Market Update - Sluggish Sales at Chelsea galleries

As reported by Katya Kazakina for Bloomberg today, as the Dow Jones fell 777 points, the single largest point drop ever:

Joel Sternfeld's panoramic photos of Manhattan's High Line railway and Yellowstone National Park have been acquired by Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and ING Belgium SA. His new large-scale color prints capturing the seasonal changes of a field in central Massachusetts are having a tougher time finding buyers. The turmoil in the financial markets appears to be keeping clients from doling out $50,000 for Sternfeld's 5-foot-by-7-foot (1.5-by-2.1-meter) works exhibited at Luhring Augustine gallery in Chelsea, New York's hub for contemporary art.

``The response has been slow,'' says Natalia Sacasa, the gallery's senior director. Six out of 13 works have sold since the show opened on Sept. 6. ``There isn't the frenzy we all have become accustomed to.''

In Chelsea, sales are more sluggish and art buyers increasingly cautious as the financial sector reels from losses. While dealers say it's too early to tell whether the art bubble has burst, there are signs that the market is becoming more attractive for buyers and less favorable to sellers.

``My clients are sitting tight and they want to see what happens in the next six to eight months,'' says Cristina Delgado, a New York-based art adviser. ``The prices for young and emerging artists have to come down to adjust to a new economic reality.''

Joel Sternfeld, East Meadows, Northampton, Massachussetts, 2006

Jenny Holzer commission for the Guggenheim

Everyone has been talking about the Jenny Holzer site-specific light projection commissioned for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which was unveiled this past Monday evening at the completion of a 3-year museum renovation. I have always admired her work, which is known for its witty and provocative manipulation and compilation of the written word. This particular piece will include her own writing as well as excerpts from other texts, including “Tortures,” from the View with a Grain of Sand by Wisława Szymborska. It will be projected every Friday evening through the rest of the calendar year.

Jenny Holzer, For the Guggenheim, 2008

Quote of the Week - Ellsworth Kelly

"It's better, because it exists;"

"it's the best...until I do another one."

Ellsworth Kelly, commenting on one of his paintings, Blue/White, as it's being installed in the permanent collection of the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Fall 2007.

Richard Avedon at the Corcoran

Has anyone else seen this show? Thoughts? I wasn't sure -- and actually felt a bit underwhelmed after walking through the exhibition last week. I had seen Avedon's famous fashion photographs in San Francisco at Fraenkel Gallery several years ago, which I LOVED, and these "portraits of power" at the Corcoran here in Washington were obviously a bit different in both subject matter and purpose. The walls of each gallery were lined with small photographs of everyone ranging from Barack Obama (2004) to Dorothy Parker (1958) - the comprehensive scope of which was somewhat at odds with the idea of a few people in power over many others. Most of them were taken from the waist up, or just the head, some were emotionally expressive, others weren't. After a while my eyes glazed over -- until I reached the outside hallway where 5 large scale pictures were placed side by side, each taken almost full-length, and installed high enough on the wall so that each person's eyes were looking down at mine. I finally stopped my meandering and became transfixed by the images. They were riveting - especially of Rose Kennedy, whose slim and frail figure belied the power of her gaze which spoke of generations of family, legacy, tradition, and a lifetime of experiences much beyond what I could comprehend standing before her.

One of the Washington Post reviews last week was a bit scathing - questioning whether or not the pictures spoke of "inner truth" or perversity. And others have questioned the Cocoran's motivation behind mounting such a wide-appealing and perhaps commercial show (vis-a-vis Ansel Adams), particularly because of their impoverished financial situation. Interesting questions to ponder.

Richard Avedon, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1964

Richard Avedon, Rose Kennedy, 1976

Looking at Art -- MoMA

Continuing to look at pictures of people looking at art....this photograph was taken by my fellow blogger Ashleigh (thank you again!!), who liked it because of how the woman is standing; you can almost feel how perplexed she is about the work in front of her.

Museum of Modern Art, NYC, February 2008

Gregory Crewdson

The first time I saw a Crewdson photograph, several years ago in one of our contemporary corporate collections, I was struck by the eerie yet peaceful quality of both the composition and the subject matter. How had the artist achieved such a strange and perfect balance? Later I learned that all of his work is choreographed and staged, in either an interior stage set or on location, with a deeply articulated philosophy behind the finished product.

In this recent interview with Crewdson, we get a glimpse into his creative process and perspective, which encompasses all of the reasons why I love contemporary art so much. He describes how his work presents a tension or "collision" of diametrically opposed values, between the familiar and the strange, and the mysterious and the beautiful. And when those values come together, there is a "moment of grace" - an alignment between subject and artist - and I would argue - between artwork and viewer - because of the very nature of tension and the energizing movement required to resolve it.

