Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, May 16 and 17, 2013 @Phillips New York

The photography buried in Phillips' two Contemporary Art sales last week provided ample proof that if the available works are well edited and the Buy-In rate can be kept low, the overall results are usually plenty successful. In this case, less than 9% of the photographs on offer failed to find buyers, driving the Total Sale Proceeds over the top of aggregate pre-sale high estimate.

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

Total Lots: 34
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2680000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $3980000
Total Lots Sold: 31
Total Lots Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 8.82%
Total Sale Proceeds: $4073250

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

Low Total Lots: 0
Low Sold: NA
Low Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total Low Estimate: $0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 19
Mid Sold: 18
Mid Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 5.26%
Total Mid Estimate: $480000
Total Mid Sold: $568750

High Total Lots: 15
High Sold: 13
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 13.33%
Total High Estimate: $3500000
Total High Sold: $3504500

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 7, Andreas Gursky, Rhein, 1996, estimated at $1000000-1500000; it was also the top outcome of the sales at 1925000

82.35% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, and there were a total of 3 surprises in the sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 194, Andreas Gursky, Untitled 1 (Carpet), 1993, estimated at $60000-80000, sold at $173000 (image at right, top, via Phillips)
Lot 210, Vik Muniz, Valentine, The Fastest from The Sugar Children, 1996, estimated at $20000-25000, sold at $81250 (image at right, middle, via Phillips)
Lot 252, Ruud van Empel, World #16, 2006, estimated at $12000-18000, sold at $43750 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Phillips
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Photography in the 2013 Frieze New York Art Fair, Part 4 of 5

Part 1 of this five-part Frieze report can be found here. Start there for introductory background and explanatory notes.

Sikkema-Jenkins & Co. (here): Vik Muniz, $75000. Muniz' take on Courbet's Stone Breakers, using his recent follow-the-ideas, rebus-like scraps of magazines approach.

Paul Kasmin Gallery (here): David LaChapelle, $65000. A glowing model gas station in a nighttime jungle.

Reena Spaulings Fine Art (here): K8 Hardy, $10000. Two fashion handbags sliced apart and glued back together in a mismatched hybrid. Shown on a lightbox for added brightness.

Galerija Gregor Podnar (here): Attila Csörgö, €8000. An intricate mirrored structure, used to capture the falling trajectory of a lighted die. The result is both a sculpture of movement and an illusionistic multi-angle view.

Wallspace (here): Daniel Gordon, $10000. These Gordon still lifes were among my favorite works at the fair. They erupt in a riot of color and pattern, with layers of photographs collaged into a multi-dimensional installation and then flattened back into a single plane. They take ideas begun in previous smaller still life works and boldly extend them into much more complicated constructions and compositions.

Jack Shainman Gallery (here): Richard Mosse, $20000. These cotton candy Mosse landscapes have become an art fair staple, but there always seems to be a new one to catch my eye.

Almine Rech Gallery (here): Taryn Simon, $35000. Simon's archival investigations have turned to photographs of collections of images around a certain word or theme (in this case "wealth", perfect for an art fair). I was more intrigued by the underlying system of sorting/choosing than the actual end results, and maybe that was the point.

Stephen Friedman Gallery (here): Rivane Neuenschwander, $12000. Talcum power and water constructions that recreate the swirling look of oil spills.

Kadel Willborn (here): Barbara Kasten, $25000. The architectural patterns of World Financial Center, doused in candy colored light and repeated via mirrors, 1980s abstraction gone wild.

Art: Concept (here): Geert Goiris, $32700. The wailing girl in the newspaper clipping is an ominous, almost traumatic partner for this dead bird.

Continue to Part 5 here.

Auction Results: First Open, March 8, 2013 @Christie's New York

The photography in Christie's First Open Armory week sale performed solidly. The overall Buy-In rate for the photographs on offer was less than 20% and the Total Sale Proceeds for photography fell in the middle of the range.

