© Hauser & Wirth, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth sold two versions of Subodh Gupta's "Mind shut down" (2008) at just over €1 million apiece.

Courtesy Galeria Juana de Aizpuru

Galeria Juana de Aizpuru sold two editions of Cristina Lucas's video "Habla" for €16,000 each.

Tom Wesselmann Henry Moore Enrico Castellani Subodh Gupta Andres Serrano Zaha Hadid Pope Encourages Artists to Embrace Beauty Illustrator José Cisneros Has Died

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London- and Zurich-based Hauser & Wirth added to its preview-day successes as two versions of Subodh Gupta’s Mind shut down from 2008 — a sculpture of stainless steel and old utensils in the form of a giant skull — sold at just over €1 million ($1.3 million) apiece. One is parked outdoors at Frieze in Regent’s Park as part of the fair’s sculpture exhibition. To coincide with next year’s fair, Gupta will have his first London solo show at Hauser & Wirth, at both the Old Bond Street and Piccadilly locations.

Meanwhile, over at H&W’s current Henry Moore show at the Old Bond Street location, the artist’s Reclining Woman from 1927 sold for over £2 million ($3.4 million) yesterday. The aluminum table the work sits on, commissioned by the gallery from Zaha Hadid, will be sold separately at a yet-to-be determined price.

Back at Frieze, at the booth of the New York, Paris, and now London gallery Yvon Lambert, a work in three parts by Andres Serrano, Immersions (Rape of the Sabine Women, I, II, III), from an edition of 4, sold for over $100,000. In typical Serrano style, the images show a small antique sculpture of the famous mythological scene steeped in a cocktail of blood and urine.

The gallery also sold three small-scale abstractions in oil gloss by the London- and Mexico City–based artist Stefan Brüggemann at €15,000 each, including Glossy List from 2008, which went to U2 bass player Adam Clayton, and a large-scale painting by the 78-year-old Italian master Enrico Castellani, Superficie Bianca from 2008, which went for approximately €200,000.

Several reserves were in place for late American pop artist Tom Wesselmann’s Sunset Nude, Yellow Curtain, Yellow Tulip from 2003, at $2.2 million. “It’s much better than I thought,” Lambert’s Emilio Steinberger said of the fair, “but slower than last year.”

Over at the booth of Madrid-based Juana de Aizpuru, Spanish artist Cristina Lucas, like Serrano, also appropriated a cultural idol, in her captivating, seven-minute-long video Habla. For the work, Lucas managed to get an exact replica of the giant Michelangelo David that resides in a museum of replicas in Madrid. In the video, the artist, outfitted in a purple dress, calmly enters a beautiful, empty exhibition space in Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia. Wielding a sledgehammer, she then meticulously smashes the sculpture, decapitating the massive David. Two works from the edition of 5 sold at €16,000 apiece.

One also sensed at the fair a shift in the seller-buyer relationship. One roving dealer, bidding on behalf of a bottom-fishing client, made an offer on a painting by a famous contemporary German artist represented by a major American gallery at the fair. Although the asking price was £375,000, the dealer [who prefers to remain anonymous] made a deliberately low-ball offer of $200,000.

“The gallerist almost fell off her chair,” said the bemused dealer. “I said, ‘When you get realistic, call me.’”

“In six months that painting will be $100,000,” predicted the dealer.

That new kind of attitude is slowly beginning to manifest itself at Frieze, but so far, there haven’t been any takers.

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction.