John Currin's for sale in New York

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

Next week we will have the major sales of contemporary art in New York. It is always fun to look who are the newcomers. This time, the winner at this game is John Currin.

This artist in his forties has, like Richard Prince, a taste for the provocation and the ambiguous. He deliberately put on sex, which is a sure way to attract attention. The two works that I present today date from a phase where he sought to imitate the old masters.

At Phillips de Pury on November 13, Lot 24 is an oil on canvas of 1993, 122 x 91 cm, showing a naked standing woman viewed from back, but the head turned to the right shows an old and unpleasant face. The catalog searches, alas, to compare this work to Cranach, and calls for 500 K $. After all, this price is lower than that of the Boucher Nude of John Brack, on which I made an analysis in the Modern Art group in August. The same Currin painting was already sold in the same auction house, on 11 November 2004, almost at the same price: $ 450 K including fees.

Sotheby's dream to sell at $ 3.5 million on November 11 at Lot 4 an oil on canvas of 1999, 112 x 87 cm. In a mannerist attitude, two naked frontal women titillate and laugh. This time, we refer again (and again alas), to Cranach, but also to Botticelli. The flying hair is a direct reference to the Venus of the latter.

Sell a John Currin at a price that a Venus with Cupido of Cranach should be difficult to reach ... It would be pure speculation, unlikely at this time said of "crisis" ... I'm willing to bet that it's not this time that John Currin receives its first millionaire auction result.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

We have the right not to agree with all these so-called specialized newspapers telling us that the financial crisis reached the art market. I wish they'd give their explanation on the results obtained by Sotheby's on the painting of John Currin: $ 5.5 million including expenses.

Sotheby's had held that this work was important, and the market followed.

I was wrong in my prediction, but the assertion of the beginning of my article is checked. The evening sales of contemporary art of Sotheby's and Christie's are the best events of the year to identify the names of artists whose value is growing.

Await the outcome of Phillips de Pury to supplement this article. The sale is today.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

I complete this surprising article by the failure of the sale of the painting of Currin at Phillips de Pury. The result of Sotheby's will remain a mystery that may by only understood by the auction house and its customers. In any case, the result of Sotheby's did not draw up the value of Currin among Sotheby's competitors. If I take the comparison I made in my article on the price of a Cranach and the price of a Currin, I admit that I am not unhappy.