Armory Show Report: Day 5

NEW YORK—SALES IN THE CITY: FAIR TRANSACTIONS

Less Pricey on the Piers
Canvas works were at a high premium at London’s Victoria Miro, as a riveting and late 1950s portrait by American legend Alice Neel, The Baron’s Aunt, fetched $350,000. On a smaller and decidedly younger scale, Verne Dawson’s spacey oil, Blue Planet from 2005, sold for $25,000; and a large-format oil-on-board figurative work by Chantal Joffe from the same year, Mother and Child III, made $34,000. 2004 Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry proved his mettle with two elaborately glazed and narratively quippy ceramic pots, which sold at £18,000 and £22,000 apiece. "We've done a lot of business,” said the gallery’s James Lindon, “but we tend to take more expensive things to the Basels in Basel and Miami Beach.”

Swell Fair for Swiss Gallery
The action was brisk at Zurich-based Galerie Eva Presenhuber, as an early ink-on-paper, large-scaled work by Ugo Rondinone, No.3 from 1991, sold for $130,000. A sassy new group of 24 C-prints by Doug Aitken, Crystal Corna, taking up an outside wall of the stand, sold for $85,000. Continuing on the hot photography front, Candida Hofer’s 2003 Schloss St. Emmenenam Regensburg XXIV, one of her signature ornate interiors, went for $36,000. Paintings also drew interest as the rather hauntingly surreal Steven Shearer oil on canvas, Larry with Blue Nose, made $19,000.

Time to Pay the Paper
Works on paper sold briskly at New York’s Nolan/Eckman Gallery, including two new untitled India ink on paper drawings by Carroll Dunham at $15,000 apiece, as well as two smaller drawings at $5,500 each.

The Longo and Shaw of It
New York landmark Metro Pictures registered brisk sales including a galactic-themed and jumbo-scaled charcoal on paper Venus from 2006 by Robert Longo for $90,000 and a jaunty and humorous wall-mounted sculpture by Jim Shaw from 1996, executed in wood, foam, plaster and pastel, for $70,000. Metro also sold a cleverly conceived, Constructivist-like sculpture by Whitney Biennial newcomer Yuri Masnyj, This Ship is Listing from 2006, in plaster, painted wood and plexi for $18,000.

Thermovision Mouse
One of the most intriguing–and hi-tech–pieces in the entire show is German artist Stephan Reusse' laser projection of a snuffling, scurrying mouse on the bare wall of the Artcore booth. "People who work in labs with mice have come by and told me how astounding the likeness is," said a gallerist. Reusse took thermovision footage–the same technology used by the military to detect foes in the dark–of a mouse on a staircase and then rendered only the rodent's shifting outline with the green laser, so the projected shape morphs from an abstract quivering blob into an unmistakable, and surprisingly cute and cartoonish, little rodent. Artcore has sold a couple of editions at $15,000 to museums that already have the expensive laser projector necessary for the work. Powerful projectors could beam the mouse great distances, making it seem enormous, the gallerist told us. Artcore plans a Jenny Holzer-size city block projection soon in Toronto, but wasn't at liberty to give details.

Alles Gut at Eigen
Berlin/Leipzig-based Galerie Eigen + Art continued its art-fair spree of German cutting-edge art with the much talked about David Schnell and his eerie 2005 oil-on-canvas landscape, Aussicht, that sold for $54,000. But it wasn’t only the Germans selling as two large-format and photo-based works by Swiss artist Remy Markowitsch, C-prints in plexi and wood frames, On Travel 041 and On Travel 126, sold at approximately $24,000 each. Several standout Chinese ink on paper compositions by the Israeli artist Yehudit Sasportas, identically titled Mechanical Garden and dating from 2004, sold for $7,500 apiece.

Couldn’t Sell Much Moore
L.A.’s Mark Moore Gallery was thrilled with the sales it had at Pulse, with very little available in its booth by early Monday afternoon. Two paintings—glistening close-ups of bacon—by Belgian artist Cindy Wright sold: Baconcube 4 for $13,500 to a trustee of the Brooklyn Museum, to which the painting is promised as a gift; and Baconball for $12,000 to a local buyer who sits on the Guggenheim’s Young Collectors Council. In addition to her “meat” works, the artist, whose handling of paint is flawless, also does portraits (including one that has shown at London’s National Portrait Gallery), and the gallery still had Girl in Pink available for $11,000. The gallery also sold a vaguely apocalyptic painting in orange, Overlap (Version I) for $10,000. And it sold all three editions of Red Indian by Yoram Wolberger for $29,500; the fiberglass sculpture is meant for outside display. Also leaving the gallery was a small, round painting by Todd Hebert for $5,500, and a Simon Willems painting for $7,200.

