This week in the Back Room: a London auctions recap, David Kordansky loses a star, Duncan McCormick’s curious auction rise, and much more—all in a 9-minute read (2,371 words).
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All eyes were on London’s modern and contemporary sales last week as the first public market test of the year. It feels longer than ever since the New York auctions last fall, when the $1.5 billion Paul Allen sale left the market in a mood of tentative optimism. Since then, financial markets have continued to be impacted by the war in Ukraine, crypto-volatility, and China’s unpredictible Covid policies. While London has so far managed to stave off a recession, the consensus is that it, along with the rest of the global economy, is still careening towards one.
So what can we take away from Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips’s marquee evening sales last week? We break it down below.
Sale totals are down across the board compared with the equivalent sales last year. Here’s the breakdown (after withdrawn lots).
Christie’s 20th / 21st Century Evening Sale
Sotheby’s Now and Modern and Contemporary Evening Sales
Phillips’s 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Despite some rosy post-sale press releases, a read between the lines shows the top end of the market failed to ignite the lucrative bidding wars specialists might have been counting on this season.
After rocketing 500 percent in sales in five years, by the end of 2022 total sales in the ultra-contemporary category declined 10 percent year-over-year, per data from the Artnet Price Database. While the feeding frenzy may have calmed down for many of last year’s market stars, speculative bidding was alive and well for the still-new-enough hot names.
In a sign of the fast-changing tastes of the market, Katya Kazakina pointed out in her column last week that the familiar names that performed explosively at auctions in the recent past were conspicuously missing from the lineup. Trendy works of Black portraiture, bro-primitivism, and Spanish New Wave were nowhere to be seen, nor were erstwhile auction faves like Jadé Fadojutimi, and Christina Quarles. Another two artists who used to be ubiquitous: Amoako Boafo and Nicolas Party, just had one lot apiece on the block this week, and the results tell a story of dynamite cooling.
All told, London’s sales kept the market ticking along, with active participation even if no one was flexing big. Given the economic headwinds, things could definitely have been worse.
This early litmus test showcases the art market’s resilience to economic downturn. That said, this season’s slimmed down catalogues, multiplying presale financial agreements, and greater tendency towards opacity (notably, Sotheby’s did not disclose withdrawn lots at the head of its sale) are smoke and mirrors projecting a healthier market than is strictly accurate. Still, there are some realities—such as the true value of overpriced artists whose markets have been inflated by speculation—that are becoming clearer by the minute.
The latest Wet Paint tracks Calvin Marcus’s sudden departure from David Kordansky and outlines the new watering holes, both secret and not technically open, in New York City that dealers are flocking to.
Here’s what else made a mark around the industry since last Friday morning…
Art Fairs
Auction Houses
Galleries
Institutions
Tech and Legal News
“The art dealer Larry Gagosian agreed to an interview about Ms. Zhukova, a longtime client, but cut it off at the first question, after the mention of the word ‘Moscow,’ and said he was uncomfortable.”
—An interaction with the mega-dealer, who has been conducting business with Russians since at least 2003, recalled in a profile of Russian-American socialite Dasha Zhukova, ex-wife to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who is in the midst of rehabilitating her image in the wake of the war in Ukraine. ()
Date: 2020
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Estimate: £10,000 – £15,000 ($11,994 – $17,992)
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Selling at: Phillips, 20th Century and Contemporary Art Day Sale
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Sold for: £152,400 ($182,799)
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Sale Date: March 3
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It isn’t an exaggeration to call Duncan McCormick an international man of mystery at this point. Aside from his birthdate and residence in Shropshire, U.K., the only other line item in the bio on the painter’s personal website is that he held a single exhibition at Waterhouse and Dodd gallery in London in 2022. Curiously, Waterhouse and Dodd’s website makes no mention of the exhibition, though the gallery did offer McCormick’s whimsical, candy-colored landscapes, suburb-scapes, and interiors at the 2023 editions of Art Palm Beach and the Palm Beach Show. (As part of the former event, Waterhouse and Dodd even dedicated an online viewing room to McCormick.)
The gallery (which operates a location on East 76th Street in New York, too) did not reply to an email inquiry about its history with McCormick, his representation status with the gallery, or what might have accounted for bringing more than 10X its high estimate after fees in its record-setting performance at Phillips last week. What we do know is that the result wasn’t an anomaly. None of the four McCormick paintings offered at auction to date has been estimated to sell for more than £15,000—and yet, none has gone for less than £119,700 (just shy of $146,500 at the time), according to the Artnet Price Database. All four works mounted the auction block between December 8, 2022 and March 3, 2023, and all were acquired directly from the artist by whomever consigned them to the auction houses, deepening the market intrigue around McCormick’s sudden rise.
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