Art101
chapter
3
Seeing the Value in Art
Fig. 44 Sylvie Fleury, Serie ELA 75/K (Plumpity . . . Plump), 2000. Gold-plated shopping cart, plexiglas handle with vinyl text, rotating pedestal (mirror, aluminum, motor). 32 3/4 37 3/4 215/8 in. Pedestal 121/4 393/8 in.
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich, Switzerland.
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t the end of Chapter 2, we briefly mentioned the explosive career of JeanMichel Basquiat after a number of his graffiti-like paintings were exhibited in the 1981 New York/New Wave exhibit at P. S. 1, an alternative art gallery across the 59th Street Bridge from Manhattan. Henry Geldzahler, then Cultural Commissioner for New York City, saw his paintings at P. S. 1 and “just flipped out.” Alauna Heiss, founder of P. S. 1, recalls “standing in front of Jean-Michel’s work with a director of Philip Morris. We were paralyzed. It was so obvious that he was enormously talented.” By 1982, Basquiat was earning an average of about $4,000 a week by painting. Two years later, at age 24, he became the first black artist to grace the cover of
The New York Times Magazine. At the time of his death, four months before his 28th birthday, the victim, according to the medical examiner’s report, of “acute mixed drug intoxication (opiates–cocaine),” his paintings were selling for about $30,000 each (normally a dealer keeps 50 to 60 percent of the sale price). Soon after his death, the auction house Christie’s sold a 1981 canvas for $110,000. Now, 20 years since his death, the current auction record for a Basquiat is $14.6 million for Untitled, a painting featuring a figure with large hands. It sold at Sotheby’s in 2007. As an obituary ironically entitled “Banking on Basquiat,” put it, “There’s no artist like a dead artist, some dealers are fond of saying.”
ISBN 0-558-55180-7
A World of Art, Sixth Edition, by Henry M. Sayre. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2010 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Fig. 45 Installation view of
3
Seeing the Value in Art
Fig. 44 Sylvie Fleury, Serie ELA 75/K (Plumpity . . . Plump), 2000. Gold-plated shopping cart, plexiglas handle with vinyl text, rotating pedestal (mirror, aluminum, motor). 32 3/4 37 3/4 215/8 in. Pedestal 121/4 393/8 in.
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich, Switzerland.
A
40
t the end of Chapter 2, we briefly mentioned the explosive career of JeanMichel Basquiat after a number of his graffiti-like paintings were exhibited in the 1981 New York/New Wave exhibit at P. S. 1, an alternative art gallery across the 59th Street Bridge from Manhattan. Henry Geldzahler, then Cultural Commissioner for New York City, saw his paintings at P. S. 1 and “just flipped out.” Alauna Heiss, founder of P. S. 1, recalls “standing in front of Jean-Michel’s work with a director of Philip Morris. We were paralyzed. It was so obvious that he was enormously talented.” By 1982, Basquiat was earning an average of about $4,000 a week by painting. Two years later, at age 24, he became the first black artist to grace the cover of
The New York Times Magazine. At the time of his death, four months before his 28th birthday, the victim, according to the medical examiner’s report, of “acute mixed drug intoxication (opiates–cocaine),” his paintings were selling for about $30,000 each (normally a dealer keeps 50 to 60 percent of the sale price). Soon after his death, the auction house Christie’s sold a 1981 canvas for $110,000. Now, 20 years since his death, the current auction record for a Basquiat is $14.6 million for Untitled, a painting featuring a figure with large hands. It sold at Sotheby’s in 2007. As an obituary ironically entitled “Banking on Basquiat,” put it, “There’s no artist like a dead artist, some dealers are fond of saying.”
ISBN 0-558-55180-7
A World of Art, Sixth Edition, by Henry M. Sayre. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2010 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Fig. 45 Installation view of