 and 10, 2010 @Sotheby’s

The positive run for contemporary photography continued at Sotheby’s last week, with another set of sales results that topped their Total High Estimate. An Andreas Gursky print crossed the $2 million dollar threshold once again, for the second time this year. With an overall buy-in rate under 18% and more than two thirds of the photo lots that sold selling above their range, it was an excellent outcome all around, even with two out of the top three photo lots failing to find buyers.

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

Total Lots: 39
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2999000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $4351000
Total Lots Sold: 32
Total Lots Bought In: 7
Buy In %: 17.95%
Total Sale Proceeds: $4412875

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: 21
Mid Sold: 18
Mid Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 14.29%
Total Mid Estimate: $641000
Total Mid Sold: $713750

High Total Lots: 18
High Sold: 14
High Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 22.22%
Total High Estimate: $3710000
Total High Sold: $3699125

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 8, Andreas Gursky, Frankfurt, 2007, at $1200000-1800000; it was also the top outcome of the two sales at $2098500. (Image at right, top, via Sotheby’s.)

93.75% 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 417, Marilyn Minter, Twins, 2006, at $74500
Lot 419, Sharon Core, Cakes, 2004, at $80500

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

Sotheby’s
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Collier Schorr, Journals & Notebooks @303

JTF (just the facts): A total of 16 works in a mixture of media, variously framed and matted, and hung in the single room gallery space, which is divided by a three-sided video display area. The show includes 10 photographs (both black and white and color), 2 videos, 1 banner, 1 painting, 1 drawing, and 1 photograph with additional collage elements. The majority of the photographs are archival pigment prints, in editions of 5, made between 2005 and 2008. Physical dimensions of the photographs range between 12×16 and 72×54. The other works were made between 2007 and 2010. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: As you enter the gallery space at 303, a small white banner hangs limply from the cavernous ceiling, stating that “This War Is Over”. What might have been an emphatic, decisive or impassioned shout in a different context comes off as tired and a bit pathetic in this big space, its obvious weariness undermining its own potential power. Maybe the war isn’t really over, whatever the sign says.
.
This unsettling undercurrent pervades all of the work in Collier Schorr’s new show. I can’t remember a show that made me feel as stifled and claustrophobic as this one did. Whether it was the expanse of identical empty seats in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the shelves full of war books and catalogues from the 1972 Olympics, the historian carrying a chair and box strapped to his back (the “weight of history”), or the young girl arranging flowers, there is a palpable sense of being trapped and hemmed in by the past, where nostalgia fights with facts better left behind. Schorr’s floral still lifes, tied together by wires and string, unnaturally suspended in mid-air, seem equally torn between being passive and aggressive.

The most startling piece in the show is a short voyeuristic video of a fragile-looking teenage boy waking up amidst the crowd at the park. As he gazes around, disoriented and trying to get a grip on his surroundings, he looks alternately fearful and stupefied, in a kind of dazed reverie, with his knees pulled up to protect himself. He is confused and uncertain, agitated but also surprisingly deadened. In the context of the rest of the works on display, the boy becomes a symbol of a national identity that has been thrown off balance and is struggling to regain its footing.

While I can’t say I exactly “enjoyed” the strange juxtapositions of this show, it was absolutely successful in both creating a mood and getting me to think more deeply about how traumatic history informs the present. The work delivers its unsettling jolt with subtlety, leaving behind a haunting that isn’t spooky, but more like a chronic ache.
.
Collector’s POV: While there are artworks in a variety of media in this show, I only gathered price information on the photographs. Those prices are generally set by physical size, with the smallest images between $10000 and $15000, the medium sized images at $18000, and the largest images at $24000. Schorr’s photographic work has only recently begun to enter the secondary markets, with prices ranging at auction between $4000 and $10000.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Artist site (here)
  • Yale faculty page (here)
  • Book: Blumen (DLK COLLECTION review here)

Collier Schorr, Journals & Notebooks
Through December 4th

303 Gallery
547 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction Preview: Avedon: Photographies provenant de la Fondation Richard Avedon, November 20, 2010 @Christie’s Paris

With Paris Photo now upon us, Christie’s has scheduled a landmark single photographer sale to take advantage of the crowds of collectors in Paris for the show. The auction contains a selection of works by Richard Avedon, taken directly from the holdings of the estate and with the purpose of establishing an endowment for the Richard Avedon Foundation. The sale mixes fashion photography, celebrity portraits, and other subjects, with a wide variety of the artist’s best known images and portfolios on offer. Overall, there are a total of 65 lots up for sale, with a Total High Estimate of 3395000€. While selling this many images at once will test the depth and strength of the market for Avedon’s work, I think there are better than even odds that the sale will perform extremely well.

Here’s the statistical breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 6
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 35000€
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 40
Total Mid Estimate: 880000€
Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 19
Total High Estimate: 2480000€

The top lot by High estimate is lot 16, Richard Avedon, Dovima with elephants, Evening dress by Dior, Cirque D’Hiver, Paris, August 1955, 1955/1978, at 400000-600000€. (Image at right, top, via Christie’s.) The next highest lot is lot 11, Richard Avedon, The Beatles Portfolio, London, England, 8-11-67, 1967/1990, at 250000-350000€. (Image at right, bottom, via Christie’s.)