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

Total Lots: 48
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $1011500
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $1438500
Total Lots Sold: 40
Total Lots Bought In: 8
Buy In %:16.67%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1154375

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

Low Total Lots: 15
Low Sold: 14
Low Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 6.67%
Total Low Estimate: $103500
Total Low Sold: $151750

Mid Total Lots: 26
Mid Sold: 21
Mid Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 19.23%
Total Mid Estimate: $595000
Total Mid Sold: $473125

High Total Lots: 7
High Sold: 5
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 28.57%
Total High Estimate: $740000
Total High Sold: $529500

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 90, Andreas Gursky, Atlanta, 1996, estimated at $250000-350000; it was also the top photography outcome of the sale at $314500.

97.50% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range and there were a total of four surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 78, Laurie Simmons, Untitled (Woman's Head), 1976, estimated at $5000-7000, sold at $18750 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)
Lot 80, Sturtevant, Duchamp Man Ray Portrait, 1966, estimated at $4000-6000, sold at $18750
Lot 258, Vik Muniz, Scissors (The Sarcezo Drawings), 2002, estimated at $8000-12000, sold at $30000 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)
Lot 264, Shirin Neshat, Soliloquy series (Veiled Women in Three Arches), 1999, estimated at $6000-8000, sold at $21250 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie's
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Aperture Remix @Aperture

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 8 individual photographers and 1 artistic pair who were asked to make new work inspired by an Aperture publication. The exhibit is divided into 9 sections, with each section containing the new works, a sample of the works which made up the original book/magazine, and a limited edition book combining the old and new. The exhibit was curated by Lesley Martin. (Installation shots at right.)

 

The following photographers have been included in the show, with their chosen influential publication as reference. The details on the works on view made by both the commissioned artists and the subjects are underneath.

 

Rinko Kawauchi: Sally Mann, Immediate Family, 1992

• Mann: 5 gelatin silver prints, 1984-1989
• Kawauchi: 6 c prints, 2012
• Case with Kawauchi's limited edition book

Vik Muniz: Edward Weston, Daybooks, Volume 1, Mexico, 1973

• Weston: 3 gelatin silver prints, 1921-1924
• Muniz: 1 digital gelatin silver print, 2012, 1 copy of Daybooks cut up

Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, Aperture essay books, 1976-2011

• Onorato/Krebs: 1 camera made from a dozen cut through books, 1 archival pigment print

Martin Parr: Aperture issue 103, 1986

• Nan Goldin: 2 cibachrome prints, 1977-1980
• Chris Killip: 2 gelatin silver prints, 1983-1984
• Larry Sultan: 2 digital c prints, 1984
• Parr: 3 digital c prints, 1990-2001
• Case with Parr's limited edition book

Doug Rickard: Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places, 1982

• Shore: 1 set of postcards, 1971-2000, 5 chromogenic prints, 1973-1975
• Rickard: 8 archival pigment pigment prints, 1971-1978/2012
• Case with Rickard's limited edition book

Viviane Sassen: Edward Weston, Nudes, 1977

• Weston: 3 gelatin silver prints, 1 palladium print, 1927-1936
• Sassen: 5 archival pigment prints, 2003
• Case with Sassen's limited edition book

Alec Soth: Robert Adams, Summer Nights, 1985

• Adams: 4 gelatin silver prints, 1975-1980
• Soth: 1 video
• Case with letters and Soth's limited edition book

Penelope Umbrico: Masters of Photography series, 1977-1999

• Group of source images: 2 Henri Cartier-Bresson gelatin silver prints, 1948 and 1964, 1 Wynn Bullock gelatin silver print, 1958, 2 Manuel Alvarez Bravo gelatin silver prints, 1966 and 1967, 1 Edward Weston gelatin silver print, 1935, 1 Alfred Stieglitz gelatin silver print, Eikoh Hosoe gelatin silver print, 1996, 1 Paul Strand gelatin silver print, plus other reproductions
• Umbrico: 87 iPhone images, manipulated by apps, hung as a single cluster
• Case with Umbrico's limited edition book and stack of original Masters of Photography series books