Sales Orgy
There was a near orgy of sales activity at Paris- and Salzburg-based Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, including Tony Cragg’s bronze sculpture, Wild Relative, dated 2005, from a series of five for $145,000; and Antony Gormley’s iconic cast-iron and untitled standing figure from 2005, also executed in a series of five, for $255,000. That was just scratching the acquisitive surface as other sales ranged from a 2000 painting by Georg Baselitz, Zwilling II, for $220,000; and Alex Katz, due for at least an honorable mention as the most frequently exhibited artist at the Armory, with Michelle, a close-up look in oil on linen from 2005 at $180,000. Yet more versions of the fiberglass mushroom sculptures by the chic Sylvie Fleury sold in two different sizes at $78,000 and $90,000 each.

Pulse Sales in Brief
Ernst Hilger of Vienna sold two of Maria Bussman’s small wall installations. The gallery still has for sale a half-dozen or so of these paper, wire and tempera pieces that depict such scenes as swimming pools, wine gardens and mountain ridges. … Toronto's Nicholas Metivier Gallery sold a Shelley Adler portrait of a pale, angry woman for $3,600. … Frankfurt’s Galerie Anita Beckers had nearly sold out of most of the photographs (in editions of five) by a young Argentine artist, Flavia da Rin. The digital images (ranging in price from $3,500 to $6,500) feature cartoonish faces with huge eyes dominating the foreground of the image, blocking most of the view of a pastoral scene behind. Dallas' Dunn and Brown Contemporary sold works by Trenton Doyle Hancock, Vernon Fisher, Sam Reveles and Joe Havel.

WEST SIDE STORY: ARMORY NEWS

Eggs & Oppenheimers
Monday morning, we enjoyed breakfast with Tony and Marti Oppenheimer, the Kansas City philanthropists behind the “acquisitions mania” at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art; also joining us was Bruce Hartman, director of  the institution benefiting from their generosity. Marti and Bruce have toured the Armory Show, Pulse and Scope from the first preview sessions, and Tony joined them Saturday evening. Obviously, the Oppenheimer/Hartman team’s relationship with dealers and artists is a well established one now, and they stressed that they had been talking about forthcoming shows and commissions as much as about actual purchases. In fact, they only bought three pieces at the fairs, including an Aaron Morse from Guild & Greyshkul, and a work on paper and a drawing by Jon Rappleye from Jeff Bailey. But they were also very impressed with the Nadine Robinson rhinestone-studded speaker at Caren Golden and they are commissioning a slightly larger version for the museum and have proposed that Ms. Golden approach Swarovski crystal to sponsor the piece! Similarly, they are “very anxious” to acquire a major Jonathan Lasker and they once again discussed Lasker with John Cheim of Cheim & Read. They will be in town for the remainder of the week and are looking forward to doing more business. As they left breakfast, they were headed for Christie’s.

Veiled Attempt
Two video works by the German performance artist Nezaket Ekici drew quite a crowd at Feigen Contemporary. In Hullabelly, the stern-faced Ekici, wearing traditional Turkish dress, simply swings a hoop round and round her neck. Veil Fight features Ekici repeatedly, violently, lifting and pulling down a heavy black veil. Ekici is currently in a group show at Feigen Contemporary called "Blessed are the Merciful," curated by Jerome Jacobs. "We just really love the piece and wanted to bring it to the Armory," a gallerist said. Three editions of each video have sold at $2,500 a piece.

Cereal Snacks
Cereal Art's booth was tucked away in an odd location at the piers, with its entrance seeming like it would lead to restrooms, not a pleasant little store filled with super-affordable, large-edition works by some of the hottest names in art: Keith Haring coasters ($60 for six, in an edition of 3,000); Marcel Dzama salt-and-pepper shakers ($50, in an edition of 2,500); and work with three-figure price tags from Kehinde Wiley and Elizabeth Peyton.

