Vandalog - A Street Art Blog » Auctions

Weekend link-o-rama

RJ — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:37:24 +0000

Bust in Amsterdam

Happy almost Halloween. It’s been a week of wasted energy, or so it seems. A potential legal wall that I was organizing has fallen through for the time being, but hopefully things are just delayed rather than cancelled. Here’s some of what I should have posted about this week:

Reported, this sculpture at Occupy London was made and left there by Banksy, but that claim is unconfirmed by Banksy so far. Nonetheless, Zeus added this modification to the piece. And Above has also made some work in solidarity with the Occupy movement. Similarly to K-Guy’s work at Occupy London, I’m conflicted here. On the one hand, it’s great when artists who know how to get headlines do so in solidarity with a political movement of sorts, but on the other hand these artists are of course latching on to the movement and associating themselves with it in a way that they know will get headlines and potentially help them sell some paintings. Of course the same could be said of many of the celebrity speakers who have been generally well-received at Occupy events. So there’s that dilemma to think about.
Faile are the latest artists to hit the wall at Bowery and Houston.
Last time I was in NYC, I saw this billboard for Hennessy cognac with designs by Kaws. Just interesting to see the flip from a decade ago when Kaws would have modified that billboard illegal to insert his work onto it in an effort to associate with the Hennessy brand, and now Hennessy pays Kaws to associate with their brand. Also, this new Kaws/Snoopy toy goes on sale today on Kaws’ website. Okay, one last bit of Kaws news: I love this new painting by him.
This is a nice video of ECB painting a wall in London.
The Citrus Report interviewed Feral Child.
John Baldessari’s views on street art.
The Nuart festival book is available for pre-order.
TrustoCorp’s show at Opera Gallery in NYC looks like a lot of fun.
Here are two articles about street art and graffiti in Libya and other countries being impacted by the Arab Spring.

Photo by Bust

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Weekend link-o-rama

RJ — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:40:10 +0000

Portrait of Steve Jobs in France

This weekend I’ll be in Boston. If you have any ideas for what I should get up to, leave a comment. I’ll definitely be checking out Swoon’s installation at the ICA Boston. Here’s what’s been going on in street art while I’ve been locked in my room studying all week:

Steve Powers aka ESPO designed some beer cozies for The World’s Best Ever. They’re pretty okay, but should your beer cozy really be more than pretty okay? I would honestly feel a bit weird of my beer cozy had some brilliant high-brow design on it. Much more impressive is the latest in Powers’ Love Letter series.
Philips de Pury and MTV had a charity auction for MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation, with particularly nice work by Shepard Fairey and Faile.
Stik’s latest solo show just opened in London.
Some beautiful pieces by Sam3 in Porto, Portugal.
AvoidPi designed the latest cover of Showpaper.
Blu’s latest mural is in Greece.
A nice booth for Joshua Liner Galler at Pulse in LA.
Mr. Brainwash has a show opening soon in LA, but it’s going to be full of other people’s art. Anyone can submit work to be wheatpasted around the exhibition. On the one hand, yay, artists can benefit from Mr. Brainwash’s stupid fame and hype. On the other hand, I guess Mr. Brainwash has acknowledged that he doesn’t have any ideas for art, so he’s just openly benefiting from the art of others to further his own art career. So it’s mutually beneficial, except that individual artists submitting work will gain a lot less from this arrangement than Mr. Brainwash will gain overall.

Photo by Abode of Chaos

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Dreweatt’s latest auction disguised as a hotel exhibition

Stephanie — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 06:31:25 +0000

Charming Baker "Panda Boy remix" (2007) (£6,000 - £8,000)

This week sees the opening of Autumn’s most high profile street art “exhibit” at The Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch. I say exhibit loosely since Urban Contemporary is a ten day show culminating in the 150 works being auctioned off by Dreweatt’s on October 10. As usual, there is a mix of crap and some rare works that haven’t been seen in a while. The two that stood out for me is JR’s Adama, Montfermeil, Portrait d’une generation (2006) and the Charming Baker Panda Boy Remix (2007). Not only is the piece an early Baker, but this is also the first time (I cannot find evidence to say otherwise) one of his works has cropped up in the secondary market. Other artists in the show include D*Face, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Blek le Rat and Eine.

The show opens September 30th at The Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch.

D*Face "Pop Tart" (2007) (£4,000 - £6,000)

Shepard Fairey "Johnny Ramone" (2008) (£6,000-£8,000)

All Images courtesy of Dreweatt’s Bloomsbury

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No bid: artnet’s latest graffiti/street art auction

RJ — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 11:31:05 +0000

Keith Haring. Estimated $200,000 to $250,000. Opening at $145,000. No bids so far.

There are 148 lots in artnet’s latest graffiti and street art themed auction. The sale began on Tuesday and ends on the 28th. So far, over 100 of those lots have no bid.

The work isn’t bad. There’s a nice Richard Hambleton, iconic pieces by Haze, a classic photo by Henry Chalfant and a lot more. With a range of artists from Taki183 and Futura to Shepard Fairey and Zevs, there’s a little bit of everything in this auction. While there are some stinkers for sure, most people who read Vandalog will probably find something they like.