James Welling: Paul Strand, Time in New England, 1980

• Strand: 6 gelatin silver prints, 1928-1946
• Welling: 22 archival pigment prints, 1 diptych, and 3 texts, 2012
• Case with Welling's limited edition book

Comments/Context: In honor of its 60th anniversary this year, Aperture might have easily trotted out a luscious parade of past masters and iconic photobooks, in a deservedly congratulatory and self-referential manner given the publisher's important position in the history of the medium. But the overly obvious greatest hits show has been smartly avoided and instead recast by asking ten contemporary photographers to make fresh works (and books) in reference/homage to any one of Aperture's many publications. The idea of exploring how a contemporary artist borrows and incorporates ideas from other artists is not a new one, of course, but in our age of image explosion and remixed culture, one that seems ever more relevant. Where is the line between responding and appropriating, riffing and reworking, entirely reformulating and just being derivative? The works in this show examine this process, opening a dialogue between past and present, asking and answering thorny questions about the nature of influence and interpretation across the photographic generations.

 

Edward Weston provides the starting point for two of the photographers included. Viviane Sassen has made deceptive pink toned nudes in reference to Weston's iconic almost abstract creations, starting with a similar interest in the lines of the human form, but extending it in her own way into multi-body nudes that have a mysterious selection of extra limbs. Her images are both seductive and sculptural like Weston, but startlingly disconcerting and unexpected. Vik Muniz has also channeled Weston, immersing himself in the Daybooks and building one of his signature constructions out of text fragments from the book and other Weston imagery. His rework of Weston's elegant portrait of Tina Modotti holding a white iris is both reverential and also uniquely Muniz.

 

Alec Soth's homage to Robert Adams' Summer Nights is fascinating near failure. After backtracking from night photography to experimenting with his new camera's video function, Soth opted for still video clips of trees and their shadows, strip malls at twilight, and houses with lights in the windows; my first reaction was that it was all a little too literal for me, and not quite enough of Soth's own vision coming through. But then I stopped looking and started listening more actively: the rustling of the trees, the background noise of a town, the settling down for the night, all captured (perhaps inadvertently) by the video. It's an amazingly perfect soundtrack of summer nights, achingly evocative of Adams' own photographs.

 

Other pairings are equally clever  and thoughtful. Rinko Kawauchi reconsiders Sally Mann's images of her children, with her own ephemeral, atmospheric shots of kids: boys swimming, a splash of water, a baby behind a curtain, the soft sunlight streaming down behind a young girl. Penelope Umbrico dives into images of mountains made masters of the medium, and then reworks them using her iPhone, creating a candy colored array of the very same mountains, somehow made less imposing by tints, tiling, and reorientations. And Doug Rickard parrots Stephen Shore's own postcard idea back at him, discovering his own 1970s era postcards of motels, cars, and restaurants, and then further tuning them to accent the saturated yellow palette of the times; they're a smart homage, using Rickard's own affinity for found imagery.

 

What I like best about this show is its sense of honoring without fawning, of acknowledging influence while still staying true to original thinking. If all of our remixed, reshuffled, chopped, and appropriated digital art of the future is as shrewd as most of what is on view here, we need not ever fear that photography is somehow over.

 

Collector's POV: One of the consistently puzzling things about this venue is that it is always a challenge to figure out what is actually for sale. For the most part, this is a non-selling environment more like a museum, so there is hardly ever an easily accessible checklist with ready price information and image details. What is perplexing about this approach is that often at least some of the works are really for sale or there are additional prints available in the print room, so it usually takes some initiative to get the answers. In the case of this particular show, it is not at all clear whether any of the photographs are available for purchase. My assumption is that at a minimum the limited edition collaborative books are for sale, but I didn't surface any prices, so interested collectors will need to follow up directly with Aperture or potentially with the various galleries that represent the artists.