Jeff Koons at Versailles

This is fun - diary entry from ArtForum's "Scene and Herd" about Jeff Koons' current exhibition at Versailles (comprised of 17 works, none of them new, Split Rocker belonging to French billionaire Francois Pinault, one of the show's patrons), which has caused quite the uproar and buzz of excitement around town - Hoover vacuum cleaners in the chateau?! Inflatable plastic beach rings along the fence?? 40-foot tall flowering head of a rocking horse plopped in the flowerbed of the Orangerie gardens?? I think the entire affair is just delightful. And I can't help but giggle at the sight of one of my favorite Koons pieces, Balloon Dog, standing so proudly in the baroque space surrounding it.

Jeff Koons, Split Rocker, stainless steel, soil, geotextile fabric, internal irrigation system, and live flowering plants (shown installed at Avignon, 2000)
441 x 465 x 426 inches

Other photos from the Versailles show opening (Koons pictured second from the left)

And the verdict is...

A huge success for Hirst and Sotheby's - on the same two days in which we witnessed the horrifying plummet of the US financial markets and collapse of some of our largest investment institutions, the world's highest paid living artist broke auction records for the sale of his work, as reported in Artinfo.com, a net of $200 million dollars. Unbelievable!! And what a precedent he has set, for himself, his gallery, and other single-artist auction sales to follow, as well as a reassurance to all that the art market is still strong and standing.

Now, our eyes turn to the major New York sales coming up later this Fall:

November 11, Contemporary evening sale, Sotheby's
November 12, Contemporary day sale, Sotheby's

November 12, Post-War & Contemporary evening sale, Christie's
November 13, Post-War & Contemporary morning and afternoon sales, Christie's

Stay tuned...

Damien Hirst, Psalm 31: In Te, Domine, Speravi, 2008

In other news

Philippe Vergne started work today as the new director of the Dia Art Foundation. His first order of business, according to an interview he gave ARTnews this month, will be to find a permanent exhibition site within Manhattan, after its Chelsea galleries shut down in 2004. Vergne is the successor to Michael Govan, who left Dia in 2006 in order to head up LACMA and revitalize their contemporary collection. All eyes will be on him to see if he can fulfill the foundation's longstanding wish to have a permanent presence in NYC in addition to its world-renowned contemporary art space in Beacon. His biggest challenge may be funding, as Dia's largest benefactor and board chairman (who donated the $30 million necessary to purchase the Nabisco warehouse in Beacon) has also recently departed. Hopefully other patrons will rally around this remarkable foundation to assist in its reestablishment in NYC, after the gift of Beacon to those of us in the art world who have never seen contemporary art installed so perfectly - in the context of immense space, tranquility, and minimalism - the way it should be viewed. Best wishes and good luck!!

More buzz about the Hirst auction

The sale is expected to net $120 million, but will anything short of that amount signal a larger decline in the art market? And what does it mean that Hirst is auctioning off new works, made within the last 2 years, as opposed to selling them through a gallery? I wonder how White Cube feels about it.

Viewing Rothko

I've been thinking about the Rothko room at the Phillips Collection since I first saw the space about six months ago. I can't seem to get it off my mind....which means it's time for a second visit. It's rare that an artist commands the installation of his or her work in a museum, especially within a permanent collection which normally is the pride and joy of a senior curator, and so this room is quite extraordinary. The floorplan was organized by Mark Rothko in 1960 for his benefactor and museum founder, Duncan Phillips, with the intention of providing visitors with the best possible environment to view his paintings. He wanted the large canvases to be installed in a "small, intimate space - in a scale of normal living - so that they would overwhelm the walls, saturating the room with color and sensation." The gallery would have one door, a simple bench in the center, and the paintings to be hung low to the floor.

So that when visitors enter the room, like I did earlier this year, they couldn't help but want to sit down on the little bench and let the paintings take over the space, and eventually, their sensations, just as Rothko intended. This viewing experience, as well as Rothko's very intentional planning for this room, reinforces my personal point of view about art - that when we talk about art, it's not necessarily about what "is" art, but where it is. In this small gallery, sitting on a humble bench, art is present - within the space between the paintings and the viewer, as well as between the artist and the viewer - knowing that in that moment, Rothko's hopes and vision for the experience were being fulfilled.

When the Rothko Chapel in Houston opened 32 years ago, it was inaugurated with an small evening reception - lit solely by candlelight - as told to me by a professor in graduate school who had attended. Imagine viewing one of these luminous paintings by the flickering light from a candle - adding movement and dimension to the cloudy, layered spaces in the margins between each color field. The intersection between art and spirituality, embraced within this chapel that night, perhaps fully realized.

Rothko room, Phillips Collection, Washington DC

7 years later

I lieu of my own words, here is an op-ed titled "Lost Horizon" that was posted today in the New York Times, written by artist Ed Ruscha:

WHEN the 9/11 attacks took place, I thought of this photograph. I’d taken it many years before — on my first visit to New York, in 1961, in fact — but I looked for it anyway. It reminded me of Lower Manhattan, the twin towers, and then, of course, of their absence.

