Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale

LONDON – On 14 October, the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale will offer a selection of works by internationally recognised artists such as Josef Albers, Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tracey Emin and Yayoi Kusama. Leading the sale is Banksy’s Love is in the Air (2002, estimate: £500,000-700,000), part of a grouping from Le Jeune, A Collecting Legacy, an important collection of contemporary art assembled by Jacqueline and Mark Le Jeune and their descendants. In the spirit of the highly-anticipated Frieze London, works by contemporary artists such as Cristina BanBan, Louise Giovanelli, Robert Nava, Danielle Orchard and Caroline Walker will also be offered, alongside Francis Alÿs and Portia Zvavahera who are represented in this year’s Venice Biennale. Further highlights include, Banksy’s Laugh Now (2000, estimate: £400,000-600,000); Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square: Osmosis (1959, estimate: £300,000-500,000); Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin A,B,C, (2003, estimate: £250,000-350,000).Across this sale we are thrilled to present three charitable collaborations with the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), CLEFT, and Parley for the Oceans.

Post-War and Contemporary Art Day

London – The Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale realised a total of £14,168,940, selling 98% by value and 89% by lot. Banksy’s iconic Love is in the Air realised the top price, selling for £978,000. Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin [TOWSSO] achieved £831,600 against a pre-sale estimate of £200,000 while Waves at Daybreak sold for £201,600 (estimated at £50,000-70,000). This level of bidding reflected the depth of interest witnessed in the Shanghai to London Evening Sale series on 1 March and was followed by MR.’s May – Blue Hawaii, which soared above estimate to realise a world auction record for the artist (£504,000). Günther Förg’s Untitled sold for £604,800, Etel Adnan’s Untitled realised £201,000 and Stanley Whitney’s Untitled achieved £163,800.Further records were set for Atanda Quadri Adebayo’s Let Love Lead (£20,160)*, Winston Branch’s When I need my Father’s Eyes (£126,000), Anne Collier’s Woman Crying (Comic) #16 (£100,800), Peter Uka’s Invisible Guardian (£56,700)*, and Adjei Tawiah’s Pink Suit (£50,400)*, with a record in the medium for a painting by Eileen Agar’s Harlequin (£63,000).Outstanding results were achieved for Flora Yukhnovich’s Study of Putti (£302,400), Hilary Pecis’ Kitchen Counter (£252,000), Isshaq Ismail’s Unknown Faces No 3 (£138,600), Tomokazu Matsuyama’s Losing You More (£214,200), and Paula Rego’s School for Little Witches (£415,800).Italian Masters attracted strong bidding with Arnaldo Pomodoro’s Sfera con perforazione (£567,000), Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, Attese (£592,200), and Alighiero Boetti’s Far quadrare tutto (To Square Everything Up) (£189,000).Christie’s 20th/21st Century Art Sales continue on 4 March with The Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper Sale while First Open: Post-War and Contemporary Art Online remains open for bidding until 9 March 2022.

Post-War and Contemporary Art Amsterdam

Amsterdam – Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Amsterdam, an online-only auction, will take place from 10 to 26 November 2020. Reflecting the breadth of works offered in the Amsterdam live sale series, it will also offer works from two distinguished collections: Betty van Geest-van Garrel, an acclaimed Dutch journalist who wrote several books and interviewed artists for NRC Handelsblad and Ernest van Zuylen, a supporter of the CoBrA movement. The auction offers 153 works from artists around the globe, with a strong focus on German Post-War and Contemporary art, accounting for one third of the auction. Estimates range between €1,500 and €150,000, providing opportunities for collectors at all levels. Held for over half a century in the collection of celebrated Dutch arts and culture journalist and writer Betty van Geest- van Garrel, Shoe (1965, estimate: €3,000-6,000) and Stars (1953, estimate: €60,000-80,000) stem from the revolutionary early years of Yayoi Kusama’s practice. Acquired by van Garrel from Galerie OREZ in The Hague in 1965, they capture the major painterly and sculptural themes that would form the matrix of the artist’s output over the following decades. Shoe belongs to the early series of phallic sculptures that dominated Kusama’s practice during the 1960s. Three biomorphic forms, made from stuffed and sewn fabric, protrude from the interior of a gold-painted stiletto. Executed in 1953, while the artist was still living in Japan, Stars represents a vivid precursor to the ground-breaking Infinity Net paintings, characterised by their seemingly endless webs of tiny repeated dots.Executed in 1949 and 1953 respectively, Corneille’s Dépouillement (Dispossession), (estimate: €50,000-70,000) and Untitled (estimate: €4,000-6,000) originate from the collection of Ernest van Zuylen, the noted Belgian industrialist and patron of the arts, who was closely involved with the CoBrA movement. He became President of the Société Royale des Beaux Arts in his native Liège, and the two works presented bear witness to his fascination with Corneille: one of CoBrA’s founding members, who played a pivotal role in its evolution. Painted during the heady early days of the CoBrA revolution, Dépouillement captures Corneille’s fascination with mythic subject matter. After the disbandment of CoBrA in 1951, the artist travelled widely. Untitled reflects the jubilant light, colour and sensual textures that came to define his language during this period.