 

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

 

Transit Hub: 

• Features/Reviews: CNN (here), Capital NewYork (here), New Yorker PhotoBooth (here), Time LightBox (here)

Aperture Remix

Through November 17th

 

Aperture Gallery

547 West 27th Street

New York, NY 10001

Photography at the 2012 Frieze New York Art Fair, Part 3 of 3

This is Part 3 of my review of the photography at the 2012 Frieze New York Art Fair. Part 1 can be found here, along with some background information on the fair and an explanation of the format I'm using for the the booth by booth details. Part 2 can be found here.


Purple Section

Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery (here): Barney Kulok (1)

Kaufmann Repetto (here): Shannon Ebner (1). Another entry in the "built to be photographed" category; this large graphic symbol in cinder blocks by Ebner was priced at $12000.

Rampa (here): Huseyin Bahri Alptekin (3)

Galerie Eva Presenhuber (here): Steven Shearer (3), Amy Granat (1). These floral photograms by Granat are reminiscent of similar images made by Kunie Sugiura, although these have been cropped, reoriented, and transformed into a repetitive, high contrast grid. The work was priced at $20000.

Regina Gallery (here): Nikolay Bakharev (5). I've seen a few of these engaging 1970s beach portraits from Bakharev of late, and they're starting to grow on me. They were priced at $3000 each.

Maureen Paley (here): James Welling (2), Wolfgang Tillmans (2), David Salle (1), Gillian Wearing (1). If there was any one photographer whose work was ubiquitous at this fair, it was Wolfgang Tillmans. This was the best image of his that I saw (due to the complex use of color), a new one priced at $57000 and already sold.

Stuart Shave/Modern Art (here): Linder (10)

Galerie Perrotin (here): Sophie Calle (4 diptychs)

Galleria Continua (here): Mona Hatoum (1 Polaroid triptych). A simple idea, well executed - deadpan portraits with hair exploded by static electricity. This unique set of three prints by Hatoum was priced at $30000.

Frith Street Gallery (here): John Riddy (1), Tacita Dean (1 set of 14). Extra large versions of these Dean film strip works were recently on view at the Tate Modern. The set of 14 prints (offset not photographic) was priced at £45500.

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (here): Vik Muniz (1). Washington Crossing the Delaware in Muniz' most recent style, a dense collage of magazine scrap imagery. Priced at $45000, and not surprisingly, already sold.

Galerie Bucholz (here): Wolfgang Tillmans (2), Sam Lewitt (1 set of 10). I liked Lewitt's layered NY Times transparencies, algorithmically reconstructed and subtracted to zero. Priced at $18000.

Kukje Gallery (here): Candida Hofer (1), Jenny Holzer (1)

Alison Jacques Gallery (here): Robert Mapplethorpe (3). I had never seen these particular Mapplethorpe florals before. The single blossoms are bathed in ghostly, almost garish, colored light. Priced at $35000.

Sprüth Magers (here): Andreas Gursky (1), Astrid Klein (4 collages), Thomas Demand (1), John Baldessari (1), Cindy Sherman (1). The reason I included this $285000 Baldessari image in this review has nothing to do with the pig, or the hands, or the composition really. What is impossible to see in this installation shot is that the work had surprising depth; the different colored portions are built up in inch thick layers. Yet another example of reimagining photography with sculptural qualities.

Pink Section

Wallspace (here): Daniel Gordon (1), Shannon Ebner (1), John Divola (1). Textures and patterns abound in this new work from Gordon, playing with idea of the sculptural bust, priced at $5800.

Galerie Neu (here): Bernadette Corporation (3), Tom Burr (1)

Galeria Fortes Vilaça (here): Jac Leirner (1)

Victoria Miro (here): Alex Hartley (1), William Eggleston (1), Isaac Julien (1 diptych)

303 Gallery (here): Hans-Peter Feldman (4), Collier Schorr (1), Stephen Shore (1 set of 8). This is an early conceptual series by Shore from the late 1960s (recently reprinted), where he stands and rotates in a circle, the desert background changing in each shot. Probably been done before and since, but still effective. Priced at $25000 for the set.

