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The Headlines
WHAT A NIGHT! On Thursday evening in New York, Christie’s offered up back-to-back marquee auctions that hauled in $831 million. Angelica Villa has a full report in ARTnews. The first sale featured a dozen works from the storied collection of the late Anne Bass, which brought in $363 million, well beyond its $250 million presale estimate. Two Rothko paintings accounted for $116 million of that, though they underperformed, while a 1900–03 view of the U.K. Parliament by Monet earned $75 million, trouncing its $40 million low estimate. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night, though, came in the second event, devoted to 20th-century art, which saw Ernie Barnes’s electrifying painting Sugar Shack (1976) go for $15.3 million with fees, adding two zeros to its $150,000 low estimate. Among the artists getting new auction records were Howardena Pindell and Grace Hartigan. Head to ARTnews for all the action.
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ON THE MOVE. Artist Ashley Bickerton, the Neo-Geo giant whose work has “commented on consumerism and industrialization,” has joined Gagosian, Maximilíano Durón reports in ARTnews. Peers at the gallery praised his work: Damien Hirst said “his questions and ideas stay with you,” and Jordan Wolfson termed him “one of the most important artists of his generation.” The gallery will do a solo show in New York next year. Meanwhile, Jack Pierson, “whose works have reflected on queer themes and the relationship between life and art, has joined Lisson Gallery,” Alex Greenberger reports in ARTnews. Lisson, too, has a 2023 show on the calendar with its new signee.
The Digest
MORE AUCTION NEWS: A skeleton of a Deinonychus antirrhopus dinosaur, which inspired the fearsome velociraptors of Jurassic Park, went for $12.4 million at Christie’s, more than double its estimate, on Thursday. (Busy day for the house!) [The New York Times]
In the United States, 56 museums hold some 1,200 Benin Kingdom Court Style pieces, according to an investigation by Peggy McGlone, and 16 are currently involved in repatriating them to Nigeria. [The Washington Post]
Artist Brian Belott edited a series of tributes to artist Lance De Los Reyes, aka Rambo, who died late last year at the age of 44. Contributors include artists Shepard Fairey, Chris Martin, and Donald Baechler, who died last month. “He was never not working,” Baechler wrote. [The Brooklyn Rail]
THE WINNER’S CIRCLE. The Dhungatti artist Blak Douglas has won the 2022 Archibald portraiture prize in Australia, which comes with the equivalent of about $69,000, the Guardian reports. Korean photographer Dongkyun Vak has won the third edition of the A New Gaze photography prize, which is run by the Swiss bank Vontobel, with a purse of about $20,000, ArtAsiaPacific reports. And Deana Lawson, of the United States, took home the roughly $36,600 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, ARTnews reports.
ARTIST TALKS. Light and Space master Larry Bell, whose latest show opens at Hauser & Wirth in London today, got the profile treatment from Jonathan Griffin in the Financial Times, and virtuoso collagist Yashua Klos, whose first museum show is now on at the Wellin Museum of Art in Clinton, New York, spoke with Seph Rodney in the New York Times.
The Kicker
LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE. Home cooks, ready your shopping lists. Cao Fei fans, read on. The artist shared a recipe for Singapore laksa with Wallpaper, and it sounds extremely superb. “‘It’s sweet, salty, spicy, fishy and fresh,” Cao said of the dish. “It looks like a stunning, flowing Jackson Pollock work, white and red pigments hedging against each other.” What more can you ask for from a dish? [Wallpaper]
Source: artnews.com