George Lindemann Journal - "On the Fourth Night of Contemporary Art Auctions, Rising Stars Go on the Block" By CAROL VOGEL
“Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange)” by Mark Rothko from 1955. Credit Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via Phillips
After three consecutive nights of contemporary art auctions, the die-hards turned out for a fourth and final helping, which took place at Phillips, the smaller, third-place auction house.
The draw was not so much for brand-name artists, who brought unremarkable prices on Thursday. Instead, buyers went for today’s rising stars, whose work has the potential to skyrocket in value.
By the evening’s end, Phillips sold nearly $131 million, above its low $124.6 million estimate. Of the 46 works on offer, nine failed to sell.
Packing the Phillips headquarters at Park Avenue and 57th Street were veteran collectors like Donald and Mera Rubell of Miami, Stefan Edlis of Chicago and David Ganek, the former New York hedge-fund manager. Leonardo DiCaprio sat in a skybox above the salesroom, with a cap pulled down tight over his forehead.
The evening’s top seller was one of Rothko’s abstract canvases — “Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange),” from 1955 — which went to an unidentified telephone bidder for $50 million, or $56.1 million with fees. And although the owner was not identified, dealers familiar with the work said it was from the collection of Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft. Mr. Allen had bought the painting at Christie’s in 2007 for $34.2 million. Before the auction, experts at Phillips said they estimated it would bring around $50 million.
(Final prices include the buyer’s commission to Phillips: 25 percent of the first $100,000; 20 percent of the next $100,000 to $2 million; and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)
The evening was filled with paintings by Basquiat and Warhol, and even an example of the two artists’ working together. “Zenith,” a 1985 collaboration, melded Basquiat’s graffiti figures (a skull, angry black faces, a she-goat) and Warhol’s pop culture references (a 50 percent off sign, a sports car). It was expected to sell for $10 million to $15 million, and went to a lone telephone bidder for $11.3 million.
Stavros Merjos, a Los Angeles dealer, was the only taker for one of Warhol’s “Flowers,” from 1964. Although the piece was expected to sell for $10 million to $15 million, he managed to buy it for $9 million, or $10.2 million with fees.
But sculptures by Dan Flavin, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein and David Smith failed to get so much as one bid.
For younger artists, competition heated up. A canvas filled with black X’s by Wade Guyton, estimated to bring $1.5 million to $2 million, sold for $2.1 million with fees to Daniella Luxembourg, a private dealer. Mr. Guyton, who produces paintings on inkjet printers, is one of the few artists working today who is trying to keep the hype down. This weekend, to protest an enormous price being asked for one of his 2005 flame paintings at Christie’s, he made copies of the image from his original disk and posted them on Instagram.
A suite of four white canvases filled with nothing but pigeon droppings by Dan Colen, another popular American artist, also brought a strong price. David Mugrabi, a New York dealer, bought the work for $545,000, in the middle of its $400,000 to $600,000 estimate. Mr. Colen has a one-man show at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Conn.
Prices for other young artists soared. “Standing Nude,” a 2007 vinyl on canvas by Joe Bradley that was estimated to sell for $200,000 to $300,000, brought $581,000. And a messy two-year-old painting of colorful scrawls by the Colombian-born artist Oscar Murillo went for $389,000, more than twice its high estimate of $150,000.
After the sale, the chief executive of Phillips, Michael McGinnis, called the evening “energetic,” adding that although Asians were visibly dominant at auctions earlier this week, their participation on Thursday night was “certainly not a stampede.”