Mellow Diva
There was a pleasantly mellow vibe on Sunday night at DIVA, the digital and video art fair held at a hotel near the southern tip of Manhattan. While hotel rooms may be on their way out for some of the more general contemporary fairs, the concept works well for a video-focused event: comfy chairs, legal smoking and sound-deadening carpeting. It also helped that at this Embassy Suites, each room has a window looking out on the interior hallway, which meant work could be viewed without having to enter the more crowded rooms. And depending on who you are, there is the slightly discomfiting/oddly alluring feeling that comes with sitting on a bed with a stranger in a dark hotel room while an erotic-themed work plays. The award for the gallery owner most into the work she was displaying goes to Claire Oliver, who was clearly enthralled by the three-screen work by Eva & Adele, hermaphrodite twins of the future, which features them frolicing around a pool and twirling bright-pink umbrellas. While Oliver must have spent hours and hours in front of the work by Sunday night, she still seemed unable to take her eyes off the piece.

Living in a Digital World
Artist John Gerrard came personally to introduce his unique virtual sculpture at the Pulse fair with Ernst Hilger Gallery (Vienna). Like nothing we’ve seen before, Gerrard’s Smoke Tree is a digitally constructed display featuring a “living” tree in an interactive environment (viewers can spin the tree around for a 360-degree look). Utilizing computer animation, Smoke Tree visibly breathes out carbon monoxide and ages over time. The sculpture fulfills a complete life cycle over 200 years—when the tree dies and the image is reduced to an empty landscape. This new media work captured the imaginations of more than a few collectors: By the last day of the fair, not only had all six editions been sold out, but the gallery had also pre-sold two yet-to-be-completed works that will be shown at Basel in June.

Seeing Double
A surprisingly lifelike sculpture caught us doing a double-take as we strolled past Suzanne Vielmetter Projects. Victory of a False Self, a self-portrait by German artist Mathilde ter Hejine, could easily have passed as the real thing. The sculpture sat slumped over next to gallery owner Suzanne Vielmetter, looking every bit as worn out as many surely felt by the end of a long day at the pier. A startled collector must have been quite taken by the likeness as well: the work, an edition of two, sold at a price of €22,000.

Notable Quotables
"We’ve had a brilliant fair," said Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac partner Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts. "We’ve rehung (the stand) four times." … "A lot of business was done in the first two days,” said Victoria Miro’s James Lindon, "but after that, it has been an enormous cattle truck of human traffic that’s just crazy." … "It’s been a pretty good fair," said Nolan/Eckman Gallery director Katherine Chan, “but it wasn’t as exciting as Art Basel or Art Basel Miami Beach for us."

Ripped from the Headlines
We liked the paintings by Timothy Tompkins available at DCKT Contemporary's booth at Pulse for $6,000 to $7,500. The large-scale enamels on aluminum were inspired by photos the artist saw in the Los Angeles Times. In 4.28.02 (after Klimt), the painting depicts an Israeli settler embracing his two children. In 8.22.04 (after Magritte), the image shows several Iraqi men lying on the ground surrounded by U.S. Marines. In a statement, Tompkins said, "By rotating the image 90 degrees, I emphasized the compositional connection to Rene Magritte’s Golconde… This media image also conceptually connected to Magritte’s painting of falling figures, each dressed in the same mundane outfit, interpreted as a criticism of contemporary society’s potential threat to the idea of individuality."

Get the Picture?
Pulse was like a photography collector's Shangri-La, where we could hardly turn a corner without seeing stellar work by emerging and top-level contemporary photographers, including work by Andy Goldsworthy, starting at $20,000, and a gelatin silver print from 1975 by Sigmar Polke at Springer & Winckler Gallery; affordable works by Sugimoto, Thomas Ruff and Gregory Crewdson at Richard Levy; two Mapplethorpes at Galerie Stefan Ropke (which also featured a small abstraction by Sigmar Polke priced at $240,000); two Massimo Vitali photos (panoramic snapshots capturing the tanned hordes of sun worshipers on the beaches of Europe) selling at $19,000 in an edition of six at Ernst Hilger Gallery (Vienna); two large images by Timothy White Sobiesky at Galerie Michael Schultz; and a remarkable Zhang Huan photograph at Galerie Volker Diehl, which has sold four of eight prints at $18,000 (the gallery also has a great David Bowie-inspired painting by Abetz/Dreschler, priced at $45,000, reasonable considering the duo complete only about half-a-dozen paintings a year according to the gallery). At Robert Mann Gallery, the work of Polish duo Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga caught our attention: two unique bird’s-eye-view reconstructions of Warsaw living spaces. Over at Feidler Contemporary (Cologne), two national guardsmen in full uniform were spotted admiring a work by Spanish artist Dionisio Gonzalez, a digital assemblage that seamlessly combines the impoverished shantytown homes of Rio de Janeiro with sleek modern residences that would belong more in the hills of Los Angeles. (Gonzalez was popular with collectors as well—we were told at least 10 of the artists’ prints were sold this weekend.)

