A work by the Belgian painter Rene Magritteanother from the American Ed Ruscha and a vulgar Italian banana Maurizio Cattelan They can set records in the New York art auctions that begin this week, in a market that hopes to overcome last year’s slump.
The two main houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, compete starting Monday with a rich offer that includes names such as Picasso, Magritte, Matisse, Miró, Kandinsky, Ruscha, Basquiat, Rothko, Lichtenstein or Botero.
Exposed to the public free of charge in their respective headquarters, which became ephemeral museums for a few days, many works for sale had never left the walls of their owners.
Like “L’empire des lumières” by René Magritte (1898-1967), belonging to a series in which the master of surrealism plays with lights and shadows, confusing night with day. Christie’s has estimated its price at $95 million, a record for the Belgian painter.
The work is part of the collection of the designer and patron of Romanian origin. Mica Ertegunwho died at the age of 97 last December, which also includes pieces of Joan Miró, David Hockney y Ed Ruscha.
The home of the French luxury brand magnate Francois Pinault also puts up for sale another iconic work by Ed Ruscha“Standard Station”, which the American reference in pop and conceptual art painted in 1966 when he was 29 years old.
Now 86, Ruscha’s paintings of the gas stations that dotted the famous Highway 66 linking Chicago and Los Angeles defined the modern American landscape and contributed to the bold visual language of the 1960s.
The paintings by Magritte and Ruscha “have never been auctioned and are truly the best of their kind,” says Christie’s vice president. Max Carter.
For its part, Sotheby’s is putting the collection of Sydell Millerknown as the “queen of the beauty industry” for her empire of false eyelashes and hairdressing products, died last February at the age of 86. It is said that his house in Palm Beach (Florida) looked like a museum and it took an hour to tour its rooms.
Included in the sale is a work from the “Water Lilies” series by the French impressionist. Claude Monetvalued at 60 million, and a ‘Picasso’ worth 30 million.
Sotheby’s, owned by the French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahiis also putting up for sale online starting Thursday a collection of 31 chalk drawings by Keith Haringone of the pioneers of street art, on the advertising panels of the New York subway in the 1980s.
The most controversial work is “Comedian”, a banana held on the wall with adhesive tape by the Italian visual artist. Maurizio Cattelanwhich already caused a sensation when it was exhibited for the first time at the Basel Art Fair in Miami in 2019.
Admired or criticized, the banana, which has been eaten twice, comes with a roll of adhesive tape and an instruction manual to change it at the correct moment of ripening. Sotheby’s has valued it between $1 million and $1.5 million.
The market hopes to recover from high interests, inflation and political instability that in 2023 led it to register 3,000 million less than the 68,000 million in 2022 (-4%). Christie’s expects to close the week with sales of between 583 and 796 million and Sotheby’s 478 and 659 million.
“Our market is defined more by supply than demand” and this season “we feel very optimistic,” says Carter.
Encouraged by the “surreal” sales in Paris, “well above estimates,” the head of the Impressionism and Modern Art section at Sotheby’s, Julian Dawesassures that the market “is robust” and “the demand is there.”
“Buyers are active. I think that in recent months there have been many positive signs in the macroeconomy,” he says.
Source: AFP. Photos: Kena Betancur / AFP