White Cube (here): Jeff Wall (1), Gilbert & George (1 set of 9)

Galerie Martin Janda (here): Roman Signer (1 set of 5, 1)

Vik Muniz @Sikkema Jenkins

JTF (just the facts): A total of 11 large scale color photographs, framed in black and unmatted, and hung in the entry, the main gallery space, and one of the two back rooms (a group of 6 Muniz sculptures, including a Tupperware sarcophagus and an ivory crowbar, are on display in the other back room). All of the works are digital c-prints made in 2011, from the Pictures of Magazines 2 series. The prints come in two sizes: “large” ranging from roughly 71x87 and 71x120 or reverse, and “small” ranging from roughly 40x42 to 40x50 or reverse; there are 9 large and 2 small prints in the show. Both sizes are available in editions of 6+4AP. (Installation shots at right.)
 
Comments/Context: Vik Muniz has made an astonishingly successful artistic career out of a relatively simple formula: take a famous image from art history (or an appropriated celebrity portrait), match it with one of a dizzying variety of unlikely media, painstakingly recreate it in that physical medium, and make a photograph of the end result. His works have forced us to reconsider these icons, and to see layers of connections, embellishments and ironies based on their transposition from paint into something altogether more unexpected.

In the past, Muniz has experimented with uniform media (like sugar, diamond dust, and chocolate syrup) and more three dimensional, multi-colored materials (like pigment, toys, and garbage) in his set-ups. And while he has employed fragments of magazines in a previous series, his new works expand beyond small punched discs into much larger torn scraps and strips, often bringing recognizable pop culture objects, faces and words into the mix. The effect is something more akin to a collage or rebus than ever before, with more of an invitation to unpack the swirling component parts and enjoy their underlying relationships, jokes, and allusions at a micro level. The jagged, uneven edges of the scraps also change the nature of Muniz’ use of texture; these works feel feathery, as if a soft wind was blowing across the surface of the image, catching the frays and creating a subtle flickering motion. These refinements add a new burst of energy to Muniz’ recreations of Friedrich, Van Gogh, Manet, Cezanne, Carracci and others (his re-interpretation of Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers is particularly successful, in the center of the top installation shot), making the up close experience even more dense and complex.

I think it would be entirely possible for Muniz and his studio assistants to continue to crank out a flood of variations on his signature themes that would be happily consumed by the art market, but would fail to push forward in any meaningful way. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find that these images both leverage his past successes and continue to take challenging risks, edging into territory that is less strictly visual and more layered and media savvy. Compared to his works from a decade ago, these new pictures are far more complicated; the density of recognizable visual clues is much higher, offering the viewer much more than a simple squint of artistic identification.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced based on size. The “large” prints are $45000 and the “small” prints are $32000. Muniz’ works are ubiquitous in the secondary markets for both photography and contemporary art, with dozens of images available at auction every season. Recent prices have continued to rise, ranging between $5000 and $270000, most finding a buyer in five figures.

Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system defined here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Reviews: NY Times (here), New Yorker (here)

Vik Muniz
Through October 15th

Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
530 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction Results: Contemporary Art, Parts I and II, May 12 and 13, 2011 @Phillips

Phillips was resoundingly bested by its two larger rivals in terms of photography results in the Spring Contemporary Art season. Only 3 out of the top 9 photo lots in these sales found buyers and the Total Sale Proceeds missed the Low end of the range by a meaningful margin. With Sotheby's at roughly $10M and Christie's at roughly $12M for photo proceeds, Phillips tally at $1.5M looks pretty paltry indeed.

