Art Market News in Brief !

Every fortnight, Artprice provides a short round up of art market news.

El Anatsui… a strong new record

Bonham’s is to a large extent responsible for the revision of El ANATSUI’s personal auction record previously held by his Healer, (210 x 305 cm) at $500,000 (Sotheby’s London Oct. 17, 2008). Indeed, on May 10 in New York and May 23 in London, two works by the Ghanaian artist successively set two new records. His impressive patchwork Harbinger (340 x 400 cm) went first, finding a buyer for $600,000 (Bonham’s New York, May 10, 2012). Then, after crossing the Atlantic and adding 1 meter to the size, his New World Map (340 x 500 cm) fetched $711,000 in London.
Despite this happy outcome, beating his best result by over $200 000, these results point to a steady price increase, but a certain lack of dynamism. At nearly 70, El Anatsui (born 1944) is a major Contemporary African artist who can boast an impressive list of exhibitions around the globe. Nevertheless, compared with the rest of his generation, particularly in the West, his prices are still very modest indeed. Seldom seen at auction with only 21 results to his credit since 2000, the rarity of his major works is indeed part of the problem. His fans are especially fond of his majestic tapestries made of assembled recycled materials (bottles, caps, etc.), particularly since he decorated the facade of the Palazzo Fortuny for the Venice Biennale in 2007. Since then, only three of his works have been presented at auctions: Healer, Harbinger and New World Map his 2008 record, plus these last two in 2012.

Georges Mathieu bows out…

Georges MATHIEU died on June 10. This French artist is among those who marked the second half of the twentieth century: his work, emancipated from the artistic codes of his time, received worldwide recognition in the 1950s. However, his prices have not experienced the inflation associated with other big names from the same generation. While the major works of the Abstract Expressionists like Mark ROTHKO and Jackson POLLOCK change hands for tens of millions of euros, Mathieu only has one 7-figure result to his name. He is howerer substantially more present on the market (with 1,014 paintings between 1989 and 2012) than either Pollock (49) or Rothko (175). His open advertising of his speed of execution may have something do with this huge price differential, with scarcity often being more valued by the market.
Although his auction revenue is well below the levels generated by American Abstract Expressionists; Georges Mathieu does have the advantage of a relatively stable market that reassures prospective buyers. Fans are nevertheless highly selective, shunning works from the 70s to the 90s and rarely bidding beyond the low estimate. After his death, large institutions will probably pay him a deserved tribute, which could revitalize his market.

The spring marathon of art fairs ends in Basel.

While Switzerland only represented 1.4% of the global art auction market in 2011, once a year, for several days, Basel becomes the art market’s primary nerve center. This week saw the opening of the 43rd edition of Art Basel which is considered the most prestigious Contemporary Art fair in the world, along with its multitude of OFF fairs (List, Volta, Scope, Design Miami, Verge, etc.).Over 2,500 artists are represented at Art Basel, and it is rumored that the total value of the works presented is close to $2 billion. The Gagossian gallery’s space alone contains works by Picasso, Warhol and Rauschenberg, with a combined estimated value of over $250 million. The most expensive work at the fair, however, is exhibited by the Marlborough Gallery (London): a work by Mark ROTHKO carrying a price tag of $78 million which is half a million more than the artist’s recent record for Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) on May 8 at Christie’s New York. Another gallery that is hoping to benefit from recent auction records is the Pace Gallery (New York, London, Beijing) with an abstract painting by Gerhard RICHTER for the modest sum of $25m ($5 million more than the artist’s latest record – also hammered on May 8 at Christie’s London). In effect, Richter’s prices have rocketed over the last 10 months with five of his works fetching over $15 million.
Art Basel is also the last stop before the summer for a marathon of art fairs that kicked off with Frieze London last October and which intensified in recent months with Frieze New York (May 4 to 7) and ArtHk (May 17 to 20). Forty-three of the galleries present at Art Basel, including some of the most prestigious in the world (Continua, Perrotin, Yvon Lambert, Simon Lee, Thadeus Ropac, Lehman Maupin, Lisson, White Cube, Zwirner etc..), also participated in these last two events.
But the proliferation of art fairs does not seem to have dulled the appetite of collectors who flocked to Basel, with galleries already announcing outstanding sales: the gallery Hauser & Wirth sold a painting by Philip GUSTON for $6 million, the Zwirner gallery sold a painting by Luc TUYMANS for $600,000, and the Pace Gallery sold a recent work by ZHANG Xiaogang for $450,000, all within the first minutes of the fair’s opening.

Rona Pondick – ambiguous beings

From July 4 to 28, the Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery will be hosting an exhibition of Drawings and Sculptures by the American artist Rona PONDICK.
The artist is best known for her hybrid sculptures created in the 1990s fusing humans with animals and plants. Her molds were often based on parts of her own body mixed with foreign elements, exploring the limits of the body and the combinatorial possibilities of life, producing an imaginary world that reminds us both of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the films of David Lynch, not to mention modern-day genetic engineering. She often works in steel, which she melts at 3000°C, and then works on the surface textures, which can change from mercurial smoothness to bark-like roughness (the method is apparently inspired by DONATELLO). These altered, occasionally monstrous, bodies and hauntingly beautiful shapes in mutation have a powerful psychological impact. Her formal laboratory is not uniquely 3-dimensional as she has also created a series of prints that takes the phenomenon of hybridization to another level with sculpted heads that are half herself and half historical heads from Thai, Japanese or Mesopotamian artworks.Her works are very rare at auction (only 3 have been proposed in 10 years at affordable prices between $4,000 and $9,500) but regularly exhibited by galleries. Several major institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the National Gallery in Washington have acquired her work.