Something wasn't in the air. I stopped by Phillips on Saturday for the preview of the upcoming Contemporary Art auction. I LOVE the auctions because of the previews. Seriously. I love seeing all that art that isn't normally on display when it's between collections. Usually, the work that I see at Phillips is, for the most part, pretty damn wonderful. Not so much this time though. Don't get me wrong. I saw some nice pieces, but the overall quality wasn't up to snuff. Are the sellers concerned that the market isn't going to bear the fruit for which they hoped? Are they holding back the good stuff??? I don't know. Culturegrrl seems to know what the hell she's talking about if you're interested in that sort of thing. Read her. Let's remember that all of my market predictions have come from Porsche conditions in Chelsea. Hmmmmmmmm. OK. I've thought about it. I'm sticking with the cars.
At any rate, it was worth the price of admission ($0 + a willingness to drink truly excellent Berry Bellinis) just to see Jack Goldstein's amazing Untitled (Burning City) pictured above. I think I went back 3 times to see this one. The burning fade at the bottom edge. All that black. Then the lost. Damn. The last time I saw a Goldstein at an auction some proudly knowledgeable fellow started to wonder aloud about who "really" painted the piece. Well, who knows dude. Probably David Salle, but sooooooooo NOT the point. I'll stop this rant short. Also kicking my ass was a large format C-Print of Marilyn Minter's Unarmed (Pamela Anderson). You already know what I think of that image. Another nice, but bittersweet, surprise was the late Jeremy Blake's Mod Lang. An odd thing, this one. The video looks more "painty" than anything I've ever seen by him yet it felt less like a painting.
Wow. That might have been a short post, but it was pretty rambling. I couldn't even figure out a good way to end that last Britney of a paragraph. We'll just have to accept the fact that it was was a little incomplete and unsatisfying, and hope for better luck next time. Which, I guess, is a little bit like the collection of works they've assembled at Phillips. I'll be curious to see what happens, but mostly I'll just hope for better luck next time.
1 comment:
Interesting. I actually did a double-take. There's an air of "Pamela" in the picture, which of course made me study it for a few seconds before realizing it was really her.
But the reason I recognized her, believe it or not, was because of her hand. Now, how many men go around saying that they notice Pamela Andersons hands, and really mean it?
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