David Hockney’s Portrait of Sir David Webster to be offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction

London – Christie’s will present David Hockney’s Portrait of Sir David Webster, an exquisite tribute to Sir David Webster, the former General Administrator of the Royal Opera House and a defining influence, in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 22 October 2020. Painted in 1971, it depicts Webster in the artist’s studio, seated upon a Mies van der Rohe ‘MR’ chair before a glass table. The painting is being offered by the Royal Opera House with an estimate of £11-18 million. Proceeds from the sale will contribute towards vital funding required by the world-renowned arts venue to alleviate the financial impact of coronavirus, the most serious crisis the organisation has had to face. This will allow the Royal Opera House not just to survive but to thrive in its future programming.Rendered on a grand scale, the work unites Hockney’s flair for human observation with his lifelong passion for opera. From 1975 until 1992, David Hockney would design sets for venues including Glyndebourne, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Royal Opera House itself. Inviting stylistic comparison with Hockney’s landmark double portraits produced between 1968 and 1975, Portrait of Sir David Webster demonstrates the meticulous exploration of space, perspective, lighting and compositional drama that would eventually come to inform his theatrical endeavours.Katharine Arnold, Co-Head, Post-War and Contemporary Art Europe: “David Hockney’s Portrait of Sir David Webster is an extraordinary painting that perfectly captures the artist’s mastery of paint and flair for colour. Rendered in brilliant shades, Hockney has animated the visionary figure of Sir David Webster; a man who was instrumental in the expansion of the Royal Opera House into the institution we know and love at the heart of London. Painted at the height of Hockney’s naturalistic phase, so profoundly demonstrated in his double portraits of this time, we see the artist’s expert handling of light and shade: the way that cloth drapes around the body, how light passes through glass, reflects off curved stainless steel. With Hockney’s light hearted wit, he devotes half of the canvas to a blushing vase of tulips, the artist’s favourite flower. The staging of this painting feels almost theatrical, which is of course a fitting tribute. A renowned opera enthusiast, Hockney went on to design ground-breaking stage sets for major operas from 1975-1992 including the Royal Opera House. As a long-established British institution, Christie’s is proud to be offering this major painting to support the future of the Royal Opera House, which is a great national treasure. Portrait of Sir David Webster will be a key anchor of our 20th Century Paris to London sale season, which celebrates the cultural landscape of these dynamic cities.”Portrait of Sir David Webster notably features the same glass table and vase of tulips as the 1969 painting Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott. The tulips rendered in vibrant colour sit atop a translucent glass table top: a phenomenon that recalls the extraordinary illusionism of Hockney’s treatment of water in his swimming pool paintings. Webster himself is seen seated in a Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer chair just as Ossie Clark is featured in Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy (Tate, London), completed the same year. Though Webster sits alone, the painting captures the sense of hyper-real interaction that lay at the heart of the double portraits: the tulips are startlingly anthropomorphic, as vivid, alive and conversational as another person in the room.

Peter Doig’s Boiler House to Highlight the London Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction

London: Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 22 October 2020 will be highlighted by Peter Doig’s iconic Boiler House (1993, estimate in the region of £13 million), a masterwork from his seminal series of Concrete Cabins. During the 1990s, the artist painted nine large-scale depictions of Le Corbusier’s abandoned Unité d’Habitation at Briey-en-Forêt in Northern France, giving rise to his largest and most distinctive thematic cycle. Boiler House stands alone within the series, capturing the building that Le Corbusier designed to house the Unité’s coal boiler. Included in Doig’s landmark 2008 retrospective at Tate Britain, it is a triumph of painterly bravura and psychological tension. The building’s angular geometries loom large within the thicket, yet Doig’s kaleidoscopic surface causes it to shift in and out of focus, approximating the abstract sensation of looking back through time. Laced with art historical resonance – from Cézanne, Bonnard and Munch to Mondrian and Richter – it celebrates the theme of memory that lies at the heart of Doig‘s oeuvre. Boiler House will be on view at Rockefeller Center in New York from 1 to 5 October before being exhibited in the King Street galleries in London from 9 October, during London’s Frieze Week and will be on display until the livestreamed events held in London and Paris on 22 October.
Katharine Arnold, Co-Head, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Europe: “Peter Doig’s magnificent Boiler House is a seminal painting from 1993 from the series recognised to be central to his oeuvre. The painting is charged with a psychological energy that offers the viewer an encounter with a scene as if chancing upon another person in the wilderness. Unlike the other works from the series, Boiler House depicts the boiler house buried in the forest outside the main complex of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation. It is an image that speaks to notions of memory and displacement, complex ideas that Doig has explored throughout his career. Christie’s is delighted to offer Boiler House as the anchor of our Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 22 October. Following the success of ONE, our global relay auction held in July, we will present a sequential sale series in London and Paris, bringing together the collecting communities of these vibrant and dynamic cities.”