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

Total Lots: 50
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2270000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $3338000
Total Lots Sold: 39
Total Lots Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 22.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1508975
.
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 12
Low Sold: 10
Low Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 16.67%
Total Low Estimate: $86000
Total Low Sold: $100375
.
Mid Total Lots: 26
Mid Sold: 23
Mid Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 11.54%
Total Mid Estimate: $652000
Total Mid Sold: $654100
.
High Total Lots: 12
High Sold: 6
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 50.00%
Total High Estimate: $2600000
Total High Sold: $754500

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 45, Andreas Gursky, Brasalia Plenarsaal II, 1994, at $500000-700000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sales was lot 43, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #422, 2004, at $350500.

89.74% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 4 surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 246, Vik Muniz, After Yves Klein (Pictures of Color), 2001, at $56250 (image at right, top, via Phillips)
Lot 248, Vik Muniz, Tackle (Pictures of Chocolate), 2001, at $84100
Lot 249, Sharon Core, Various Cakes, 2004 at $27500 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)
Lot 396, Paul McCarthy, Dick & Broom, 1997, at $12500
.
Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Part I) and here (Part II).

Phillips De Pury & Company
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening, Morning and Afternoon Sales, May 11 and 12, 2011 @Christie's

The demand for Cindy Sherman's work continue to grow by leaps and bounds. All 10 Sherman lots in these sales sold above their estimates, including the image at right which became the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction, at a whopping $3890500. In general, the photography in these sales performed admirably, with a low Buy-In rate (just 10%) and Total Sale Proceeds that topped the high end of the range by more than $3M.

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

Total Lots: 50
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $6102000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $8696000
Total Lots Sold: 45
Total Lots Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 10.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $11965225
.

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

Low Total Lots: 4
Low Sold: 4
Low Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Low Estimate: $31000
Total Low Sold: $24375

Mid Total Lots: 18
Mid Sold: 16
Mid Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 11.11%
Total Mid Estimate: $605000
Total Mid Sold: $673600

High Total Lots: 28
High Sold: 25
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 10.71%
Total High Estimate: $8060000
Total High Sold: $11267250

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 6, Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 1981, at $1500000-2000000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $3890500. (Image at right, top, via Christie's.)

95.56% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were only 2 surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
.
Lot 377, Cindy Sherman, Untitled (Bus Rider Series), 1976/2000, at $206500 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)
Lot 448, Vik Muniz, Flag, after Jasper Johns (Pictures of Pigment), 2007, at $120100 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening), here (Morning) and here (Afternoon).

Christie's
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, May 10 and 11, 2011 @Sotheby's

Sotheby's took a risk by placing so much photographic value on offer in its Contemporary Art sales last week, and for the most part, pulled it off. The Total Sale Proceeds topped $9.5M, near the top end of the pre-sale range. 9 out of 10 of the top lots found buyers, including both top end Gursky prints, one of which crossed the $2M mark. While there weren't many surprises, to source and move this much merchandise was an amazing achievement in and of itself.

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

Total Lots: 58
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $7131000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $10114000
Total Lots Sold: 44
Total Lots Bought In: 14
Buy In %: 24.14%
Total Sale Proceeds: $9599625
.
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 0
Low Sold: NA
Low Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total Low Estimate: $0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 25
Mid Sold: 20
Mid Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 20.00%
Total Mid Estimate: $744000
Total Mid Sold: $658125
.
High Total Lots: 33
High Sold: 24
High Bought In: 9
Buy In %: 27.27%
Total High Estimate: $9370000
Total High Sold: $8941500
.
The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 9, Andreas Gursky, Rhein I, 1996, at $1000000-1500000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $2098500.
.

95.45% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 2 surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 582, Vik Muniz, Dora Maar, After Picasso (Pictures of Pigment), 2007, at $170500 (image at right, top, via Sotheby's)
Lot 592, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #75, 1980, at $122500

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Sotheby's
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Auctions: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, May 10 and 11, 2011 @Sotheby's

Sotheby's is up first in the Spring Contemporary Art season in New York next week, with Evening and Day auctions Tuesday and Wednesday. With over $10 million dollars of photographic value on offer, it's clear that consignments are way up, in both number and value. Led by a pair of top end Gurskys, there are more high end photographic lots in this set of sales (33) than in any auction in recent memory. All in, there are a total of 58 lots of photography available across the two sales, with a total High estimate for photography of $10114000.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 0
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): NA

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 25
Total Mid Estimate: $744000
.
Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 33
Total High Estimate: $9370000
.

