Flash news: Jeff Koons – Takashi Murakami – Sigmar Polke

Every fortnight, Artprice provides a short round up of art market news: Jeff Koons – Takashi Murakami – Sigmar Polke

Jeff Koons at the Whitney

Jeff Koons, the world’s most expensive living artist, is the subject of a major retrospective spilling out of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (until 19 October 2014). The Whitney is brimming over with more than 150 works spanning Koons’ 35-year career. Meanwhile, the forecourt at the Rockefeller Center is currently home to his monumental 10-metre-high living sculpture Split-Rocker, a flower-covered installation where two animal motifs are spliced together to look like a giant rocking toy. The Whitney’s chronological retrospective is inevitably on a massive scale. It begins in the late 1970s (with the Inflatables and Pre-New series) then guides us through the controversial Made In Heaven series, in which the artist gets to grips with la Cicciolina in the cardboard cut-out style of a fairy tale (late 1980s/early 1990s). It moves on to his most popular and expensive works, notably Celebration, a series that revisits the birthday party in a distortion of its sensual and sexual potential. Along with pictures of cakes, Celebration includes the Hanging Heart, Tulips and Balloon Dog series. These festive dogs have become the artist’s most famous signature pieces, particularly when one of these canines broke his previous auction record of $22 million (Balloon Dog (Orange), sold for $52 million on 11 November 2013 at Christie’s New York). After New York, the exhibition will travel to the Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris (26 November 2014 – 27 April 2015) and then on to the Guggenheim Bilbao (5 June – 27 September 2015).

Takashi Murakami at the Palazzo Reale

Unveiled on 24 July 2014 at the Palazzo Reale in Milan and open until 7 September 2014, this exhibition by today’s most famous and expensive Japanese artist is entitled Il Ciclo di Arhat – The Cycle of Arhat. This title refers to an ancient tale of Buddhist monks confronting decay and death. The Arhat series was created after the terrible earthquake that befell Japan in March 2011. One of the highlights of the exhibition is Murakami’s 2008 work, Oval Buddha Silver, a gleaming sculpture that revisits his ‘Superflat’ aesthetic. This work was first discovered in France when it was shown at the Murakami exhibition at Versailles. It was produced in collaboration with fashion designer Issey Miyake and is emblematic of Murakami’s preciosity and ambivalence. However, the response in the saleroom has been far from worthy of the sculpture, although Mister Oval spans the artist’s ‘pantheon’. Of late, the auction market has been somewhat lacking in major sculptures – artists tend to keep them back for prestigious exhibitions or the booming primary market. Although his kawaii (cute) yet morbid style has not allowed him to return to the heights achieved by one of his sculptures in 2008 ($13.5 million for My Lonesome Cowboy, sold on 14 May 2008 at Sotheby’s New York), his prices are generally very healthy and have risen by 109% since early 2010.

Sigmar Polke at MoMA

German artist Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) may rival Gerhard Richter in terms of reputation, but his work is generally much less well-known than that of his compatriot. However, this is all about to change thanks to the superlative exhibition entitled Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963–2010 that is currently running at MoMA in New York (19 April to 3 August 2014). This is one of the largest exhibitions ever held at MoMA. With more than 250 works, it is the first comprehensive Polke retrospective to encompass his work across all mediums, including painting, photography, film, drawing, prints and sculpture. Polke and Richter are considered to be the most influential German artists of the late 20th century. They met at a young age, when galleries were still not ready to open up their doors to them. So they found their own ways of showing their work, such as organising an exhibition with artists Konrad Lueg and Manfred Kuttner in a former butcher’s shop. In 1963 they founded the Capitalist Realism movement, a critical parody of Pop Art that was heavily charged with Germany’s troubled past and the inconsistencies of history. Almost 20 years later, this new style of painting gained the recognition it deserved thanks to the New Spirit in Painting exhibition at the Royal Academy in London (1981). It would then be another 20 years before prices for these two artists began to take off in the salerooms. Polke first crossed the million-dollar threshold in 2000, closely followed by Richter in 2001. Today, Richter’s work commands much higher prices than that of his friend, culminating in a hammer price of $33 million for Domplatz, Mailand at Sotheby’s New York on 14 May 2013. Polke’s record of $8.1 million was set in 2011 for Dschungel (Jungle) at Sotheby’s London, and he has since managed to maintain these price levels. This was demonstrated on 13 May 2014, when Familie II sold for $7.5 million at Christie’s New York. Will Polke be able to attain Richter’s dizzy heights? His prices have risen by 109% since 2010, while Richter’s have rocketed by 250% in the same period. This latest exhibition is certainly helping to ramp up his prices. After New York, his work will be on show at Tate Modern in London (1 October 2014 – 8 February 2015, then at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne (14 March – 5 July 2015).