Post-War and Contemporary Art

London. FIRST OPEN: Post-War and Contemporary Art Online, live for bidding from 14 to 28 July, offers an opportunity to obtain the best in contemporary artworks at auction, from rising stars to established names. Prices range from £600 to £60,000, offering an opportunity for collectors of all levels to participate. Highlights include Franz West’s Untitled (1995, estimate: £30,000-50,000), Alighiero Boetti’s Mimetico (Camouflage) (1968, estimate: £60,000-80,000) and Amoako Boafo’s Lady with Lemon Top (2018, estimate: £15,000-20,000). These will be presented alongside Mequitta Ahuja’s Generator (2010, estimate: £15,000-20,000), Yoshitomo Nara’s Hen-Shin (2003, estimate: £40,000-60,000) and Martin Kippenberger’s Untitled (Somateio Zoofilon) (1995, estimate: £10,000-15,000). A selection of works generously donated by artists including Hurvin Anderson, Phyllida Barlow, the Connor Brothers, Antony Gormley and Wolfgang Tillmans will be sold to benefit St Mungo’s, the UK-based charity that aims to end homelessness.Isabel Millar, Head of First Open: Post-War and Contemporary Art Online: “Christie’s are delighted to partner with St Mungo’s, who continue to provide vital assistance and guidance to those who have become homeless, helping them to rebuild their lives throughout these challenging times. The artists that have generously donated pieces have come together to unite in their support of St Mungo’s and we look forward to showcasing the artworks to a global audience through our First Open online-only sale.”Reta Robinson, Head of Fundraising, St Mungo’s: “We are extremely grateful and pleased to be working with Christie’s and all the artists involved. Our thanks to all the artists taking part. Last year marked our 50th anniversary of helping people and we would not be able to achieve what we do without the people who give their time, enthusiasm and energy so freely and share our vision to end homelessness and rebuild lives.”​

Dressing the Table: Contemporary Fine Dining

London – Welcoming the new year with fresh inspiration to reinvigorate tableware for 2020 – whatever the occasion – Christie’s new online sale Dressing the Table: Contemporary Fine Dining is now open to view online, ahead of opening for bidding on 22 until 29 January. Providing dynamic opportunities to mix prints, patterns and one-of-a-kind objects for a thoroughly modern table this year – be it for afternoon tea, an alfresco breakfast, dinner or a home bar – this curated selection of 55 lots ranges from Versace and Dior-designed plates and cutlery to Baccarat glass, Chinese Export porcelain and grand silver candelabra. Estimates start from £800 up to £18,000. Selected highlights from the sale will be on view at Christie’s Headquarters in London from 13 to 22 January, curated by homeware designer and style curator Petra Palumbo who will also be giving guidance in person during a talk on ‘Dressing the Table’ at Christie’s Late on Monday 13 January.
Petra Palumbo explains: “It was an honour and a privilege to collaborate with Christie’s, styling five different vignettes using a curated selection of items from their online dining sale along with my own wares. There were so many unique pieces to play around with, I had such fun mixing prints, patterns and layering colour and not being too precious about matching everything perfectly. My goal was to inject a sense of humour into the settings via the details; for example the M&Ms loosely scattered on the table alongside the lovely German silver pheasants and the ornately decorated porcelain ‘Flora Danica’ table service. I love marrying the old and the new in an unexpected way and I hope my settings will inspire people to have fun, be daring and try not to overthink it!”Matilda Burn, Head of Sale, Associate Specialist European Ceramics and Glass comments: “Dressing the Table offers a wonderful opportunity to leave the Christmas feasting behind and start 2020 with a fresh look for entertaining. I love the mixture of older and contemporary pieces and the combination of the two can create a completely unique look, as Petra’s styling highlights.”

Post-War and Contemporary Art, Amsterdam

Elvira Jansen, Head of Sale, Christie’s Amsterdam: “The autumn season of Post-War and Contemporary Art continued in Amsterdam on 25 and 26 November with a total of €8,355,625, selling 85% by lot and 86% by value. The auctions were highlighted by works with exceptional provenance from the Matthys-Colle Collection, which achieved a running total of €892,000 as well as ‘Art for Future: Selected Works from the UniCredit Group’, which was 100% sold and to date has totalled €1,841,400. Raoul De Keyser’s Kalklijn (Chalk Line), from the Matthys-Colle Collection, set a world auction record for the artist (€237,500) while Kiki Kogelnik’s Superserpent, from the ‘Art for Future: Selected Works from the UniCredit Group’ sold for €162,500, more than eight times its high estimate of €20,000, also achieving a world auction record for the artist. Coinciding with Amsterdam Art Weekend, the global collecting community was evident in the participation with registered bidders from 43 countries across 6 continents. The sale was led by Günther Uecker’s Untitled and Karel Appel’s Sortilège which both achieved €346,000 with further notable results for Marlene Dumas’s The Edge (€237,500) and five additional artist records.”The Matthys-Colle Collection Total to Date: €892,000 / £766,982 / $984,805.Art for Future: Selected Works from the UniCredit Group Total to Date: €1,841,400 / £1,583,319 / $2,032,98 ahead of further works being offered in 2019 and 2020.
The proceeds will be primarily used to support the further roll-out of the group’s Social Impact Banking, which has since its launch successfully disbursed more than €100 million in support of social and micro companies and entrepreneurs in Italy. The proceeds will also be used to support other relevant initiatives including those focused on young and emerging artists. In addition, UniCredit will look to replace the masterpieces sold with works of young and emerging artists.

