On Tuesday night I went to the preview of Phillips de Pury’s latest auction, Now: Art of the 21st Century, which will occur on Saturday. Overall, I was impressed with what I saw, and it is a great example of how important it is to view work in person and not judge things by their jpegs. Unfortunately this is a website and I can’t fly all of Vandalog’s readers to London, so jpegs will have to do for this post. This auction is a really solid sale all around, but since this is a street art blog, I’m just going to focus on a few pieces today.
This series of prints from Barry McGee (lot 170) is probably my favorite piece in the auction from a street artist. They are APs from an edition of 25. The set of 10 includes screenprints, aquatints and etches. This series would be a perfect introduction to Barry McGee’s work, beacuse it is varied and includes many of his best known characters. The best part is that some of these actually look like originals. Unfortunately, they are estimated at £6000-8000, and after tacking on the auction house fees and all that, you might as well look for a deal on an original McGee cluster for a similar price.
Judith Supine (lot 177) is one of the few street artists who has never really flooded the market with his work. While you can buy Faile originals on eBay these days, I was suprised to see an original by Supine at auction (though, this particular piece has actually floated around quite a bit). While the jpeg may not look all that impressive, this piece in person is really something else. All three of his pieces at FAME Festival sold quickly, and he hasn’t shown in London recently (and I don’t think he plans to), so if the right buyers spot this piece, I think it could go for more than the £3500-4500 estimate.
A Kaws companion (lot 178). This time the collaboration is with Yue Minjun. I’m not a huge Minjun fan, I go back and forth in my opinion of Kaws, and I rarely like toys, but I think I’m the minority on all three of those. Though after seeing it in person it isn’t my taste, it seems like another one of those pieces that could really catch the interest of a couple big collectors because both Kaws and Minjun are extremely important artists. The question is, does their collector base have enough overlap?
I’m guessing that with this piece (lot 176) Phillips was hoping to capitalize on Lister’s solo show at New Image Art (opened September 12). Unfortunately, most of what I’ve seen from that show (thanks Arrested Motion) was meh. This painting does look nice in person though.
All that I really know about Chris Johanson is that he is a Beautiful Loser and not a street artist. I love this painting (lot 172) though. Art that comments on the state of modern art either works or it absolutely does not. This one works (I think).