Power Names Available at Pulse
Galerie Stefan Ropke of Cologne and Madrid had three impressive Anselm Kiefer works, only one of which was on reserve. The 91 cm. x 105 cm. Laokoon could be had for $145,000; the 59 cm. by 83 cm. Astralschlange, mixed-media on a photograph, was $90,000 … The Finesilver Gallery of Houston and San Antonio had a 2004 Leonardo Drew work, Number 98, a signature large-scale work in rusty metal with hundreds of small, mixed-media filled containers, for $95,000 … Aliceday of Brussels had 13 drawings still available by Whitney Biennial artist Daniel Johnston; the gallery sold about 15 of the works for $1,400 each.

A Power Couple's Collection
Among the many private collectors opening their doors this week was art consultant Mark Fletcher and Sotheby’s head of contemporary art Tobias Meyer, who reside in the Time Warner Center building. The apartment opens strong, with a large dollar sign made of light bulbs by Tim Noble and Sue Webster, followed by two crisp photographs by Matthew Barney. In the front sitting room, a John Currin portrait of a woman framed in ornate gold, and a large Warhol print of a handgun, sit on top of a large assume vivid astro focus mural. Here you see the dramatic views with floor to ceiling windows that would only come from being on the 60-something floor, right above Central Park and Columbus Circle.

Besides the mural, the rest of the walls are plywood, above a black-and-white striped carpet. Fletcher explained that the decor was an experiment, a way to keep the structure simple while their collection evolved. The feel ends up being very organic, where you can see how one really lives harmoniously with one's art.

Continuing on the tour, the office featured a Ron Arad chair, a Richard Prince car hood and a sculpture by Urs Fischer of a Robert Gober-esque suspended arm holding onto a red balloon. The hallway has a large installation of works by Barry McGee, while the den/TV room sets up a series of works alongside an antique Chinese canopy daybed.

The master bathroom has portraits of the couple, one of Fletcher nude from the waist up, and the other of Meyer, stark and serious in a suit, and set above the bidet (while Lucas Samaras photos are above the toilet).

Finally, the master bedroom opens with a gorgeous little Lisa Yuskavage, before showing off a Hernan Bas near an Indian miniature, which is set on a raw steel bedside table. Maria Pergay wall lights featuring gold animal skulls inside metal cylinders sit above the bed, while a plaster and wood sculpture by Rachel Feinstein is at the foot.

Of course there was lots more to see, including bits and larger bits of more traditional Eastern and Western works that mingled with the contemporary art, which creates a strong and diverse mix perfectly suited for an art-world power couple.

Pulse Notes
The Torch Gallery had two highly erotic Terry Rodgers paintings of the beautiful and the barely clad lounging about, one of which was still available for $26,000 … Houston’s Inman Gallery was showing four photographs by Whitney Biennial artist Amy Blakemore. The gallery said the 47-year-old artist’s inclusion in the Whitney was causing more collectors to spend more time with her work.

Padua-based gallery Perugi Arte Contemporanea had one of the fair's coolest pieces, yet to be snatched-up by a saavy collector: a series of small figurative paintings by the now three-member Royal Art Lodge collective of Michael Dumontier, Marcel Dzama and Neil Farber. Sold as one piece, the work is priced at $25,000. Priska Juschka unveiled a brand new painting by Dannielle Tegeder, sent to the fair straight from the studio. The dark-hued painting, entitled Galaxy Construction is still available at $18,000.

And the Po-Mo Prize Goes to…
Vying for the prize of most obnoxious and ostentatious po-mo piece are: Adam McEwan's pink canvas with nothing but the words "Total War" (which, inexplicably, sold for $8,700 from Nicole Klagsburn), and, at Peter Kilchman, Jorge Macchi's photo of a beautiful field of sunflowers marred by a pair of large wooden quotation marks placed near the edges of the oh-so-self conscious composition. You don't get jaded junk like this over at the youthful Scope, where the kids are doing just fine, and don't have a trace of po-mo anxiety.