Auction Reviews: Contemporary Art

December 2007 Auction Reviews

Photography

Damien Hirst Francis Bacon Fang Lijun Marc Newson Raqib Shaw Wang Guangyi Yue Minjun Zeng Fanzhi

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Remarkably, Yue Minjun’s Execution, 1995 (est. £1.5–2 million; $3.1–4.1 million), virtually banned from mainland Chinese ownership because of its controversial reference to the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, was the top lot at Sotheby’s on October 12, outgunning examples by Basquiat, Rothko and Warhol. It sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for £2,932,500 ($5.9 million), eclipsing the artist’s previous record of £2,148,000 ($4.3 million), set at the same house this past June by his Baconesque The Pope, 1997. The same buyer snared Liu Ye’s Untitled, 2000 (est. £150–200,000; $307–410,000), a painting of a diminutive sailor peering at a battleship through a parted red curtain, for £580,500 ($1.2 million).

Auction fever spiked again that night as Raqib Shaw’s mural-size 2003 triptych Garden of Earthly Delights 111 (est. £400–600,000; $819,000–1.2 million) went to New York dealer Jeffrey Deitch for £2,708,500 ($5.5 million), a record for any Indian work at auction. The work leaped over the artist’s previous high of $144,000, set by Hanga Irises and Grasshopper (After Katsushika Hokusai) at Sotheby’s New York day sale this past May. “We haven’t had that kind of dynamic before,” says auctioneer Tobias Meyer, referring to the one-two punch of Chinese and Indian art in an evening session.

Another highlight was the £1,700,500 ($3.5 million) paid for Warhol’s 20-by-16-inch Jackie, from 1964 (est. £800–1.2 million; $1.6–2.5 million), by New York dealer Nicholas Maclean. Failed lots included two Glenn Brown pictures and Damien Hirst’s jumbo 1992 dot painting Adenosine, all of which carried envelope-pushing estimates.

The China syndrome continued at Phillips’s new Howick Place digs on October 13 with a single-owner sale of 45 lots from New York collector Howard Farber. The firm guaranteed the entire group, a risky venture that reaped a huge reward, with most works doubling or even quadrupling their high estimates.

Records toppled for Zeng Fanzhi, whose Xiehe Hospital Series Triptych, from 1992 (est. £500–700,000; $1–1.4 million), soared to £2,764,000 ($5,528,000), and Wang Guangyi, whose massive Mao AO, from 1988 (est. £500–700,000; $1–1.4 million), shot to £2,036,000 ($4.1 million). The buyer of the Wang, as well as of Fang Lijun’s desolate Oil Painting 11, 1988 (est. £100–150,000; $205–307,000), for £300,000 ($610,000), was Evelyn Lin, head of Chinese contemporary art at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. Another Wang, Great Criticism: Coca-Cola, 1991–94 (est. £400–600,000; $819,000–1.2 million), sold for £893,000 to Larry Warsh, the consignor’s son-in-law.

Any concerns about a slowing of Hirst’s hyper-active market vanished in Phillips’s various-owner segment, where New York dealer Philippe Segalot won the artist’s 2002–04 butterfly painting Eternity (est. £2.5–3.5 million; $5.1–7.2 million) for £4,724,000 ($9.6 million). Jay Jopling of London’s White Cube was the underbidder.

The series of sales culminated at Christie’s on October 14, when Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge LC-1, from 1985 (est. £800,000–1.2 million; $1.6–2.5 million), sold to a telephone bidder for £748,500 ($1.5 million). This smashed the record of $968,000 set by another version of the chaise in a 20th-century design sale at Sotheby’s New York in June 2006.

One of the big-ticket lots, Francis Bacon’s Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light, from 1973–74 (est. £7–9 million; $14.3–18.4 million), was consigned to the auction by the Royal College of Art. The artist had given the work to the institution in lieu of rent for a studio he used for eight months after a fire damaged his own work space. The picture went to a phone bidder for £8,084,500 ($16.4 million).