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening and Day Sales

Amsterdam 25 and 26 November 2019. Following the successes achieved in London for the esteemed Belgian collection, the Matthys-Colle Collection, and Art for Future, Selected Works from the UniCredit Group, the autumn season of Post-War and Contemporary Art continues to be highlighted by further works with exceptional provenance. This iteration of the Matthys-Colle Collection will present 17 works by artists including Karel Appel, Robert Barry, Tony Cragg, Jan Dibbets and Raoul De Keyser. The selection from Art for Future, Selected Works from the UniCredit Group will offer close to 100 pieces, namely by Austrian and German artists. Returning to Westergas, the Evening Sale will be led by Gotthard Graubner’s monumental ‘Kissenbild’, or ‘Cushion Painting’, Untitled (Farbraumkörper Blau) (1975-76, estimate €300,000-500,000). Paintings by Marlene Dumas and Günther Uecker encapsulate the diverse approaches to representation that artists have taken during the last 100 years. The works will be exhibited in Amsterdam from 22 to 25 November 2019.
Untitled (Farbraumkörper Blau) is an intensely dark painting pointing to the sublime nature of Gotthard Graubner’s art: only by virtue of the sun’s light emanating from behind can one see the plethora of colours hidden in the darkness of the canvas. His oeuvre has at its core the investigation of colour.
Uniting many of Roger Matthys and Hilda Colle’s acquisitions was a strong interest in Conceptualism, as demonstrated by the works offered for sale at Christie’s Amsterdam. The Netherlands became an important centre of activity for this movement: Dutch artist Jan Dibbets worked primarily with photography, using mathematical principles to capture natural and manmade phenomena. stanley brouwn created this way brouwn (1969, estimate €10,000-15,000) by asking strangers to tape record or draw a set of directions. Across the Atlantic, American artist Robert Barry set out to explore invisible and non-material media, championing the idea that ‘Nothing seems to me the most potent thing in the world’. The present selection also includes works by German artists Ulrich Rückriem and Bernd Lohaus.Painted in 1958, just one year after Karel Appel’s move to New York City, Sortilège (Spell) (estimate: €120,000-180,000), is a large canvas featuring grand swathes of deeply toned, thick oil paint. Waves of dark and light blues, pale yellows and burgundy red are swept up across the canvas.
Raoul De Keyser’s Kalklijn (1970, estimate: €50,000-70,000) is a monumental work featuring a sharp, white right angle cutting through the centre of a green field with a distant horizon demarcated by a blue strip set against a white background. It is one of a large series of paintings De Keyser painted of chalklines on soccer fields in the 1970s, taking direct inspiration from the soccer fields situated nearby his hometown of Deinze, in East Flanders.
Gerhard Richter’s 16.3.89 (1989, estimate: €70,000-100,000), is a work on paper from the series of works titled after the day of their creation, which have punctuated the artist’s practice at various intervals from the early 1980s onwards. Imi Knoebel’s work is preoccupied with the encounter of colour and its material support, his abstraction building on the legacy of Mondrian and Malevich, as seen in the present example Stand by Me (1993, estimate: €65,000-85,000). A further highlight is Franz West’s Untitled (circa 1972-73, estimate: €55,000-75,000).

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, Frieze Week

London – Christie’s Frieze Week Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction will take place on 4 October 2019 and will be followed by our annual sale dedicated to Italian artists, Thinking Italian. The Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction showcases artists who pioneered new directions for the medium of paint ranging from Sigmar Polke’s dotted raster technique to Gerhard Richter’s ‘Abstraktes Bild’ series and from Joan Mitchell to Kazuo Shiraga. The auction will be led by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s vivid Four Big (1982, estimate: £7,500,000-9,500,000, illustrated above, right), a large-scale painting structured like a devotional triptych. Held in the same private collection for the past five decades – and unseen in public since 1983, when it was the poster image for the group show Kunst Nach 45 at the Frankfurter Kunstverein – Alpenveilchen/Flowers (1967, estimate: £5,000,000-7,000,000, illustrated above left) is an exceptional large-scale example of Sigmar Polke’s Rasterbilder. A further highlight is Pierre Soulages’s Peinture 146 x 114 cm, 6 mars 1960 (1960, estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000), which has also been held in the same collection for 50 years and was last seen in public in 1967. An additional focus of the auction is a group of four works by Gerhard Richter, highlighted by three paintings from ‘Art for Future, Selected Works from the UniCredit Group’.Coinciding with a major survey exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, an early sculpture by Antony Gormley, Growth (1987, estimate: £500,000-700,000), will be offered alongside paintings by Thomas Bayrle, Tomoo Gokita, Loie Hollowell, Nathaniel Mary Quinn and Alfredo Volpi, who are all included in a Christie’s Evening Auction for the first time. Assembled during the second half of the 20th century, the Matthys-Colle Collection reveals the passion for international contemporary art shared by Dr Roger Matthys and his wife, Hilda Colle. A total of 41 works will be offered in a series of auctions across three sale rooms: 4 and 5 October in London, followed by Amsterdam on 25 and 26 November, and finally Paris on 4 and 5 December.The Auction Exhibition will be on view in London from 27 September to 4 October 2019. The Frieze Week programme will be launched by an Evening Auction dedicated to The Jeremy Lancaster Collection on 1 October 2019. A chorus of vivid colour, radical form and brilliant innovation, the collection showcases some of the greatest achievements in post-war British painting, complemented by a stellar selection of European and American works. The Jeremy Lancaster Collection will be on view at Christie’s King Street from 25 September to 1 October 2019.Cristian Albu, Co-Head, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Europe: “Our Frieze Week marquee sale celebrates the trajectory of paint, as artists pushed the boundaries of what this traditional medium could convey. Kazuo Shiraga translated the violence of war to canvas while Gerhard Richter and Frank Bowling are interested in exploiting the plasticity of paint. Sigmar Polke’s Alpenveilchen/Flowers and Pierre Soulages’s Peinture 146 x 114 cm, 6 mars 1960 have both remained in private collections for 50 years so we are thrilled to offer works with distinguished provenance that is fresh to market. The incredible transformation of painting during the 20th and 21st centuries continues with Four Big, from 1982, a defining moment in the career of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and pieces by contemporary painters including Nicolas Party and Loie Hollowell. Belgium’s esteemed Matthys-Colle Collection and ‘Art for Future, Selected Works from the UniCredit Group’ act as pillars for both the Evening and Day Auctions, underpinning the quality and pedigree of the 48 works we are presenting in the Evening Auction.”

