Alex Prager Desiree, 2008. The first work by Prager to come to auction, having debuted at Phillips in 2009.
As is a trademark of the Phillips brand, our Photographs sales consistently present rare-to-the-market classic works in dialogue with contemporary material never before seen at auction. Among the artists in the photographic medium introduced over the last decade are Alex Prager and Ruud Van Empel—both of whom are now auction stalwarts in their own right. Over the course of 2017, we debuted 13 artists spanning eight countries including Awol Erizku and Danila Tkachenko.
Below, our specialists from New York and London share highlight works and auction records from this group of emerging artists.
Ruud Van Empel Boy & Girl, 2008 (sold for £80,500). Artist debuted in April 2007, New York. Phillips holds the world auction record for this artist.
Ruud Van Empel
Dutch photographer Ruud Van Empel started working in the late 1980s as a visual artist, and formulated a distinctive collage technique, which is evident throughout his photographic oeuvre. The digitally collaged images are created by shooting models in the forest and deconstructing and fully reassembling the images until they reach a heightened level of photo-realism.
In describing his processes, Van Empel said, "I take a lot of digital photos from models inside my studio as well as outside, from all kinds of forms and shapes of nature. These files are put in a database, from which I work when I start doing a montage. First I sketch my idea and then I make a piece, which takes some two to four weeks for a medium size work. Really large works...took me 3 months. Sometimes the montage goes into every little detail. So the eyes can consist of six separate montages. The faces too are always montages, as are the bodies. I try to create a realistic image that is totally montaged."
Alex Prager Crowd #2 (Emma), 2012 (sold for $75,000). Artist debuted in April 2009, London. Phillips holds the world auction record for this artist.
Alex Prager
Influenced by pulp fiction and cinematic tropes, self-taught photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager creates striking, sometimes unnerving images that are filled with a dynamic cast of characters. The hyperreal worlds she creates are packed with human melodrama, like the retro 'damsel in distress' character that regularly makes appearances in Prager's brightly colored and dramatically lit scenes.
Alasdair McLellan Kate Moss Supreme, 2012 (sold for £21,250). Artist debuted in May 2016, London. Phillips holds the world auction record for this artist.
Alasdair McLellan
British photographer Alasdair McLellan's first book Ultimate Clothing Company, published in 2013, documented modern British masculinity. His second book Ceremony, published in January 2016, featured his series on the ceremonial troops of the British Army. In addition to shooting for both British Vogue and Vogue Paris, McLellan works across the spectrum of the international fashion press including i-D, Self Service and W. In 2016, London's Institute of Contemporary Arts presented Alasdair McLellan's dynamic photographs documenting the community of Palace Skateboards and the skaters of London's Southbank. In the same year, his work was included in the exhibition Vogue 100: A Century of Style at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Awol Erizku Girl with a Bamboo Earring, 2009 (sold for $52,500). Artist debuted in April 2017, New York. Phillips holds the world auction record for this artist.
Awol Erizku
Awol Erizku's first work at auction, the luminescent Girl With A Bamboo Earring, radiates intensity. The undeniable descendant of Johannes Vermeer's famed Girl with a Pearl Earring, Erizku's appropriated portrait is a formal declaration of beauty not only within the history of art but culture at large. In restating Vermeer's painting, Erizku participates in a larger phenomenon of contemporary black artists including Kerry James Marshall, Chris Ofili and Kehinde Wiley, critically redressing the absence of people of color in the history of art. However, rather than seeking exact parity in representation within the realms of traditional fine art, Erizku pursues a form of image-making that transcends mediums and the closed conversations within the art world. Marrying popular culture and fine art with vibrant photographs and brilliant mixed-media installations, Erizku understands that for beauty to be recognized in a museum, it must first be recognized in culture at large.
Juno Calypso A Dream in Green from The Honeymoon Suite, 2015 (sold for £13,750). Artist debuted in May 2017, London. Phillips holds the world auction record for this artist.
Juno Calypso
For Juno Calypso, the image-making process begins with the location. The inspiration for her series The Honeymoon Suite was a picture of a 1960s honeymoon resort she had found on the internet. She soon discovered that the hotel was still in business, so she traveled to the Poconos in Pennsylvania, USA to experience it at first hand, armed with a suitcase full of camera equipment, wigs, bridal lingerie and other props. Posing as a travel writer, she was given access to every room in the couples resort and spent one week photographing herself as her fictional alter ego, Joyce, a woman consumed by the imperative to project certain notions of femininity. In 2016, Calypso became the recipient of the International Photography Award given by the British Journal of Photography and was selected for Foam Talent for this body of work.
Danila Tkachenko Restricted Areas, 2013-2015 (sold for £75,000). Artist debuted at auction in November 2017, London. Phillips holds the world auction record for this artist.
Danila Tkachenko
Over three winters between 2013 and 2015, Danila Tkachenko journeyed into the snowy depths of Russia, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan, covering more than 15,000 miles to photograph the remains of 33 abandoned Soviet projects. Restricted Areas takes its name from the 'secret cities' the USSR established for sensitive military projects. These 'cities' were top secret locations, closed to all outsiders and often not appearing in public records or on maps. Adopting a minimalist aesthetic and presenting these Cold War ruins against the bleak white backdrop of winter, Tkachenko creates surreal images left over from another time and place. Tkachenko is a visual artist working in the field of documentary photography. In 2015, he was awarded Burn Magazine's Emerging Photography Fund and was selected for Foam Talent for this body of work. He also received the European Publishers Award for Photography, which led to the series being exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles in 2016. Other works from the series are in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and SpallArt.
If you have contemporary photography in your collection and are interested in selling with us this season, we invite you to contact our global specialists or submit your property using our online consignment tool. Consign Now >