Sunday, April 20, 2008

Night At The Auctions


It's Sunday, so that means there's no Art News on the Internet. And art-wise, the blogisphere is pretty much shut down. So howz a person to get an art fix ?
Go to Artnet, choose Auctions from the toolbar; then you can chose Upcoming Auctions or Recent Auction Results.
I usually stick with the big auction houses. Didn't see anything interesting in the Upcoming, so I checked out Sotheby's New York, Contemporary Art Wednesday, April 2, 2008. This is a cool adventure for several reasons. After several years of doing this, I'm just blown away by the realization of all the art that's out there; all the art that's been made. You see many artists that you've never heard of and then when you Google them you come across even more. Then there's the not so famous works by well know artists. So it can really be an art education. And what's very fascinating are the prices being paid. I'd be hard pressed to pay $300 for a painting, so it's interesting to see what people will spend $38,000 for, or even hundreds of thousands or millions. And after a while you see trends and reasons; things start to make a little sense.
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The above image is "Untitled" 1991, oil and photograph by Gerhard Richter which sold for $21,250 (includes premium) , from Artnet.com.
I don't know if this is a bit of appropriation on Gerhard's part, but this simple piece really caught my eye and at first seems a bit unusual for Mr Richter. But after some thinking I realized that this fits right in with his oeuvre.

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