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction

London – Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, will be held on 25 June, part of ‘20th Century at Christie’s’, a series of auctions taking place from 17 to 26 June 2019. The auction will be led by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Sabado por la Noche (Saturday Night) (1984, estimate: £7,500,000-11,000,000, illustrated above). Further highlights include Jean Dubuffet’s Cérémonie (Ceremony) (1961, estimate: £7,000,000-10,000,000), one of only nine paintings by Dubuffet from his ‘Paris Circus’ series over two meters in scale, of which three are in museum collections, and Francis Bacon’s ‘Man at a Washbasin’ (1954, estimate: £5,000,000-7,000,000) from the height of his existential blue period. Representing those at the cutting edge of contemporary art practice, works by Cecily Brown, René Daniëls, Dana Schutz, Tschabalala Self, Amy Sillman, Kara Walker, Jonas Wood and Rose Wylie will also be offered. The works will be on view in London from 21 to 25 June 2019. The Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction will take place on 26 June 2019, featuring 138 works. It will be led by Alex Katz’s Ada with White Dress (1958, estimate: £450,000-550,000), a seminal early portrait of Katz’s wife and muse, which was painted the year after the couple met and held in the artist’s personal collection for over two decades. These works will be shown alongside the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction from 21 to 25 June 2019. The Post-War and Contemporary Art June Season will also include Xhibition, an exhibition in association with Galería Javier López & Fer Francés, that explores the relevance and versatility of the sign `X´ – or cross, in the work of Antoni Tàpies, highlighted by Gran creu negra (1990). The exhibition will be displayed in the St James’s galleries at Christie’s, King Street from 21 June to 19 July 2019.

South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art

London – Christie’s annual summer auction of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art comprises 77 lots, almost entirely from private collections from Europe, India, Asia, US and Australia. Following India’s participation and Pakistan’s debut at this year’s Venice Biennale, this year’s auction will celebrate art from both countries.
The auction is led by the striking Falling Figure with Bird painted in 2002 by Tyeb Mehta (1925-2009). This compelling composition manifests the sense of angst, helplessness and fear that Mehta felt at the societal violence and tragedy he experienced in the aftermath of partition. This image draws its power from a cinematic sense of suspense, freezing the action in an eternal moment of helpless free fall. Both deeply personal and politically poignant, this virtuoso painting distils complex psychological and metaphysical notions of suffering and trauma with the economy of line, form and colour characteristic of Mehta’s work. Here, the entwined avian and human figures draw perhaps from literary characters like Icarus or Phaethon, who failed in their quests of flight and union with divinity (estimate: £1,500,000-2,000,000).

Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair

Shanghai – Cina 7-12 novembre 2018 Hotel YiNongMeiYu Interno 14 next parteciperà, con 10 artisti italiani, a Art-72Rooms, un hotel/residenza artistica internazionale in occasione di Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair. Gli allestimenti delle opere presso Art-72Rooms di Arianna Bonamore, Raffaella Calcagnini, Alessandra Di Francesco, Anahi Angela Mariotti, Massimo Orsi, Daniela Perego, Francesco Petrone, Jack Sal, Silvia Stucky, Antonio Virzi, sono a cura di Roberta Melasecca.
Art-72Rooms si ispira ad un modello tutto italiano: “Design Hostel – A letto con il Design”, l’ostello “pop-up” per designer nato due anni fa all’interno di un makerspace in zona Bovisa in occasione del Fuorisalone. Il progetto , sviluppato sull’asse Milano-Shanghai, ha come curatori Weicheng Zhong, che opera in Asia con i suoi tre studi nella progettazione di spazi in grado di fondere estetica occidentale e gusto orientale, e Davide Crippa, docente del Politecnico di Milano e ideatore del Design Hostel con il suo studio Ghigos e il makerspace Ideas Bit Factory. Il concept di Art-72Rooms, che vede trasformare completamente l’Hotel YiNongMeiYu, affonda le radici in due elementi iconici e simbolici della cultura di Shanghai: lo Shikumen e il numero 72. Il quartiere Xintiandi, dove sorge l’hotel, è noto per l’elevata densità di edifici (diverse migliaia, circa il 60% delle abitazioni in città) in stile Shikumen, ovvero la massima espressione di fusione tra lo stile architettonico occidentale e quello cinese. Il tema della commistione e della convivenza di numerose sfumature è ripreso dal numero 72, che richiama una celebre commedia cinese degli anni ’30, ambientata proprio a Xintiandi, dal titolo “The 72 Tenant Families”. L’opera metteva in scena con toni scherzosi e a tratti satirici le vite profondamente differenti di famiglie cinesi di diverse estrazioni socio-culturali. Inoltre, nella cultura cinese il numero 72 è utilizzato per indicare la varietà degli elementi in natura e il costante avvicendamento di Yin e Yang. Ispirandosi alla simbologia di Shikumen e del numero 72, le stanze dell’hotel rinnovato diventano uno spazio espositivo variopinto, inclusivo, partecipativo e interattivo. L’originalità del progetto prende sin dagli esterni dell’edificio, dove viene rivendicata l’identità giocosa e sperimentale dalla carta da restauro che copre la facciata principale, da suggestive installazioni luminose e da opere d’arte poste sul tetto.
Interno 14 next vola, dunque, a Shanghai con le illustrazioni dagli intensi colori mescolati in viaggi onirici di Arianna Bonamore, i tuffi in cielo tra i racconti “celesti” dipinti dalla mano di Raffaella Calcagnini, i dipinti che connettono atmosfere antiche e concetti moderni di Alessandra Di Francesco, con le sculture-gioiello ispirate alla natura di Anahi Angela Mariotti; i pattern che intrecciano classico e ultramoderno di Massimo Orsi; i dialoghi tra tempo reale e percepito nelle installazioni immaginifiche di Daniela Perego; le ironiche e sarcastiche opere scultoree che raccontano la cultura popolare di Francesco Petrone; le installazioni che incorporano gli elementi architettonici del sito espositivo, influenzandone il significato, di Jack Sal; l’indagine multi-disciplinare sull’acqua e la sua sordità nella mutevolezza di Silvia Stucky; i disegni che coniugano le grandi discipline umanistiche e le tecniche visuali di Antonio Virzi. Oltre agli artisti presentati da Interno 14 next, saranno presenti Mirco Facchinelli, Alessandro Cadenelli, Paolo Pasteris, Gustavo Giovannoni. Tra le opere di artisti stranieri, spiccano invece le installazioni interattive ispirate dall’onnipresenza della “super-app” cinese WeChat e articolate lungo fili di seta di Willimann/Arai.

South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art and Arts of India

London – On 12 June, Christie’s will host the 24th annual sale of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art alongside the Arts of India auction as part of Indian Art London. These sales will offer collectors an exciting opportunity to buy classical Indian art from early Gandharan sculpture to Company School painting, all the way through to iconic modern paintings by leading artists Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, and a never before seen sculpture by Ravinder Reddy. The South Asian Modern + Contemporary sale features Untitled (Goddess), illustrated above, a formative example of the artists’ now iconic representations of deified Indian women (Lot 46, estimate: £25,000 – 35,000). Bringing together the ancient and the contemporary, and linking temple, kitsch and Pop art, Reddy’s larger than life sculptures command attention from the viewer and challenge traditional notions of beauty, femininity, and domesticity.

Christie‘s Post War and Contemporary Art

London Christie‘s Post War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction will present Peter Doig’s Cobourg 3 + 1 More (1994, estimate: £8,000,000-12,000,000), which stands among the great icons of Doig’s early oeuvre. A visionary apparition rendered on a majestic scale, Cobourg 3 + 1 More conjures a distant, half-remembered reality beneath a shimmering membrane of scattered pigment. Recently awarded the Art Icon Award at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, Peter Doig placed himself in the Canadian landscape of his youth next to his brother. Acquired in 1994 by German insurance company Provinzial Rheinland Cobourg 3 + 1 More comes to auction for the first time in its history and will be exhibited at Christie’s New York from 24 to 26 February and at Christie’s King Street from 3 March as part of the 20th-Century series of sales ahead of the auction on 7 March 2017 in London. Provinzial Rheinland will use the proceeds of the sale to uphold a long-standing tradition of engagement with the arts and culture in the Rhine region whilst also continuing to acquire the works of young contemporary artists, a focus of the corporate collection from its inception.Dr. Walter Tesarczyk, Chairman Provinzial Rheinland: “It is with a heavy heart that we part with Peter Doig‘s Cobourg 3 + 1 More. However, this sale presents us with the opportunity to maintain our support for arts and culture in the Rhine region and also enables us to secure and expand our collection of 250 works by 80 international artists. Many of these works are displayed in our Düsseldorf headquarters, giving more than 2000 employees free and unfettered access to contemporary art.“Francis Outred, Chairman and Head of Post War and Contemporary Art, EMERI: “Back in 1994 when the tendency was for cool conceptual art, Provinzial Rheinland displayed a brave collecting vision by recognising that Peter Doig was developing a new approach to painting which gave new life and energy to the medium. Standing in front of this work one is taken to a different world and through the whiteout gradually we see a memory of his childhood home landscape and begin to pick out the silhouettes of Doig himself and his brother. Up close the thick texture of snow and staccato brushmarks create a tapestry of paint, the like of which nobody had seen before.” (photo: Peter)

