NEW YORK, NY.- Since its launch ten years ago in March 2005 in New York,
Christie’s First Open sales have become a fixture on the global contemporary art circuit, providing the perfect venue for new and seasoned collectors to discover emerging artists and to explore lesser-known works by well-established names. In 2013, an additional. Summer Edition was added to the calendar as well as an online component, and last year First Open became global with sales implemented in London and Hong Kong.
The September First Open sale includes 370 paintings, drawings and sculptures by blue chip post-war artists such as Dan Flavin, Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Theodoros Stamos and Andy Warhol among others, alongside top works by today’s contemporary stars including Walead Beshty, Dan Colen, George Condo, Alex Israel, Oscar Murillo, Richard Prince, Rob Pruitt, Gerhard Richter and Jonas Wood. The auction will be preceded by a public exhibition at Christie’s Rockefeller Center Galleries from September 26th to September 29th.
Han-I Wang, specialist in charge of the First Open sale speaks about a few lots: Georg Baselitz’s Peasant Petitioners meeting V. I. Lenin (Serov) belongs to a series of paintings executed in homage to the German Expressionist artists from the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The Expressionists had created vanguard paintings characterized by primitivizing tendencies and experimental color combinations. In the present painting, their lineage is clear in the figures' spectral bodies and mask-like faces, as well as in the composition's vigorous stylization and gestural brushwork. With its inverted image of peasant petitioners and striking chromatic palette against a plain background, Peasant Petitioners meeting V. I. Lenin (Serov) superbly demonstrates Baselitz’ brilliant subversion of conventional models of perception as well as his particular insight into the Post-War Europe. By drawing attention to the painted surface and establishing a dialectic between abstraction and representation, Baselitz invites the viewer to reappraise the figurative motif as painted object.
Jean-Paul Riopelle stands out as a unique figure in the abstract art scene of the 1950s. A product of France, the USA, and Canada, from whence stem his roots, the artist has retained his singularity. In 1957, aged 34, he abandoned the reflexes of his early years for a more composed style of painting that revealed a new maturity as clearly demonstrated in Le Puits hanté. Imbued with poetry, Riopelle's painting prefers not to provide all of the keys to its reading, or at least not to limit itself to the single register of abstract landscapes to which it is often consigned.
Although well-known for his iconic mobile and monumental outdoor sculptures, Alexander Calder also possessed an exception talent for working on a more intimate scale and throughout this career produced exquisite pieces of jewelry such as the ones from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection to be offered in the sale.
In Necklace the work displays the same sense of artistic formality and sense of grace that is contained in his larger-scaled works. As his grandson Alexander S. C. Rower observed, “Never satisfied with superfluous decoration, Calder used jewelry as an alternative way of communicating his artistic ideals, He developed a direct process using honestly industrial materials such as a brass and steel wire that he bent, twist, hammered and riveted in an immediate way.”
Dan Colen is an artist who is known for his multidisciplinary practice primarily incorporating appropriated low-cultural ephemera in his art making. In Happy Accidents the artist is paying tribute to the abstract expressionist school –the linear motion of the gum material draws clear reference to the splashing technique typically found in works by the Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock. Coined as ‘Warhol’s Child’ by New York magazine Dan Colen typifies the downtown art scene in the 2000s and his works resonate and speak well to collectors of the younger generation. Colen is represented by Gagosian Gallery in New York City.
Alex Israel’s Untitled (Flat), 2013, comes from the artist’s series of Flats, with the title referring to the backgrounds in theatre or film sets. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Alex Israel’s oeuvre reflects and comments upon the Hollywood dream and reality, and the city remains one of the main subjects of his artistic output. The present work has a shimmering oval surface as the colors blend together, creating a heavenly rendition.
Jonas Wood is one of the most exciting artists of our generation. His works provide an interesting angle by making every day subject matter look better than ever. Wood draws direct stylistic referencesfrom masters such as Henry Rousseau, David Henry and Alice Neel where the reality has been strictly flattened onto the canvas without any further disguise. Wood’s works have a very genuine sensibility that appeals to a wide range of audiences.
