By Carter B. Horsley This evening sale of contemporary art is highlighted by a fine and bold painting by Philip Guston (1912-1980), some good paintings by Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) and Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), an amusing work by Jeff Koons (b. 1945), an interesting work by Charles Ray, a very large painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) and a good Jasper Johns (b. 1930).
The auction was extremely successful with almost 84 percent of the 67 offered lots selling for almost $47 million, extremely close to the pre-sale high estimate. Twenty-eight of the lots exceeded their high estimate and auction records were set for 15 artists and the jam-packed auction room burst into applause several times and at the end of the sale.
Describing himself as "one exhausted auctioneer," Christopher Burge, the auctioneer described the sale afterwards as "triumphantly successful" and "just amazing."
The highest price of the evening was for Lot 34, "Profit I," by Jean-Michel Basquiat. It sold for $5,509,500, including the buyer's premium as do all prices mentioning in this article, shattering the artist's previous auction record of $3,302,500 set at Christie's Nov. 12, 1998.
Another Basquiat, Lot 63, "Gravestone," failed to sell and was passed at $380,000, just short of its $400,000 low estimate, a good indication of the market's often quixotic disparity of values.
Lot 34, "Profit I," is a large acrylic and spray paint on canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat that was executed in 1982. It has an ambitious estimate of $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 and is one of several works consigned in this auction Lars Ulrich, a founding member of the Metallica band. It measures 86 1/2 by 157 1/2 inches.
The catalogue states flatly that this lot "is considered to be Basquiat's greatest masterpiece." "Executed in Italy in 1982 at the height of his creative development and fame," it continued, "this epic canvas can be seen both in its scale and ambition to be his equivalent of Picasso's Guernica. Here Basquiat shows his understanding of the expressionist brushwork of de Kooning and Kline, and the frenetic graphic languarge of Cy Twombly. He mixes art historical precdent wih the raw primitivism of urban graffiti to paint an image of a black crucified hero, that is partly a self -ortrait and partly African warrior and Voodoo shaman."
While it is a very large and strong work, the lower left corner is a bit unresolved and the black is not as rich as in some of his other works, but the writing and diagrams are nice.
Records were also set for Donald Judd (1928-1994) and Ed Ruscha (b. 1937), breaking records set just the night before at the Contemporary Art evening auction at Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg (see The City Review article.)
Lot 16, "Untitled," is a large sculpture by Donald Judd that was consigned by Irving Blum. Conceived in 1966 and executed the following year, it consists of six stainless steel and yellow plexiglass 36-inch cubes. It has an ambitious estimate of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. It sold for $4,629,500 eclipsing by far the record of $1,322,500 set May 13 of this year at Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg. This was a much larger work.
Lot 7, "Talk About Space," by Ed Rusha sold for $3,529,500, smashing the previous night's record at Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg of $2,532,500. The 71 1/4-by-66 7/8-inch oil on canvas was executed in 1963 and has the word "Space" at the top of a blue background and a thin pencil is painted in the middle of the bottom with its eraser pointed upwards. It had an estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It was the back-cover illustration of this auction's catalogue whereas the painting at Phillips, "Noise," painted the same year and about the same size, was the front-cover illustration of that catalogue. Both paintings were big, bold and rather "Pop."
Other new auction records were Lot 28, "Blind Man's Bluff," a sensual sculpture by Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911), which sold for $1,439,500; Lot 10, "The American Sweetheart," a good work by Robert Indiana (b. 1928), which sold for $614,500; Lot 8, "Great American Nude #44," by Tom Wesselmann (b. 1931), which sold for $944,500; Lot 35, "In the Beginning Was The Image," a colorful and chaotic work by Asger Jorn (1914-1973), which sold for $2,099,500; Lot 46, "The Beach Series," photographs of skinny young people of no particular distinction by Rineke Dijkstra (b. 1959), which sold for $405,000; Lot 40, "Figure 11.23," a rather bloody looking work by Jenny Saville (b. 1970), which sold for $537,500; Lot 42, "Mailander Dom (Fassade)," a handsome church facade photograph by Thomas Struth (b. 1954), which sold for $317,500; Lot 45, "Wand (Mural)," by Thomas Demand (b. 1964), which sold for $141,500; Lot 48, "Thanksgiving," a group of 149 photographs by Nan Goldin (b. 1953), which sold for $284,500; Lot 64, "Adieu Batista," by Julian Schnabel (b. 1951), which sold for $361,500; Lot 68, "A Certain Lunar-Eclipse (Project for Humankind No. 2)," by Cai Guo-Qiang (b. 1957), which sold for $229,500; and Lot 24, "Untitled (Fragments)," by Toba Khedoori (b. 1964), which sold for $65,725.
Lot 30, "The Wall II," shown at the top of this article, is a very strong and classic work by Philip Guston (1912-1980). The oil on canvas measures 60 by 88 1/2 inches and was executed in 1975. It has an estimate of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. It sold for $1,054,500. Late in his career, Guston changed his artistic course from abstraction back to realism.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"...Guston new-found obsession with the mysterious unreality of the physical world developed in him an existential awareness that began to be manifested in increasingly strong and ugly paintings. He gan to depict the wolrd as a smauel Beckett-like landscape of the everyday and the absurd. Concentrating on discarded objects, as if such flotsam was the foundation of some future post-apocalyptic world, Guston's objects began to merge into bizarrre whole landscapes or body-like forms. His books and shoes and bricks and ottles merge together in bizarre forms that trouble the mind and ultimately defy definition. In The Wall II, a Stonehenge-like collation of these objects huddle together on the horizon line of a red-brick wall like a strange forest or city skyline - a landscape in which the clumsy bug that crawls in the foreground, can, and indeed does, thrive."