The view is from the back of the Staten Island Ferry. I remember it as the first all-American moment of my life, looking at the Statue of Liberty while eating a hot dog. I also remember the Financial District skyline, which appeared to me to be forlorn and empty, as if you could feel the buildings that were supposed to be there but weren’t.

I’d come to the city from Oklahoma and I was on my way to Europe. Then, as now, New York seemed a delicious place to visit, but not somewhere I could live. It was too big, too expensive, too accelerated. There was no way I could carry a two-by-four across town.

But it was an inspiration. I walked around with my Yashica camera, filled with black and white film, shooting whatever interested me: bricks, the street in front of my hotel on 34th Street, the old-fashioned scissor fence in this picture.

For me, it’s that scissor-gate on the back of the ferry that dates the image. It comes from another time. A slice of history that goes way back.

But everything else seems modern, up-to-date. When I look at the picture, which is over my desk in Los Angeles, I look for the towers, even though I know it’s impossible for them to be there. It’s hard to look at a photograph of that part of the city, no matter when it was taken, and not want to see them.

Market Boom

Life is ironic. Business had been slow for almost a year at the art advising company at which I worked in San Francisco, following the tragic death of one of our busiest and most beloved clients. But yet we carried on, eagerly anticipating the next major painting to be offered our remaining clients by a dealer, and wrapping up the installation of our largest corporate contemporary art collection. Paintings and other artworks came to our attention in bits and spurts, and when they did, we were elated and quickly became busy with the art (and minutiae) of making the deal; and when they didn't, we returned to reorganizing our library and assembling private collection catalogues. Then in 2005, when I reluctantly left the company in order to begin the cross-country move with my husband, the art world witnessed the biggest market boom in recent history - the Chinese art explosion. And I missed it, entirely.

So for the past several years I've been reading, watching, and keeping an eye on the evolution of the art world in China, and in Barbara Pollack's current article in this month's ARTnews she gives a good synopsis of the major developments. Following are some of the artists whom she references as being the most successful at auction, along with an example of their work:

Yue Minjun:


Zhang Xiaogang:


Liu Ziodong:


Liu Ye:


And finally Zeng Fanzhi, the most successful at auction, with Mask Series No. 6 (1996) selling at Christie's Hong Kong this past May for $9.6 million, the highest price ever paid for a Chinese contemporary work:


Hard to believe that Fanzhi's paintings - a mere 5 years ago - sold for under $50,000. Talk about a boom indeed.

The conversation about price speculation and the ensuing role of the 1,600 auction houses on mainland China, the tidal wave of artists in mass becoming elevated without critical review and selection, and the anticipated next steps of buyers in China beginning to look overseas for contemporary artwork continues to fascinate me.

First Up

Love him or hate him (I'm still not sure) the work of Damien Hirst is first up for auction this month. Titled "Beautiful Inside my Head Forever", the sale will be held at Sotheby's in London, with evening sale scheduled for September 15. A recent article by Time Magazine art blogger Richard Lacayo includes an interview with Hirst where the artist talks about his infamous and terrifying glass tank works and influence of Francis Bacon.

Hirst is one of the most sought-after artists in the current art market and his works are among the most lucrative for today's auction houses. The sale should be note-worthy especially because some of these pieces we've never seen before, including several original paintings and butterfly collages that appear to be a progression of his assistant-produced spin paintings. Stay tuned.

Another season begins

It's the beginning of the Fall season in the art world, when galleries re-open after a long haitus in August, dealers and art advisors begin reconnecting with clients, artists prepare for their first showings, wine bottles are opened, invitations for galas and luncheons pour into collectors' mailboxes, calendars are organized for the season ahead, and everyone is waiting in anticipation for the art fairs and auctions coming this Fall when the market is tested, paintings and other objects trade hands, and careers are made or broken. Already critics have begun chronicling the goings-on in their various communities, such as writer Paul Klein in Chicago, whose Art Letter should begin appearing regularly in the Huffington Post. It's an exciting time.

Looking at Art -- In the Eyes of the Beholder

Another perspective I plan to include in my blog are images of other people observing art - because everyone's experience is unique unto themselves. Some people sit and look, others walk by, others stand, some draw, or take photographs, some stay, some go. These posts will be my nod to Thomas Struth's investigation along similar ideas.

Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884, Art Institute of Chicago, 2006

Ryan McGinness at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2004

Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, Art Institute of Chicago, 2007

Into the Blue -- Yves Klein

I fell in love with the work of Yves Klein not because of the varying subject matter or medium, but because of the drenched, intoxicating color that he virtually invented, inspired by the lapis lazuli pigment used to paint the Virgin Mary's robes during the Renaissance, named International Klein Blue (IKB). It is impossible not to get lost in this space, framed and contextualized by color alone, and then to work your way back out of it, perhaps changed, perhaps not, but either way, affected by it.

Yves Klein, IKB 191, 1962