Auction: Under the Influence, March 9, 2009 @Phillips

The rush of Contemporary Art week is upon us in New York, with the Armory and other art shows beginning later this week, followed by a string of lower end contemporary auctions the following week. Phillips De Pury & Company is up first with their Under the Influence sale on March 9. (Catalog cover at right.)

As usual, we're only interested in the photography buried in the contemporary art sales, and so we'll focus our comments and numbers on those lots only. There are a total of 44 photo lots in this sale, for a total estimate of $682000. Here are the stats:

Total Low lots (high estimate of $10000 and lower): 24
Total Low estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $142000

Total Mid lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 18
Total Mid estimate: $340000

Total High lots (high estimate above $50000): 2
Total High estimate: $200000

Phillips is always out on the edge in terms of offering work that is beyond the usual suspects. While Araki, Baldessari, Beecroft, Crewdson, Goldin, Prince, Ruscha and Tillmans are here, there is a long list of other photographers in this sale who are either less well known or tend to be infrequently found in photo sales. I've included them below as reference:

Maria Abramovic
Eija-Liisa Ahtila
Doug Aitken
Carlos Amorales
Matthew Barney
Olaf Breuning
Minerva Cuevas
Gao Brothers
Tierney Gearon
Luis Gispert
Anthony Goicolea
Jill Greenberg
Fergus Greer
Justine Kurland
Dr. Lakra
Marcos Lopez
Walter Niedermayr
Gabriel Orozco
Tony Oursler
Res
Daniela Rossell
Elisa Sighicelli
Inez van Lamsweerde
Hellen van Meene
Vitali
Charlotta Westergren
Erwin Wurm
Yang Fudong

For our particular collection, the Ruscha parking lots (lot 116) and swimming pools (lot 117) would be our favorites of the works available in this sale.

Under the Influence
March 9, 2009

Phillips De Pury & Company
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011