Phillips Kicks Off Fall Season with New Now Auction on 19 September in New York
Sale to Include Works by Keith Haring, Jiro Takamatsu, Nicole Eisenman, Shara Hughes, and More
NEW YORK – 7 September 2017 – Phillips is pleased to announce highlights from the New York New Now sale on 19 September, the first auction of the Fall season. The day will begin with The Katayama Collection at 11am and will be followed by the New Now auction at 2pm. The sale will offer works from both blue-chip artists and those newer to the secondary market, including Keith Haring, Jiro Takamatsu, Nicole Eisenman, and Shara Hughes, among others. Combined, the two sessions will offer over 250 lots and are expected to realize in excess of $3.4 million.
The Katayama Collection
Life is hard… Let’s go shopping | 11am
At 11am, Phillips will offer 76 works from the collection of Masamichi Katayama, founder of the renowned Japanese interior design firm Wonderwall. Katayama has amassed one of the most significant collections of contemporary art and design in Asia, featuring works by Adrian Ghenie, On Kawara, KAWS, Mark Grotjahn, Jean Prouvé, and Charlotte Perriand, among others. Nearly all of the works in the selection being offered at Phillips were included in a dedicated exhibition hosted earlier this year at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery. Adrian Ghenie’s The Collector 4, also from Katayama’s collection, will be included in London’s Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art on 6 October. In all, the collection is expected to realize in excess of $2.3 million. Please click here for the full press release.
New Now | 2pm
Leading the auction at 2pm is Nicole Eisenman’s Foos Ball Trilogy, which was executed in 1994. Comprised of Part I Sinking Ships, Part II Rescue, and Part III Game Preparations, the work is an iconic example of Nicole Eisenman’s pioneering style, connecting art historically important movements like the Italian Renaissance to the expressive figurative paintings of the 1980s German Neo-Expressionists. With its traditional triptych format and figurative imagery, Foos Ball Trilogy is at once historical and contemporary, bringing to mind frescoes by masters like Giotto and Michaelangelo, infused with the energy of pop culture references found in the artist’s own community. The story depicts a seemingly faceless crowd of figures, beginning from left to right with a collapsing ship, moving into the rescue of its victims, and ending with preparations for the next event. While much of the imagery is left to interpretation, the central subject matter of the trilogy is the crowd itself, a phenomenon Eisenman has continually explored in her paintings. The figures depicted in Foos Ball Trilogy are simultaneously pitted against each other in combat, embracing with intertwined limbs, and holding each other up across the three panels, together exploring the complexities of the masses. It is this precise idea of human interaction that remains at the center of Eisenman’s signature style today, making Foos Ball Trilogy one of the first and most important explorations of the artist’s oeuvre.
Keith Haring’s Red-Yellow-Blue #16 (Portrait of Adolpho) will also be offered in the auction. Painted in 1987 at the height of the artist’s short career, this work is an intimate and distinctive portrait of Haring’s last studio assistant, Adolfo Arena. Haring first hired Adolfo to work at the Pop Shop on Lafayette Street in the spring of 1986 and the following year, he replaced Haring’s studio assistant and worked with him until the end of his life. Red-Yellow-Blue #16 (Portrait of Adolpho) belongs to a series of works that Haring executed in 1987, which include large-scale metal masks and paintings limited to a palette of black and primary colors. Exhibited at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York, these works pay homage to the primitivist and modernist tradition pioneered by Picasso, Braque and Brancusi. Rendered in Haring’s characteristic confident lines and pared down to its most basic features, Red-Yellow-Blue #16 (Portrait of Adolpho) evokes a unique personality that contrasts with Haring’s more typical iconography of anonymous graphic figures. The layered realist representations create a dynamic composition that celebrates Haring and Adolfo’s friendship.
Jiro Takamatsu’s Shadow No. 1459 from 1997 is one of the last of the artist’s iconic Shadow paintings, created just a year prior to his death. First begun in 1964, Takamatsu’s Shadow series has become the artist’s most well-known body of work. In their life-size format, the artist’s shadows become staged figments, reminding viewers of their originators’ implied presence, which is confined to the boundaries of the canvas. Against a bright white background in typical trompe l’oeil fashion, the present work depicts an outstretched hand rendered in gray acrylic that extends inward from the left of the canvas. Takamatsu leaves enough ambiguity for us to question whether the hand is reaching out in embrace or attached to a figure that is running away, exemplifying the artist’s ability to evoke a true sense of enigma.
ABOUT PHILLIPS
Phillips is a leading global platform for buying and selling 20th and 21st century art and design. With dedicated expertise in the areas of Art, Design, Photographs, Editions, Watches, and Jewelry, Phillips offers professional services and advice on all aspects of collecting. Auctions and exhibitions are held at salerooms in New York, London, Geneva, and Hong Kong, while clients are further served through representative offices based throughout Europe, the United States and Asia. Phillips also offers an online auction platform accessible anywhere in the world, and is committed to supporting contemporary arts and culture through a worldwide programme of Arts Partnerships.
Visit www.phillips.com for further information.
*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium; prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium.
PRESS CONTACT: Jaime Israni, Senior Public Relations Specialist | jisrani@phillips.com
HEADQUARTERS: LONDON - 30 Berkeley Square, London W1J 6EX | NEW YORK - 450 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022
VISIT US AT: www.phillips.com
FOLLOW US ON: Twitter | Instagram | Vimeo | Facebook | Pinterest | Tumblr | LinkedIn