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale Results

London. Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction saw determined bidding in the room and on phones to achieve exceptional sell through rates of 92% by lot and 98% by value with 50% of works selling over estimate and 30% within estimate. The top three works of the night were by American artists that sold globally with buyers in Asia and Europe. Registered bidders from 39 countries across four continents demonstrated the continued demand in the global contemporary market, as well as a proven strength of the domestic market with 10 lots selling to UK-based collectors.The top lot of the evening was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Pork (1981), selling over its high estimate for £5,122,500 / $6,838,538 / €6,167,490. A major draw, two works from the Collection of Johnny Depp were a highlight of the night, with Basquiat’s Self Portrait (1981) more than doubling its high estimate to reach £3,554,500 / $4,745,258 / €4,279,618 after a bidding war of 10 phone bidders. With both works dating from 1981, a pivotal year in Basquiat’s practice, Depp’s focused collecting eye met with keen approval in the sale room. Records were achieved for Sean Scully’s Eve (1992), which sold for £902,500 / $1,204,838 / €1,086,610 and Manolo Millares’ Untitled (Composition) Painting no. 4 which achieved £842,500 / $1,124,738 / €1,014,370, with a record for the medium: Neo Rauch’s work on paper Stau (Congestion), selling for £326,500 $435,878 / €393,106. A total of 10 works sold for over £1 million, with 16 for over $1,000,000 and 17 for over €1,000,000.Edmond Francey, Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, London: “Tonight’s results offer real assurance and continued strength to the globalised art market, with a particularly energetic response to Adrian Ghenie, Andy Warhol, Nicolas de Staël, Georg Baselitz and Manolo Millares. The response to Johnny Depp’s Basquiats electrified the sale room and we continue to see that for the top works collectors will stretch themselves to the highest levels. Christie’s has been able to read the market and offer our consignors and buyers the quality that can continue to attract top collectors to the market. This evening’s total contributes to Christie’s successful 250th anniversary with a Bacon, two Freuds, two Rileys and two Auerbachs to come tomorrow as part of a stellar cast of artists, which we estimate will contribute a further £40-60 million to Post-War and Contemporary Art totals this week as part of the Defining British Art Evening Sale.” (photo: Christie’s)

Defining English Beauty

London – Infatuation with arresting beauty has always compelled artists to produce masterpieces and four superb works are included in Christie’s 250th anniversary sale, Defining British Art, to be held in London on the evening of 30 June 2016: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Portrait of Jane Morris, bust-length (circa 1870, illustrated above left), Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of Lucy Long, Mrs George Hardinge (1820, illustrated above centre left), Frederic Leighton’s Pavonia (circa 1859, illustrated above centre right) and Lucian Freud’s A Girl (Pauline Tennant) (circa 1945, illustrated above right).Paying homage to the true joy of beauty, it is evident how these four portraits transcend and evolve notions of Keats’ timeless sentiment. To a contemporary eye, it is only clear how in relation to the celebrities of the 21st Century, these women continue to be celebrated as representatives of 180 years of beauty.
“As Keats described beauty so perfectly in his in poetry, so generations of British painters have been entranced by the most beautiful women of their day. These Muses inspired many of our finest British artists to execute their greatest works. Unwittingly these Muses have shaped the history of British painting from the beginnings of great English portraiture in the 18th Century when Christie’s was founded.” – Jussi Pylkkänen, Global President of Christie’s International. (photo: English Beauty)

Annual Journal of Contemporary Religious Reformism

«It has been ten years since the last issue of «Fonti e Documenti» was published, the annual journal of the Centre for the study of Modernism and of the Romolo Murri Foundation, both institutions based in Urbino. «Modernism. Annual Journal of Contemporary Religious Reformism», of which this is the first issue, is the descendent of that publication, founded in 1972 by Lorenzo Bedeschi, who remained the driving force. With this new journal, we want to refocus attention on the historical study of the crisis within Modernism in Europe between the 19th and 20th centuries: a pivotal period of confrontation between Christianity and modernity. We want to consolidate and renew the tradition of study into religious reform in recent times, as is underlined by the subtitle of the journal. We want to encourage a new generation of historians to become involved with their predecessors, who worked during the last decade of the 20th century, in the research projects promoted by Romulo Murri Foundation. We want to pay a lasting homage to the memory of Lorenzo Bedeschi. He dedicated his scholarly life to researching into Romolo Murri, Paul Sabatier and other leading figures of Modernism, also studying those who, within the conservative and traditionalist camp, fought against the religious innovators. He dug up and published a plethora of forgotten documents related to this subject, bringing to light many minor personalities involved. «Modernism» aims to continue focusing on unpublished sources. It will have an international character, as is evidenced by the composition of its advisory board. It will rely on the input of young researchers from European and American universities and will accept articles in the various languages used in the scientific community. The journal will focus on the Modernist crisis and on the ideas of ecclesiastical reform which grew out of the Roman Catholic Church. It will also include other scholarly articles, which examine religious reformism from the perspective of other Christian denominations, or other monotheistic confessions. At the same time, it will focus its attention on the reactions to these innovations, considering Modernism and anti-Modernism as two expressions of the deep crisis throughout the religious world. Whit regard to chronology, the field of research will extend from the second half of the 19th century to the present day. The geographical scope of the journal will have Europe as its core but will also extend to America and the rest of the Catholic world. In keeping with current trends in international scholarship, the journal will comprise a monographic section, aimed at analysing a specific topic, a section of miscellaneous articles and one dedicated to bibliographic reviews. The journal aspires to become a useful tool for all scholars interested in religious studies over the past two centuries.» (foto: morcelliana)

