Hot Art Photography and the REFCO Premium!
I was just looking through the outrageous prices achieved Friday night at the second part of the REFCO Photography Auctions. The "Little Screamer" image by Jill Greenberg's (seen to the left) immediately came to mind!! Aaaaaahhhhh!
Well, Christies deserves a big round of applause! These prices are stupid crazy high! It's also a good sign that the Photography Art Market is still Red Hot! Or at least some people have money to burn.
The Baldessari "Beach Scene/Nuns/Nurse (with choices). 1991 sold for $744,000!! That is almost 4 times the $200,00, high end of the presale estimate. Ouch!
A Rodney Graham, Lot #4, "Welsh Oak #3" 1998 sold for $168,000. That presale estimate high was only a mere $90,000.
Lot #11, which was a Diane Arbus, "Tattooed Man at a Carnival, 1970" number 57 of an edition of 75, it's PreSale Estimate was $15-20k. This one sold for a whopping $50,400. And I know for a fact, this image was readily available for less..
The huge "Avenue of the Americas" lot #26 by Gursky was possibly one of the only sane winning bids of the night.. it sold to some size queen for only $374,400, which once you take out the Auction house premium it fell to a hammer price well within the $250,000 - 350,000 presale estimate.
And one of Phillip Lorca diCorcia greatest images Lot #39, "Marlyin; 28 years old; Las Vegas, Nevada; $30" 1990 printed in 1993, number 14 of an edition of 20, 30x40 inches, The presale estimate was only $25,000 - 30,000 and it sold for $72,000. Now I know the presale estimate looked a bit low on this lot... but $72k ??
This exact same image, size, etc.. just sold at the October 7, 2005, Phillips Photography sale for only $60,000. That's a 20% jump in price in just 7 months! That's insane a nice investment
FYI.. If you missed out on the Marlyin.. there's yet another Phillip-Lorca diCorcia Marlyin image coming up for auction at Phillips this week.
So the big Contemporary Art Auctions go this week... there's a ton of work up for sale.. so it's going to be interesting to see how high the prices go! Remember.. It's not too late to submit your guess... for our Monthly Quiz..!! That handsome Warhol may go at a high, and you maybe a winner!
I see that Katherine Harris is looking much better.
Posted by: El MarvelOso | May 10, 2006 at 08:49 AM
Paul.. that's Right.. But which one is she??
The Monkey or a the drag queen Marlyin??
Posted by: Mike @ MAO | May 10, 2006 at 09:03 AM
Also, check out this amazing photo auction happening online at www.igavel.com it's a great auction that ends tomorrow and there is some amazing stuff on there. so go online and bid!
Posted by: patrick k | May 10, 2006 at 09:53 AM
Congrats on the Mike Kelly! You said you weren't going to go over $750,000 and you didn't have to! Bravo!
Posted by: Kenny T | May 10, 2006 at 02:22 PM
Kenny T..
LOL!! I think I'd rather burn the money than buy and hang a Mike Kelly work on the wall!!
Posted by: Mike @ MAO | May 10, 2006 at 02:59 PM
What's amazing to me is that the Diane Arbus photo is posthumous and still gets such a big price.
Posted by: lisa hunter | May 10, 2006 at 09:31 PM
the greenberg beats edvard's to smithereens.
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