Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Auction Results: Contemporary Art, Parts I and II, November 12 and 13, 2009 @Phillips

The contemporary photography available at the recent Contemporary Art auctions at Phillips performed measurably worse than the works on sale at Christie's or Sotheby's in the previous days. The Total Sale Proceeds for photography across Parts I and II were meaningfully below the Total Low Estimate, with a Buy-In Rate that was much higher (35%). When the big ticket top lot fails to sell (in this case, a Richard Prince), it certainly puts a drag on the overall statistical results.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 60
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $1685000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $2436000
Total Lots Sold: 39
Total Lots Bought In: 21
Buy In %: 35.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1459250

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 18
Low Sold: 15
Low Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 16.67%
Total Low Estimate: $129000
Total Low Sold: $103250

Mid Total Lots: 36
Mid Sold: 20
Mid Bought In: 16
Buy In %: 44.44%
Total Mid Estimate: $927000
Total Mid Sold: $488500

High Total Lots: 6
High Sold: 4
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 33.33%
Total High Estimate: $1380000
Total High Sold: $867500

87.18% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were only two surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 222 Kim-Joon, Duet-dog, 2006, at $16250
Lot 242 Frank Thiel, Stadt 10/06/A (Berlin), 2001, at $32500

The top lot by High estimate is lot 8, Richard Prince, Untitled (four women with their backs to the camera), 1980, at $400000-600000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 6, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1994, at $542500.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Part I) and here (Part II).

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

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