George Condo, Multiple Personalities, 2020. Estimate $120,000–180,000.
Photo: Courtesy of Christie's

Quarantine-Made Works by George Condo, Cecily Brown, and More Go Under the Hammer at Christie’s

Following the auction house's first-ever global 20th-century art sale, this curated charity initiative benefits amfAR’s COVID-19 treatment research

Cecily Brown, The Wanton Boy, 2020. Estimate $120,000–$180,000. Photo: Courtesy of Christie's

Often the most compelling art is born out of times of great adversity. In wake of a major global pandemic, which has devastated the country and revealed many structural inequalities and injustices, artists quickly adapted their way of working and channeled their emotions into powerful new creations. On July 10, some of those pieces will be hitting the block at Christie’s in a partnership sale with amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. Titled “From the Studio,” the sale is a curated grouping of approximately 20 works that will be offered as part of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale. Unlike a traditional secondary market sale, many of the pieces have been generously donated straight from the studio by some of today’s leading artists, from established figures like George Condo, Cecily Brown, and Urs Fischer to rising stars Austyn Weiner and Julia Chiang. 

Urs Fischer, Sneaky Snuggles, 2019. Estimate $350,000–$550,000. Photo: Courtesy of Christie's

Organized with the help of Michael Nevin, cofounder of the Journal Gallery, nearly all of the lots being offered were created while artists were hunkered down in their homes during quarantine. Proceeds from the sale will benefit amfAR’s research efforts to quickly mobilize resources to fund the kind of cutting-edge research on COVID-19 that it has been doing for 35 years on HIV/AIDS.

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Vibrant Interiors Where George Condo’s Art Takes Center Stage

“It means a lot to me that Christie’s is joining forces with amfAR to raise vital funds for COVID-19 research,” says François-Henri Pinault, chairman of Artémis, the parent company of Christie’s. “Christie’s has a long history of contributing to great causes through charitable auctions, while amfAR’s success in mobilizing celebrities and the fashion world in the fight against AIDS in recent decades speaks for itself.”

Austyn Weiner, Nothing I Can Do to Make You Stay but Spitting in Your Face May Help, 2020. Estimate $10,000–$15,000. Photo: Courtesy of Christie's

The young Los Angeles artist Austyn Weiner, who converted her garage in Los Angeles into a studio/exhibition space during the pandemic, has donated a vibrant oil and charcoal canvas titled Nothing I Can Do to Make You Stay but Spitting in Your Face May Help (2020). “This time in quarantine has been a reminder that solitude is my best friend, and when the ‘other,’ the ‘viewer,’ the ‘onlooker’ is removed from the scene, anything and everything is possible,” the artist tells Galerie. Her work is estimated between $10,000 and $15,000. 

American painter Eddie Martinez, meanwhile, has donated a striking piece titled Untitled (Sleeper for amfAR), which he created from his Brooklyn home studio. “For the first two months I barely left the house and worked on small stuff at home,” Martinez tells Galerie. “It was necessary for me to try and process what was going on. We are doing what we can to help when we can. New York remains resilient and willing to come together and work things out for the good of all. In retrospect I think I made some emotional and strong work during this time.” Along with the Christie’s sale, he also recently donated work to New York’s Coalition for the Homeless and other NYC-focused COVID-19 support initiatives.

Rashid Johnson, Untitled Anxious Red Drawing, 2020. Estimate $20,000–$30,000. Photo: Courtesy of Christie's

Another poignant work in the sale is Rashid Johnson’s Anxious Red Drawing (Untitled), with an estimate of $20,000–$30,000. The work is part of a new series made since the onset of the pandemic. Using oil stick on cotton rag paper, Johnson has updated the visual language of his long-established “anxious men” series, in which crude archetypal faces reveal the deep-seated tensions and traumas that permeate through contemporary life, using a blood-red hue for the first time. 

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Bosco Sodi Embraces the Japanese Philosophy of Wabi-Sabi in Quarantine

Sodi’s palapa-style studio at Casa Wabi features concrete walls topped by a traditional thatched roof, a design conceived by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Tadao Ando.

“Salma and I are proud to support this exceptional event, and we hope that it will help combat the new and urgent global threat from COVID-19,” Pinault says. “And I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to the artists who have produced works for the occasion and to the leading collectors who have generously donated works of art.” 

Barnett Newman, Onement V, 1952. Estimate $30,000,000–$40,000,000. Offered in the ONE sale at Christie’s New York on July 10. Photo: Courtesy of Christie's. © The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York / DACS, London 2020. Barnett Newman, photographed in New York in 1957. Artwork: © The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York / DACS, London 2020

Like businesses all over the world, auction houses find themselves in uncharted territory where the process of buying art has rapidly changed. This charity initiative takes place in New York as part of the Day Sale right after the highly anticipated “ONE: A Global Sale of the 20th Century” auction, which brings together for the first time Impressionist, modern, postwar, and contemporary art and takes place across the auction house’s New York, Paris, London, and Hong Kong salesrooms. (Phillips also condensed its Impressionist, modern, and contemporary New York art sales into one week, and on June 29, Sotheby’s hosted a revolutionary 74-lot sale presented as a dynamic, multicamera livestream event, featuring rare examples by Francis Bacon and Jean-Michel Basquiat.)  

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Francesco Clemente’s New Watercolors Offer a Seaside Escape During Quarantine

On offer at Christie’s from July 10 are a selection of big-ticket items from the likes of Andy Warhol, Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, Donald Judd, Basquiat, and Yoshitomo Nara, as well as emerging artists such as Vienna-based painter Amoako Boafo. The centerpiece of the sale is Barnett Newman’s Onement V (1952), a stunning “Zip” painting featuring two contrasting blue lines. “It is particularly fitting that this work was created at such a dramatic crossroads in American history,” says Ana Maria Celis, head of the sale, noting that the work hails from “a time when artists were striving to free themselves from traditional notions of art that had been established by previous generations.” 

It is one of only two paintings in the series that remains privately owned, and valued with an estimate of $30 million–$40 million, it is sure to reveal the temperature of the market in this new world. 

Christie’s ONE: A Global Sale of the 20th Century in New York is on view from July 10. Explore the sale virtually here.

Cover: George Condo, Multiple Personalities, 2020. Estimate $120,000–180,000.
Photo: Courtesy of Christie's

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