New York auctions get the jitters

Cooler winds are blowing through the art market amid concerns about the uncertain economic environment. Overall numbers from New York’s auction season are high, but sales are patchy and there is a sense among observers that, in the absence of last year’s supply of $50mn-plus works, the auction houses are stuffing their offerings to boost totals while over-pitching estimates.

Christie’s May 11 sales of 16 works from the collection of the late media magnate SI Newhouse and a further 54, mixed-owner 20th-century works came in at the low end of estimates ($426.6mn combined, $506.6mn with fees), with varied results.

Newhouse’s works all sold though some, including by Jasper Johns and Brice Marden, below expectations. In the mixed-owner portion, 10 works went unsold, including a 1938 Picasso painting of Marie-Thérèse Walter against a pink background, estimated $20mn-$30mn. The last tranche of seven works from the estate of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen were a throwback to easier times, each selling above estimate and topped by Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Black Iris VI” (1936), which sold for $18mn ($21.1mn with fees, guaranteed, est $5mn-$7mn). Top lot of the evening was Henri Rousseau’s “Les Flamants” (1910), which soared past the artist’s auction record of $4.4mn to sell for $37.5mn ($43.5mn with fees, third-party guarantee, est $20mn-$30mn).

“More disciplined editing would have made for a less gruelling evening in places, but several heated duels between just two determined bidders created some stellar results,” said Hugo Nathan, co-founder of art advisers Beaumont Nathan.

Christie’s slimmer offering of 26 pieces at its 21st-century evening sale on May 15 beat estimates at $83.6mn ($98.8mn with fees), though it was dominated by one distinctly 20th-century work. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile)” (1983), sold by the fashion designer Valentino Garavani partly to benefit the brand’s staff training facilities, went for $58mn ($67.1mn with fees, est $45mn, third-party guarantee). Valentino had bought the work in 2005 for $5.2mn with fees.

Sotheby’s also fielded a drawn-out, twin-track Modern evening sale on May 16, offering 15 works from the collection of the late record producer Mo Ostin followed by 48 mixed-owner lots. Combined, the sales came in just below estimates at $363mn ($426.8mn with fees; est $375.4mn-$534mn).

Six works were withdrawn from the mixed-owner portion, an indication of presale jitters, and nine overall went unsold. As expected, the top-selling lot was Gustav Klimt’s expressionistic, lake-filled “Insel im Attersee” (c1901-02) which sold eventually for $46mn to a private Japanese collector over the phone ($53.2mn with fees, est $45mn, third-party guarantee).

Ostin’s works were topped by René Magritte’s “L’Empire des lumières” (1951), which sold for $36.5mn ($42.3mn with fees, est $35mn-$55mn) while a second painting by Magritte in his collection, from 1949, also sold within estimate at $16.2mn ($18.9mn with fees). Elsewhere the Belgian Surrealist suffered — a 1950 painting was one of the withdrawn lots (est $5mn-$7mn) and his early “Le Duo” (1928), from the same European collection, went unsold (est $1.5mn-$2.5mn).

“We’ve been waiting for this moment for more than three years,” said Shelly Wu, director of Taiwan’s TKG+ gallery, on the preview day of this year’s Taipei Dangdai fair (May 12-14). Back in force at the Nangang Exhibition Center for the first time since before the pandemic took its toll, the fair’s 90 booths had a young crowd. “Some of the established collectors prefer to buy remotely from the fair — there are still nerves since Covid — so for me this is a local fair for younger buyers,” said Yaji Huang, founder of Taipei’s Each Modern gallery. Most of the reported sales from the fair were in the $5,000-$50,000 range, though there were bigger deals, including €140,000 for a UV-light interactive work by Olaf Nicolai (Eigen + Art).

Having many local exhibitors is a positive attribute in Taiwan, which has a long history of collecting, wealthy inhabitants and an enthusiastic new generation, noted Kelvin Yang, managing director of the Hong Kong-based Galerie du Monde. He reported visitors from elsewhere in Asia too, including Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.

Last week, organisers of the Taipei fair, The Art Assembly, announced that the appointment of Craig Brown, previously fair director of Masterpiece, as director of gallery relations primarily for its fairs in Taiwan, Tokyo and Singapore. Based in London, Brown says his role involves building up the pipeline of western galleries at the fairs.

The gallerist Ales Ortuzar is doubling his space in Tribeca in New York, moving into 10,000 sq ft next to his current gallery, on the corner of White Street and West Broadway. It’s a major step for Ortuzar, who opened an experimental project space for just two years in 2018. “I didn’t set out in a calculated way,” he says. “I just wanted to bring new artists to New York rather than poach from other galleries or do shows that have essentially been done before.”

His roster boasts previously overlooked artists such as the institutionally in-demand Suzanne Jackson, and the estate of Ernie Barnes and the Okayama-born, LA-based artist Takako Yamaguchi, currently on show in his gallery and at a solo booth at Frieze New York, which opened this week (May 17-21). Ortuzar was a relatively early entrant to the booming Tribeca scene. “Back then, two people would pop in, one by mistake,” he remembers. “Now it’s a real and cultural neighbourhood.” Several other gallerists have already shown interest in the space he is leaving, he notes.

Ortuzar opens in October with an Ernie Barnes exhibition based around the artist’s work used in the 1970s CBS sitcom Good Times and organised by Derrais Carter, an academic who specialises in black critical theory and popular culture.

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