What makes people want to continue living. In New York;) Is it that so much happens here both financially and and and the downside of that that THAT is fascinating? Anyone could view the Sotheby's sale of Alfred Taubman’s Masterworks collection. And if they did then they most certainly were treated to some kind of nirvana! Whatever one may think about Taubman as a man and/or a businessman/and/or a truth-seeker;)/and/or….: and whether/or he had the eye (I’m doubting that) but whoever did/or for that collection had amazing eyes. The 10th floor view was also cleverly curated to include non-Taubman works from (Nov 6 day sale and Nov 5 evening) e.g. three amazing way ahead of time James Ensors.
Why one of the C20’s truly iconic masterpieces of Malevich exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam for the last 50 years didn’t make more ($50 million) is strange.
Why Frank Stella’s 1961 'house paint' painting Delaware Crossing sold for $12 million (an auction record doubling the previous Stella record!) ? The current Whitney retrospective and an knee-jerk (mi dispiace) obsessive fan maybe? (OK- photos of MY 'non-Ben' Moore (naturally occurring aluminum siding 'Cy Twombly' house painting to come...;)
The Taubman Modigliani sold for $42.8 million “over an on-request high estimate said to be $35 million.” His Nu couché (Reclining Nude) in Christie’s sale The Artist’s Muse on Monday has an estimate of $100 million. (more interesting a painting in moi’s opinion but then if I was buying it I wouldn’t say that…;-)
There was chatter, both at the sale and on Twitter, that the low estimates in the sale were too high. One source who asked not to be identified told the Observer that estimates “were at the far, far end of reality,” and that this was due to Sotheby’s maneuvering to secure the collection (and beat out their rival at 20 Rockefeller Plaza).
Irony if ever there was one that the Taubman collection (Taubman revived the ‘fortunes’ of an ailing Sotheby’s by buying the company and then later being imprisoned for price-fixing with Christie's) was not a ‘shoe-in’ for Sotheby’s: Christie’s was bidding too. Sotheby’s ultimatley guaranteed the entire collection for $500 million.
All auction house politics aside because really there are just two sides to all of this: the money and the art. What makes one piece of art greater and more valuable than another? There is a magnificent show at Luxembourg & Dayan (NY) of Enrico Baj (the first American retrospective in 45 years!) It is art way ahead of its time. Why so long? (Because he fled to Geneva to avoid Italian conscription unlike fighting the war such as Burri?! ) WAY ahead of its time. [Just a slight correction but Petzel Gallery did have a show in 2007, though Luxembourg & Dayan's show does seem to have the edge on the early work from the 50's/60's. Petzel also has a new uptown gallery. Troy Brauntuch's early work from the late 70's seems quite de jour.) Or was that just my day! Judging from his later work Brauntuch is indeed having the day that I am having;) His foray into photo is somewhat intriguing.
Meanwhile back to the battlements of Sotheby's: How come a bargain large Bacon (of Taubman’s) sold for only $10,330,000 (estimate $8,000,000 — 12,000,000)? A stunning 1914 Balla- a little undervalued at $1,690,000 (estimate $2,500,000 — 3,500,000) ?? A fabulous (Taubman) Soutine passed.
Hello exquisite (Taubman) 1922 Georgia O'Keefe.
Taubman collected a LOT of Egon Schiele and though many didn’t fare as well as expected, some fascinating Schieles when he wasn’t looking necessarily like Schiele were on view:
Did I mention that Picasso was Picasso before Picasso? Using sand way before Tapies?
And that he could REALLY paint!
(if you read this post in a few years, many of the links above will have disappeared. Along with many of those being feted last night/tonight: but the great art lives on.
Takesada Matsutani was in the second wave of Japan’s Gutai (‘concrete’) movement founded in 1954. This collective came to prominence in America only relatively recently spearheaded by the 2013 Guggenheim show. Gutai art does not falsify the material. In Gutai art the human spirit and the material reach out their hands to each other. If art indeed imitates life with all its struggles and search for a less stressful existence then Matsutani’s art is certainly that.
A little akin to Alberto Burri who explored industrial materials in the 70’s, Matsutani moved to Paris in 1966 becoming fascinated by the dripping of vinyl glue (influenced by microscopic blood samples in a friend’s lab). Later he moved to huge sheets of paper covered by metallic black graphite. Everyone will experience something different in his work. What seemed to be happening for me was almost a game of hide and seek within the materials. We run behind, across, beyond one plane of color and line only to be juddered into another trajectory. I found my friend but now lost them. We were in the sky now we are in the pond against a tree trunk. It’s of course all subjective yet like the blood samples there is an objectivity. The material or paint is nothing but the thing itself and yet also objectively everything is always in a state of flux. On the one hand all seems rather energized and yet all is rather silent.
Gagosian’s Chelsea opening of Zeng Fanzhi (Friday Nov 6) was a somewhat strange affair. Or was it me who was the stranger? It seemed more Beijing than NY with security guards at every turning. And gallery staff with tripod video cameras. Now: in fairness. Gagosian does a speeded-up video online of their openings. Why? I’m not really sure. Sort of useless. A little suspicious that there is a of course a slowed down version tracking everyone And the security? Only eight- so how did that seem more in such an enormous space. I did ask at their Francis Bacon opening tonight. The ‘source’ did make clear that it was a ‘private’ gallery. Fair enough. Yet the rub of the NY gallery scene is that some ‘blue chip’ and even gray slate galleries (though thankfully not all) want it both ways. They wish to curry favor with the ‘socialist’ elements of nature yet just can’t wait to get back to the good old days of printing money and.... Can’t imagine who was in the inn when in...
I wouldn’t write this if it weren’t for Zeng Fanzhi’s show. There are no ‘pot shots’ being lobbed. Yet (one of China’s most famous though not Wei Wei controversial artists) clearly wants to ‘f’ or is that taking a 'rrr' wrench to art. (Acquavella Galleries needs to be credited in all this..) He was China’s latter day answer to Chaim Sountine in the 90’s with his Hospital Paintings. Did he grow? Indeed yes. Would I want a current Zeng Fanzhi in my palace when I compulsorily purchase the Met Museum for a song and become King of Manhattan? Maybe not. The canvases in Gagosian Chelsea are gi-gi-normous. There is the irony there, though, bethinks. The ‘shattered’ brush fire foregrounds of his 2008-2010 ‘Jungle period’ have now become not so much helical nor spidery vistas into microcosmic worlds within chaos as thin electrical wiring gone bonkers hay wire- almost barbed tendrils of lost humanity seeking to ‘get you’ before any happiness into those ponds of drinkable water. A very primitive Matrix, deadly nonetheless.
They are not real landscapes. They are rather about an experience of miao wu [marvellous revelation]. Miao wu constitutes a restless journey of discovery. —Zeng Fanzhi
Methinks the revelation or is that revolution comes through much suffering. Well: that is certainly the truth for many in China let alone the rest of the planet. As we sip the champagne (none on offer unless you are the super-rich at Gagosian) there is always the asteroid hurtling towards our planet to get us back to reality. I finally worked out the ‘problem’ was I had (not factually) with security at that opening. A hand-bag against such a gi-normous canvas was rather ‘twee’ and equally rather frightening that ‘someone’ thought they could control the enormity of destiny. They still try and will forever after. Many of the Bacon ‘late’ paintings are under glass. Well THERE is stress relief Francis:) !
a few of Andrew's far far far too sober midnight thoughts ......
