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As a self-professed size queen, at least when it comes to contemporary art, I completely understand the impulse to want to go for the biggest piece from an artist, especially as larger works tend to allow the artist to explore in depth a particular idea or experience.
I’m glad I’m not the only one:
—
Buyers say big is best: Collectors want museum size and quality to fill their private galleries
“The bigger the better” proclaims a sequined banner by Frances Goodman (2007) at Goodman Gallery (no relation) (F2). At $5,500, it was immediately snapped up by a private collector.
The message could stand as a symbol for much of the art at Art Basel Miami Beach, which opened its doors to the now-familiar surge of VIPs yesterday. On offer, on stand after stand, were many extremely large-scale works.
Hauser & Wirth (C16) quickly sold a 24ft-long wall of Roni Horn C-prints, Cabinet of…, 2001, for $375,000 to an American private collector. The entire outside wall of Matthew Marks (B15) is taken up by a 17ft Andreas Gursky photograph of a Frankfurt nightclub, Cocoon, 2007, which sold to an American private museum for $900,000.
Andreas Gursky, Cocoon, 2007, C-print mounted on plexiglas in artist’s frame, 85.04 x 202.36 in/216 x 514 cm. Courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery.
“In New York homes you’d think that large-scale works would be difficult to place. But remember these buyers have other houses elsewhere,” said Clara Ha, director of Paul Kasmin (H20). As if on cue, a collector at the stand was later heard saying “I have a home in Aspen where we have big walls,” having failed to buy an already sold, large-scale crouching tiger painting by Walton Ford, Hyrcania, 2007, around $250,000.
Elsewhere, Richard Gray and Galerie Lelong (J10 and E5) quickly sold a 26ft-high Jaume Plensa sculpture, Nomade, 2007 for $1.65m to Des Moines collectors and National Gallery of Art, Washington benefactors, John and Mary Pappajohn. Currently sited on the beachfront outside the Hotel Victor, the piece will be lent to the Des Moines Art Center before finding a final home in the collectors’ planned sculpture park.
At Eigen + Art (B7), Stella Hamberg’s Berseker II, 2007 ($180,000) an 800kg bronze, was drawing people into the stand and looked likely to go into a private collector’s garden. It was on reserve as we went to print.
As well as aiming for the oversized works, several buyers also wanted whole installations and series, rather than individual works of art. Victoria Miro (A7) sold John Kørner’s Mr and Mrs Smith at Work, 2007, $120,000, a brightly coloured installation of porcelain figures, a workbench and tools, to a European collector. “A lot of people have private museums. They love this kind of work,” she said.
At Mary Boone (F5) five huge Eric Fischls, Scenes from the Late Paradise series from 2006-07 sold to an American private buyer for $10m. The largest measured over 10ft, so the whole set would require a wall at least 43ft long. “Today, most collectors see so many commercial galleries that they want to recreate them at home,” explains gallery director Ron Warren.
Hauser & Wirth’s sprawling Christoph Büchel installation is a scaled-down version of the aborted piece destined for MassMoCA. The ensembles includes original Florida voting booths, children’s toy hand grenades, half-eaten pizzas, Arabic propaganda films and a pile of burnt papers. It sold for $250,000 to the Flick Collection and is to be installed at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum in Berlin.
Christoph Büchel, Training Ground for Training Ground for Democracy 2007, variable dimensions.
“More collectors want the really ambitious works. It isn’t necessarily about scale,” said Jeffrey Deitch (A8).
Another smaller installation at Ibid Gallery (Q16), Monument, 2007, by Vita Zaman, complete with a steam generator, sold to ex-Disney president Michael Ovitz for $16,000 for his family collection.
But some dealers admitted that they were more likely to bring large-scale works to a crowded art fair. “To get anyone’s attention you need to have something loud and large,” said Chicago dealer Donald Young (H16). He was selling a large, if calming, Rodney Graham triptych Three Musicians, 2006, priced at $400,000.
By Georgina Adam, Melanie Gerlis, Brook Mason and Judith Dobrzynski
©2007 The Art Newspaper
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