So what’s going on here? Why no bids? Do people not want to buy expensive art online? Do people not want to sell good art through an online auction? And what about things like that Richard Hambleton piece going for super cheap, compared to what galleries are trying to sell his work for? I guess that’s that bubble burst, yet again (his auction results are usually much lower than his gallery prices). Maybe one big plus about auctions like this is that they cut through all that hype. Unlike an auction at Christie’s or Sotheby’s, artnet auctions don’t have auctioneers and specialists goading buyers to spend big. And at a quick glance, some of the opening bids look high. Anyway, I’m not going to look through every single listing, but I suspect there might be a few deals hidden in this flop of an auction, if you can wade through everything else.

Better luck next time artnet.

Photo courtesy of artnet

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Weekend link-o-rama

RJ — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 23:11:46 +0000

A.Bot

If you’ll notice that there were a good number of posts on Vandalog this week, you’ll notice the opposite thing next week. With family in town visiting and moving in with some friends and starting the couch-hopping segment of my summer in just a few days, things are rather busy. And so is the art world. Here’s what I have been reading this week:

Romanywg has a new book out about art in abandoned places.
The indoor segment of Bristol’s Upfest looks really great.
Swampy’s show in San Fransisco looks like it would have been spectacular to see in person. I’m jealous.
Two fabulous new murals by Blu and Ericailcane.
Essu makes great stickers (if you’re okay with a strong McGee influence).
Someone seems to agree with me on the court case that Mr. Brainwash recently lost. Fair use applies even to bad art.
Skittles needs to find a new advertising company.
Faile have a prints show in Venice Beach.
San and Escif are collaborating.
Everyone’s talking about this Shepard Fairey thing, but frankly I don’t really care. Dude was being hassled and got a bit irritated and snapped. We all do it. Oh and didn’t everyone know that he has assistants to put up his street work?
This video features Marcelo, who is one of the 127 carts that carry the art of the graffiti artist Mundano, and just one of the 20.000 that have in São Paulo.
Some Banksy pieces are up for sale at Sotheby’s.
Performance artist is jailed for not harming anything at all.
Photos from the show that Barry McGee and Josh Lazcano curated at V1 Gallery.

Photo by Get.off.My.Spaceship!

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Dreweatts Urban Contemporary Sale

Elisa Carmichael — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 06:57:20 +0000

Dreweatts is holding their next Urban Contemporary sale on Wednesday, April 6. Whilst I continue to struggle to understand why works by artists such as Lucien Freud, Russell Young and Damien Hirst are included in a sale with the aforementioned title, there are certainly a few lots that are both worth taking a look at and actually fit the sale’s theme. These include eight Banksy prints and one of his Family Target canvases from 2003 (est. 30-50k GBP), a cool Martha Cooper photograph of Shy 147 precariously balanced between two train cars as he paints (est. 1200-1800 GBP), a haunting Guy Denning canvas (est. 3-5k GBP), a Jonathan Yeo Leaf Study (est. 4-6k GBP) and a really beautiful Adam Neate Self Portrait on cardboard (est. 8-12k GBP). The Neate is probably the highlight of the auction, at least in my opinion. It’s my birthday on Friday if a Vandalog reader out there is feeling generous. I’ll take you out for a drink next time you’re in LA to show my gratitude.

One of the more interesting aspects of this sale, however, is the final group of works, which will be auctioned in aid of Haven House Children’s Hospice. The twenty-five lots that comprise this section were curated by 15 year old, London-based Liam Patel. I don’t normally reprint press releases, but the text below sums up Liam’s endeavors fairly well so I recommend reading it. Stand-out works include those by Mantis, Herakut (pictured above), Remi/Rough and Matt Small.

Liam Patel has been collecting Urban Art since he was 12; now at the ripe old age of 15 he has brought together an extraordinary group of 25 cutting-edge lots to be sold at Dreweatts’ Urban Contemporary sale on Wednesday 6^th April, to raise money for the Haven House Children’s Hospice.

Unable to do physical charity work for his Duke of Edinburgh Award because he had a broken arm and shoulder, Liam decided to ask some of his favourite artists to donate their work to raise £10,000 for the Children’s Hospice, which offers vital support to children with life-limiting conditions and their parents. Liam then approached Dreweatts to host the sale in their central London branch at 24 Maddox Street W1 and they were only too happy to help by offering the venue, and any extra expertise.

‘I came up with the idea to curate an Urban Art charity auction as the Haven House Children’s Hospice needs to raise around £2m each year to provide fantastic support for children and their families. Even though I won’t be able to raise that amount, every little helps.’ Each piece comes with a certificate of authenticity from the artist and estimates range from £100 to £1,200. The group to be sold for the charity includes works by the likes of Matt Small, Schoony, Handiedan, Mantis, Nick Gentry, Herakut and Arkiv Vilmansa all of whom were delighted to be able to help by donating the proceeds of their pictures.

