Monday, March 1, 2010

Auction: Contemporary Art, March 9, 2010 @Sotheby's New York

If collectors somehow get through the big fair week/weekend in New York with money still in their pockets, Sotheby's and Christie's have scheduled Contemporary Art sales for early next week to mop up any leftover cash. Sotheby's is up first on Tuesday, March 9. There are a total of 338 lots on offer across two sessions, with 49 lots of photography available, with a total High estimate for photography of $971000. (Catalog cover at right, via Sotheby's.)

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 16
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $113000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 30
Total Mid Estimate: $608000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 3
Total High Estimate: $250000

The top photography lot by High estimate is lot 89, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #63, 1980, at $80000-120000.

The following is the list of photographers represented by more than one lot in this sale:

Richard Prince (4)
Vik Muniz (3)
Thomas Ruff (3)
Thomas Struth (3)
Oliver Boberg (2)
Sharon Lockhart (2)
Yasumasa Morimura (2)
Gabriel Orozco (2)
Cindy Sherman (2)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (2)
Wang Qingsong (2)
Zhang Huan (2)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found linked from here. As an aside, I continue to find the Sotheby's e-catalogue system to be extremely difficult to use/navigate, and trying to use the filters to find the photographs is unworkable (try clicking the radio buttons for "photograph", "cibachrome", "gelatin silver print", and "chromogenic print" - the only items in the list that could reasonably correspond to photography - and see how many lots you get). Also, make sure to run the e-catalogue full screen, or the navigation via the scroll bars will be maddening.

Contemporary Art
March 9th

Sotheby's
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

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