3 min read · 11 Oct 2024
Cecily Brown’s exhibition “Themes and Variations”. Courtesy of the Dallas Museum of Art
"‘I feel like we’re in such a psychedelic time that I can embrace my psychedelic side.’ Cecily Brown discusses her new paintings as her retrospective opens at the Dallas Museum of Art."
- W Magazine
London was in the spotlight this week as collectors flocked to Frieze and 1-54 art fairs and the auction houses for the fall sales. Despite doomladen predictions, reported sales were solid if not spectacular. So, there are galleries, and the artists they represent, with reasons to be relieved as well as consignors, who included Eric Clapton. The musician sold his Willem de Kooning at Christie’s for $4.56m, albeit just below the painting’s low estimate.
Market: Jeff Koons's American Flagpole (Gazing Balls) sold for 25% below the low estimate in the Artists for Kamala Benefit Auction but it still raised $225,000 for the Harris-Walz US presidential campaign. HENI News
London: A $17m David Hockney led Sotheby's contemporary evening auction, which totaled $49.14m, meeting the pre-sale estimate. For all the highlights, see the HENI News report.
London: Lucian Freud’s Ria, Naked Portrait (2006), which was backed by a guarantee, sold for $15.44m, 15% above its low estimate, providing the star lot at Christie’s. For more, including Eric Clapton’s De Kooning, see the HENI News report.
London: Benedikte Bjerre’s flock of swaying helium penguins at Palace Enterprise was the most Instagrammed work at Frieze London, earning it a place in the Guardian’s pick of Frieze London.
London: David Zwirner sold a $2.2m Lisa Yuskavage and Stephen Friedman sold out works by Caroline Walker and Clare Woods for $45,700–$228,700 each in the opening days of Frieze London, Artsy reported.
London: Edgar Calel and Rosa Elena Curruchich’s paintings presented by Guatemala City-based Proyectos Ultravioleta earned the gallery the Frieze London Stand prize, Ocula reported.
London: Mire Lee’s "Open Wound", the South Korean artist’s Turbine Hall commission, transformed the vast space in Tate Modern into an eerie mixture of flesh and machine that divided the critics.
In other news
New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem will open its new home in the fall of 2025 with a show of work by Tom Lloyd. The artist-activist featured in the museum's 1968 opening show. Hyperallergic
London: A Picasso painting was targeted by a pro-Palestine protest at the National Gallery. The work was unharmed although the museum’s floor was stained red.
Naples: Gaetano Pesce’s monumental sculpture is proving controversial because of its "phallic" appearance but the city’s mayor has defended the sculpture, reported Wanted in Rome.