Lot 20, "Untitled (Glass Chair)," is a very good work by Charles Ray (b. 1953) that was executed in 1976. It has an somewhat ambitious estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $669,500.
Lot 32, "Paris Montparnasse," is a very good work by Jean Dubuffet. An oil on canvas that measures 65 by 86 1/2 inches, it was executed in 1961 and is one of several works consigned by Lars Ulrich, a musician with Metallica band. This work has a rather ambitious estimate of $2,500,000 to $3,500,000, but the catalogue notes that it is "the last true monumental Paris Circus painting to remain in private hands," adding that it is one of the five largest of this series by the artist. The Museum of Modern Art has one of the others and another is in the Detroit Institute. It sold for $4,739,500. Dubuffet returned to Paris in 1961 and found it bustling and decided to abandon his former explorations of nature and concentrate on city life on a monumental scale. "The picture buzzes with life and movement, the chaos of the vehicles perfectly distilled into the work. Each car appears to be a little world unto itself, and yet almost all of the characters face the viewer creating a strange and striking interaction. While this is in part reminiscent of children's art, as is the strange, squat-map bird's-eye angle from which he has depicted the street, Dubuffet was in fact trying less to imitate the art of children than to reclaim the raw and unfettered vision that the psychotic manage to condense onto paper and canvas in their art.the density of detail and activity is itself incredible. Each character tells a tale, is involved in his or her own arcane and hieratic act. Where Dubuffet had recently been using such textures to instill a sense of soil and nature, here he has scratched and sculpted his paint to form the figures and details of the Paris street. The dense mix of almost dirty colors in Paris Montarnasse is peculiarly suited to the subject matter - the grays and browns recall the exhaust fumes and pollution of the city, adding an ungarnished air of subjective reality to the world."
Lot 50, "Riant été," would be a truly great Cy Twombly only it is instead an excellent Jean Dubuffet. Executed in 1954, it is a 35-by-45 3/4-inch oil on canvas, It has a modest estimate of $400,000 to $600,000 and was once in the collection of William Inge of Los Angeles. Despite its enormous squggly energy, it failed to sell and was passed at $350,000.
Roy Lichtenstein has several good works in this auction, the best of which is Lot 56, "Imperfect Painting," which is a powerful abstraction. An oil and magna on two joined canvases, it measures 111 3/4 by 168 inches and was executed in 1986. It has an estimate of $700,000 to $900,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $600,000. Lot 12 is a quite strong painting by Roy Lichtenstein. Entitled "Red Barn 1," it is a 29 7/8-by-44 1/8-inch oil and magna on canvas and it was painted in 1969. It has an estimate of $1,400,000 to $1,800,000. It sold for $2,429,500.
Lot 13, "Surrealist Head II," is a 34 1/2-inch-high painted bronze with black patina sculpture by Lichtenstein that is one from an ediiton of six. It has an estimate of $180,000 to $220,000. It sold for $339,500.
Lot 5, "Cherubs," is a good work by Jeff Koons and consists of two cherubs in polychromed wood. Executed in 1991, the work is number three from an edition of three and an artist's proof. It has an estimate of $900,000 to $1,200,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $850,000. One of the cherubs is a boy and the other is a girl and she holds a white teddy bear.
Lot 2, "Summer," shown above, is a very good watercolor and crayon over lithograph and etching by Jasper Johns. Executed between 1985 and 1990, this 9 1/2-by-12 1/2-inch work is unique and has a modest estimate of $250,000 to $300,000. It sold for $339,500. It is a version of the first of the artist's cycle of paintings of the seasons that he started in 1984. The work includes images of the American flag and the Mona Lisa and the artist's shadow. It is quite colorful and vibrant. Another Johns, however, Lot 14, "Alphabet," failed to reach its low estimate and was passed at $500,000. It was quite dark and dense.
Lot 49, "Spirit," is a very good oil on canvas by Richard Estes (b. 1939) that depicts a view up Broadway from 70th Street. The 38-by-65-inch painting was executed in 1995-6 and has an estimate of $250,000 to $350,000. It sold for $361,500. Another excellent painting by Estes is Lot 37 that is entitled "Times Square at 3:53 P.M., Winter." It is a 19-by-27-inch oil on canvas that was executed in 1985. It has an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. It sold for $339,500.
Lot 38, "Old Couple on a Bench," is an excellent sculpture of two life-size people on a bench by Duane Hanson (1925-1996). Executed in 1994, it has a modest estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It sold for $229,500.
Christopher Burge was in his usual fine form. During bidding on Lot 36, "January IV," by Alex Katz, he said gleefully after a pause in the bidding "I heard a whistle," only to quickly add as he scrutinized the room for more bids "Sitting on the paddle, that's a bad sign!" The lot sold for $240,000 just below its low estimate of $250,00.