- Elisa

Image via Dreweatts‘ Urban Contemporary catalogue.

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Weekend link-o-rama

RJ — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:57:52 +0000

Overunder

This week is spring break, so I’ve been enjoying some relaxation and watching too many films on Netflix, but in the mean time, there were of course some stories that slipped by me. Here are some of them:

Some of my favorite photographers in the UK have put together a graffiti zine.
So apparently, the name Banksy written on a piece of cardboard automatically adds exactly $68,500 of value to said piece of cardboard.
Speaking of Banksy, this post raises some questions about what really separates Banksy from the crowd.
Todd James, Steve Powers and Barry McGee, the three artists behind the legendary Street Market show are reuniting at LA MOCA’s Art In The Streets exhibit next month.
Mark Dean Veca is going to be doing a live painting event in New York for most of next week.
Stik’s show in London is at possibly the coolest indoor gallery venue imaginable.
Becca has some new work up.
This piece by Snyder has fantastic placement.
That cool-looking film about the guys who illegally buff graffiti, Vigilante Vigilante, is almost done but needs a bit more money for editing, so they’ve got a Kickstarter campaign started.
Looks like The Leonard Street Gallery saga from a few years ago isn’t quite over.

Photo by Overunder

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Graffiti at Christie’s Amsterdam

RJ — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:54:34 +0000

My friends are Lebowski Publishers are hosting this event next week at Christie’s in Amsterdam. At the next auction at that Christie’s location, there are going to be a number of pieces for sale from old-school writers, which is how this party has come about. Nothing against old-school graffiti on canvas, but it’s not really my thing. What I’m more interested in with this party is the living painting collaboration between Shoe and Quik, plus whatever Laser 3.14 and WorldWarWon get up to in. WWW is a clever and new street artist in London, and Laser 3.14 does some great text-based street art/graffiti. Also, the first 50 people there will get a copy of a classic book: The Faith of Graffiti.

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Weekend link-o-rama

RJ — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:13:40 +0000

Elfo's road sign for an underground robber

Getting back in the swing of things at school this week. Fair warning, today is the first meeting of a class I’m taking about conceptual art. I’m excited and the professor seems awesome, but just fair warning: That class could bleed over into the rest of my life and lead to an increase in bullshitting from me here on Vandalog. Unfortunately, I haven’t sorted out a proper internet connection yet since getting back to school, so I’ve been a bit lax this week. Here’s what’s been going on:

This isn’t street art or urban art or low brow or anything really related to Vandalog, but one of my favorite artists, Hiroyuki Doi, has a show on in New York right now. Definitely check it out.
Kid Acne has a new zine out.
This collaboration between Malarky, Billy and Mighty Mo is great.
At first I hated this sculpture from Jeremy Fish, but now I’m thinking I’d love to walk by it every day.
Last week I asked about graffiti photographers in Philadelphia, and Fat Cap has found a great one.
I think some of these pieces from Phil Jones are old, some just remind me of Asbestos’ Lost series and some are pretty meh, but damn overall Jones is kicking ass with some fun street art.
Felice Varini makes me smile.
Exit Through The Gift Shop was nominated for a BAFTA and won an award for documentaries. In other Banksy news, someone is trying to sell 5 Banksy works on paper, basically preparatory works, for £125,000.
This “news” article reads like a press release for Bonhams, but there is one surprising bit of information in there: Apparently the Shepard Fairey Peace Goddess, which sold earlier this month at Bonhams for £27,600, is the highest price ever paid for a Shepard Fairey work at auction. I would have thought he’d reached a higher number by now, but I guess most of the work that goes to auction tends to be prints and HPMs, not the large collages or retired stencils that might have otherwise already reached that number. UPDATE: Of course, the article is wrong. That isn’t the highest price paid for a Shepard Fairey work at auction. Not sure if this price is the highest, but it’s much higher than the Bonhams result. So I guess that article is just a giant press release. Sorry.
And because that last thing was all about money, here’s a relevant old piece from Twist/Barry McGee.
Jose Parla has been busy in Toronto (Thanks to Simon for the tip).

Photo by Elfo

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Art (and an identity) at auction

RJ — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:51:11 +0000

Banksy's "Portrait of an Artist" sold for £60,000 at Bonhams

There were two auctions of note this week.

First, Bonhams has their latest urban art auction on Tuesday evening. Most of the notable sales in that auction can be found on Arrested Motion. Additionally, an Eine went for double the high estimate and a Luc Price did very well.

But of course, it’s worth noting that there’s an element of madness with auctions. Perhaps this is best exemplified by an eBay listing where the item for sale was Banksy’s identity (listed for a Buy It Now price of $25,000). The seller claimed to have matched a person’s tax records with Banksy’s sale records. Sounds like complete BS to me. The listing was taken offline last night for unknown reasons. IFC has more info.

UPDATE: The eBay listing is back online, this time selling a piece of paper with Banksy’s name on it, which should fit within eBay’s auction rules.

Photo courtesy of Bonhams

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