Though Phillips de Pury’s contemporary art evening sale in London last night stalled at £8.2 million ($12.9 million) against a minimum expectation of £9.9 million ($15.5 million)—hardly an auspicious beginning to Frieze week—works by a few promising young artists soared past their estimates.
Among them was New York-based painter Tauba Auerbach’s effervescent 20-by-16 inch canvas, titled CMY 5 (2008), which sold for £49,250 ($77,300), more than double its £20,000 ($31,300) high estimate, an artist record. The work was put on the block from a private collection in New York.
According to Artnet, it was only the second painting by the artist to be sold at auction, suggesting that collectors have been refreshingly, and surprisingly, restrained in flipping the artist’s work at auction.
After showing with Jeffrey Deitch, who became director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles last year, Ms. Auerbach announced that she will show with the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. She has a one-person show scheduled there in May of next year.
Ms. Auerbach pulled off a New York museum exhibition hat trick recently, appearing in MoMA PS1’s “Greater New York,” the 2010 Whitney Biennial and the New Museum triennial, “Younger Than Jesus.”