The top photography lot by High estimate is lot 9, Andreas Gursky, Rhein I, 1996, at $1000000-1500000. (Image at right, top, via Sotheby's.)

Here's the list of photographers represented by three or more lots in the two sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

John Baldessari (4)
Andreas Gursky (4)
Vik Muniz (4)
Cindy Sherman (4)
Elger Esser (3)
Thomas Ruff (3)
Andres Serrano (3)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (3)
 

(Lot 563, Vik Muniz, Jackies (In Ketchup), 1999, at $150000-200000, image at right, middle, and lot 578, Olafur Eliasson, The Path Series, 1999, at $60000-80000, image at right, bottom, both via Sotheby's.)
 
The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Contemporary Art, Evening Sale
May 10th
.
Contemporary Art, Day Sale
May 11th
.
Sotheby's
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Auction Results: Latin America, September 29, 2010 @Phillips

The results for the photographs in the Latin America themed sale at Phillips last week were generally weak, with a Buy-In rate over 55% and Total Sale Proceeds that fell well under Total Low Estimate. Manuel Alvarez Bravo had a particularly tough outing, going 0 for 7.

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

Total Lots: 74

Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $451000

Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $643500

Total Lots Sold: 32

Total Lots Bought In: 42

Buy In %: 56.75%

Total Sale Proceeds: $250750

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

Low Total Lots: 60

Low Sold: 25

Low Bought In: 35

Buy In %: 58.33%

Total Low Estimate: $309500

Total Low Sold: $118875

.

Mid Total Lots: 13

Mid Sold: 7

Mid Bought In: 6

Buy In %: 46.15%

Total Mid Estimate: $284000

Total Mid Sold: $131875

High Total Lots: 1

High Sold: 0

High Bought In: 1

Buy In %: 100.00%

Total High Estimate: $50000

Total High Sold: $0

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The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 161, Vik Muniz, Don Quixote in His Study, After William Lake Price, 1890 (from Rebus Series), 2004, at $30000-50000; it did not sell. The top photography outcome in the sale was lot 123, Vik Muniz, Self Portrait (from Pictures of Magazines), 2003, at $33750. (Image at right, top, via Phillips.)
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75.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There was only one surprise in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 296, Mario Testino, Disciples I, 2003, at $8125 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Phillips De Pury & Company

450 West 15th Street

New York, NY 10011

Auction: Latin America, September 29, 2010 @Phillips

Phillips continues its 2010 series of themed sales next week with a selection of works entitled "Latin America". Vik Muniz is the standard bearer, with 6 of the top 10 lots by High estimate. Out of a total of 313 lots on offer, there are 74 lots of photography mixed in, with a total High estimate for photography of $643500.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 60

Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $309500

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 13

Total Mid Estimate: $284000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 1

Total High Estimate: $50000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 161, Vik Muniz, Don Quixote in His Study, After William Lake Price, 1890 (from Rebus Series), 2004, at $30000-50000. (Image at right, top, via Phillips.)

The following is the list of the photographers represented by two or more lots in this sale (with the number of lots on offer in parentheses):

Luis González Palma (8)

Manuel Álvarez Bravo (7)

Flor Garduño (7)

Vik Muniz (7)

Sebastião Salgado (6)

Tina Modotti (5)

Nickolas Muray (3)

Mario Algaze (2)

Natalia Arias (2)

Carlos Betancourt (2)

Carlos Garaicoa (2)

Ernst Haas (2)

Graciela Iturbide (2)

Ernesto Pujol (2)

Mario Testino (2)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Latin America

September 29th

Phillips De Pury & Company

450 West 15th Street

New York, NY 10011