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

November 20th
Christie’s
9 Avenue Matignon
75008 Paris

James Casebere, House @Sean Kelly

JTF (just the facts): A total of 20 black and white and color works, variously framed and matted, and hung in the main gallery space, two smaller side rooms, and the office area. The works in the main gallery are large scale digital chromogenic prints mounted to Dibond and framed in black with no mat. There are 6 prints in this room, ranging in size from 70×86 to 70×106, each in editions of 5+2, from 2009/2010. The works in the other spaces are vintage black and white works from earlier in Casebere’s career. 13 of the works are single image gelatin silver prints and 1 is a photo-lithograph diptych. Physical dimensions range from 14×11 to 28×38, and the prints come in multiple edition sizes (7+2, 10+1, 10+2, 24+3, 60). The black and white works were made between 1978 and 1994. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: James Casebere’s new large scale color works are bigger and bolder than ever before. His purpose-built architectural models have now grown to include an entire subdivision of fabricated houses, executed in painstaking, abstracted detail. Displayed in conjunction with a group of earlier, more pared down black and white works, these images show Casebere extending and evolving his artistic approach, adding in additional layers of stylized realism and complexity to tell broader stories.
The new pictures document an imaginary community of homes in Dutchess County, New York, where large multi-story houses painted in pastel colors are clustered closely together over rolling hills. Freshly mown grass stripes the front lawns, while lakes, roads, and specimen trees (in fall colors) separate the landscape. Play structures, above ground pools, satellite dishes, and barbecues dot the backyards. It has the air of a perfect planned community, complete with wind farm on the brow of the hill (clean energy!) and a rainbow overhead.
What makes these photographs successful is their subtle, almost effortless irony. The abstracted nature of the model makes this community a kind of “everywhere”, where the American dream of owning a home has happily come true. But it is this undercurrent of the surreal, the mythical, and the hoped for that smacks head on with the reality of the recent housing bubble and foreclosure crisis, making this cozy little community look entirely insane.
Casebere’s earlier black and white works hung in the adjacent rooms have a more sinister, haunted quality. In these works, Casebere has constructed and photographed a single home or building, highlighting the contrast of bright white materials and shadowy dark lighting. Row houses, tenement buildings, prisons, factories, and even suburban ranch houses (complete with constructed cacti) have become quiet phantoms, with black square windows and simple boxy geometries. These pictures are more elemental and moody, filled with viewer-supplied memories and anxieties.In all of these photographs, Casebere is uncovering our complicated relationships with common places. The new pictures dig into questions of what we think (or remember) we want, what has been built to fulfill our supposed desires, how we feel when we see these dreams come true, and the unreality underneath the surface of that cleaned-up sunny life. His light touch makes the satire earlier to swallow, making the images less overtly critical and all the more thought-provoking.
.

Collector’s POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows. The large color works are generally $70000 each, although one of the images that was included in the Whitney Biennial is marked “price on request”. The older black and white images generally range from $16000 to $30000 based on size (with many intermediate prices), with the smallest image (from a large edition) priced at $1800. Casebere’s work has become consistently available in the secondary markets in recent years, with a handful of lots available every year for almost a decade. Prices at auction have ranged between $1000 and $60000.
.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
.
Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Review: NY Times (here)
  • Interview BOMB (here)
Through December 4th
528 West 29th Street
New York, NY 10001

Auction Results: Carte Blanche and Contemporary Art, Parts I and II, November 8 and 9, 2010 @Phillips

Phillips opened the Fall Contemporary Art season in New York last week with a photographic bang, selling Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #153 for $2770500, a new record for the artist and the highest price achieved for a photograph at auction so far in 2010. A second Sherman more than doubled its high estimate to add fuel to the fire. Add a few more positive surprises, and the Total Sale Proceeds for photography covered the high estimate with room to spare.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 88
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $5344500
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $7804500
Total Lots Sold: 61
Total Lots Bought In: 27
Buy In %: 30.68%
Total Sale Proceeds: $7939875
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):
Low Total Lots: 29
Low Sold: 20
Low Bought In: 9
Buy In %: 31.03%
Total Low Estimate: $194500
Total Low Sold: $164500
Mid Total Lots: 46
Mid Sold: 30
Mid Bought In: 16
Buy In %: 34.78%
Total Mid Estimate: $1100000
Total Mid Sold: $640625
High Total Lots: 13
High Sold: 11
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 15.38%
Total High Estimate: $6510000
Total High Sold: $7134750
The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 14, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #153, 1985, at $2000000-3000000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $2770500. (Image at right, top, via Phillips.)
.
88.52% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 7 surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 17, Thomas Schütte, Old Friends, 1993, at $962500 (image at right, middle, via Phillips)
Lot 19, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #420, 2004, at $1426500
Lot 33, Matthew Day Jackson, The Lower 48, 2006, at $410500
Lot 275, Roe Ethridge, Cove Corners, Wellfleet, MA, 2005, at $20000
Lot 276, Sharon Core, Boston Creams, 2004, at $16250 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)
Lot 445, Dash Snow, Untitled (Why Grow Old), 2007, at $16875
Lot 523, Frank Thiel, Stadt 10/04 (Berlin), 2000, at $35000
Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Carte Blanche), here (Part I) and here (Part II).
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022
and
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011

Sign up for our weekly email newsletter

This field is required.