Chinese Contemporary Artist Zhuang Hong Yi at Unit London

Zhuang Hong Yi, RAW, 18 September – 17 October 2015 exhibition of recent works by Chinese contemporary artist Zhuang Hong Yi at Unit London. For the inaugural show at its new Wardour Street space, Unit London is proud to present RAW, an exhibition of recent works by leading Chinese contemporary artist, Zhuang Hong Yi.With a celebrated career spanning nearly three decades, Zhuang Hong Yi has achieved international acclaim with works that explore his mixed cultural heritage. Born and raised in Sichuan, China and currently based in between his Rotterdam and Beijing studios, Yi has had over 30 international solo exhibitions and his work has been selected for important shows at major venues including the Found Museum Beijing, China; the Groninger Museum, The Netherlands; and in Venice, Italy in conjunction with the 55th Venice Biennale (2013).Founding Directors Joe Kennedy and Jonny Burt comment:“RAW will present a breathtaking new body of work by Zhuang Hong Yi, and will be particularly exciting as it is his first major solo show here in the UK. Zhuang is an internationally-renowned and critically-acclaimed artist, and the scale of this exhibition is unlike anything we have previously staged. RAW will present some of Zhuang’s best work to date, and reflects Unit London’s fearless ambition to showcase and celebrate the finest international talent here in the heart of London.”Yi uses traditional Chinese materials to produce vibrant, textural paintings with strong allusions to the European Impressionist movement. The flower is a recurrent motif throughout Yi’s work, and carries strong cultural resonance in both China and Holland. Central to Yi’s artistic oeuvre, the fascination with the floral form echoes Monet’s own focus of artistic production in the latter years of his life, and one can draw parallels between both artists’ works.Yi manipulates thousands of rice paper flowers, which he then combines with layers of oil and acrylic to create large-scale fields of petals on canvas that sing with colour. Meditations on nature and form; the bold, sculptural paintings fuse traditional Chinese artistic practices with a contemporary abstract aesthetic. His work is held in several public and private collections, with notable collectors including Nick Woodham, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, the Al Nahyan royal family of Abu Dhabi and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.(photo:Zhuang Hong Yi)

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening sale

New York – 13 May 2015- Christie’s is delighted to have been entrusted for the sale of a dazzling master work by Mark Rothko, No. 36 (Black Stripe), 1958, from the collection of the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden – one of Europe’s most important and prestigious private museums for Classical Modernism and Contemporary art based in Germany. With Rothko’s signature concordance of three shimmering rectangles of directly contrasting color asserting themselves against a luminescent red ground, No. 36 (Black Stripe) is a classic example of Rothko’s mature style of painting and embodies perfectly renowned collector Frieder Burda’s vision and taste for emotional and expressive masterpieces of 20th and 21st Century art. Painted in 1958 when Rothko was engaged with the creation of the series of famous murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram building in Manhattan (now known as the famous The Rothko Room at the Tate Modern in London) – No. 36 (Black Stripe) exemplifies this extraordinary moment in the artist’s life and career. Acquired by Frieder Burda over thirty years ago, No. 36 (Black Stripe) has never appeared at auction and has been featured prominently in every major museum exhibitions devoted to the artist, including the Tate Gallery in London, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sidney and was part of the seminal artist’s retrospective at the Fondation Beyeler, in 2001. Estimated $30-50 million, the work will be on view in Hong Kong and London before being offered at auction in New York on May 13th. Proceeds from the sale will allow Frieda Burda’s non-profit foundation to further strengthen its asset base and thus to ensure the operation of the Museum Frieder Burda, which is exclusively funded by the foundation, for generations to come as well as to expand the work of the museum.Frieder Burda declared, “The decision to part with a work from my collection has been very carefully considered and hasn’t been easy for someone like myself who has a very personal relationship with all works of the collection. No. 36 (Black Stripe) by Mark Rothko is an exceptional work, a solitaire within the collection from which it is hard to separate, however through its unique position within the collection as a whole it lent itself as the best option to implement our long-term plan to part from a work and further refine the collection. It is now strategically the right time and will also allow us to expand our ambitious plans and ideas for the future.”
“Painted in 1958, this vibrant, powerful and deeply emotive painting was created during Mark Rothko’s most influential and acclaimed period. Here the artist has arrived at a new structural language of color that was to define his most famous body of works, The Seagram Murals, painted at the same time and which today constitute the celebrated Rothko Room at the Tate Modern, London. No. 36 (Black Stripe) is the quintessential Rothko – orange, black and red – passion and blood. This is the first time that the painting has been on the market for thirty years and we are sure to see a bidding war at the auction in May for this extremely rare and universally enticing work, especially with such a prestigious provenance and exhibition history,” stated Brett Gorvy, Chairman and International Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art.”We feel honored to be have been entrusted with the sale of Mark Rothko’s No. 36, Black Stripe on behalf of the Frieder Burda Museum. Ever since its opening in 2004 the privately funded museum built by Richard Meier has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors and stands out as one of the most beautiful and successfully designed museum buildings in Europe. It pays tribute to the unerring taste, passion, long term commitment and generosity of one of the great 20th Century art collectors of our time”, added Andreas Rumbler, Chairman Christie’s Switzerland. (Photo: Rothko Burda)