Art Basel 37: Gagosian Rakes In $7M on Basel Opening DayBy Judd Tully
Published: June 14, 2006
BASEL, Switzerland—Commerce was the key mantra at Gagosian Gallery
(New York/Los Angeles/London) on Basel’s preview day earlier this week,
with the gallery racking up sales approaching $7 million.
A Jeff Koons St. Benedict painting sold for $2.2 million, and an Andy Warhol Reversal painting went out the booth for $2 million. A painting and sculpture by Tom Friedman sold for approximately $300,000 each, and a John Currin Colossus portrait made about $400,000. There was also plenty of action at more modest levels as evidenced at Ernst Hilger Gallery (Vienna). Massimo Vitali's sunny C-print diptych of an Italian beach scene sold to a Korean collector for €33,000 and the entire edition of six of John Gerrard's 3-D animation piece, Smoke Tree III from 2006, sold out at €20,000 apiece. "The piece of art here is the computer program," explained Hilger. The piece has a lifespan of 200 years, just like a living tree. At that point, if anyone is still noticing, the animated tree will stop smoking but will continue to change during its daily cycles. Two paintings on plastic of highly stylized Asian dolls by Oliver Dorfer, Petit Toyo (8) and Coco, both from 2006 sold for €10,000 each. |
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