Price Check! Here’s What Sold—and for How Much—at the Online Editions of the Dallas Art Fair, Art Basel Hong Kong, and David Zwirner’s ‘Platform’

Conventional wisdom has it that there is no such thing as “the
art market”—only many mini-markets with overlapping clientele. But
over the past two months, all of these markets have collapsed into
one: the big convention center in the sky, also known as… the
Internet.

Here, the Dallas Art Fair, Art Basel Hong Kong, and David
Zwirner’s new “Platform” initiative for smaller galleries in New
York and London have all been testing the waters to see what a
jittery market will bear and what sort of material moves in this
new paradigm. So we’ve adapted our traditional “Price Check!”
art-fair column for this moment accordingly.

The good news: most dealers seem to agree that online sales are
most effective when prices are listed, so price transparency is
growing. The bad news: it’s still not always clear how
much is selling—and, for that matter, whether those who
are buying will actually come through with the cash.

Nevertheless, prices provide a snapshot of where individual
artists stand in the matrix of the art market today. (We did not
include reported sales unaccompanied by a price or price range in
our list, so the galleries that tend to disclose figures are
disproportionately represented here.) And it’s helpful to know that
for some galleries, on some level, some works are indeed
selling.

To find out exactly what, and for how much, read on.

PLATFORM NEW YORK AND
LONDON HOSTED BY DAVID ZWIRNER GALLERY

One of the most buzzed-about initiatives—which came together at warp
speed after the shutdown—is David Zwirner Gallery’s “Platform,”
which threw open the gallery’s digital doors to host a dozen
smaller New York City galleries starting in early April. The
gallery soon expanded the program with a London edition for another
dozen galleries (through May 15). The lucky dealers—who were chosen
by the gallery’s younger staff and invited to participate at no
cost—were, perhaps unsurprisingly, thrilled to have the chance to
gain exposure from Zwirner’s considerably larger audience.
(Although some in the trade grumbled that Zwirner would gain
access, in the process, to valuable client data, visitors to
Platform are not required to enter their email addresses, as they
are to enter the gallery’s own viewing rooms.)

Lower East Side dealer James Fuentes said Platform “allowed for us to have a project to tackle really early on a
few weeks into isolation. When they approached us about this, we
were still just processing and sort of in shock.” The experience,
he said, was “extremely positive,” with interest from
existing and new clients alike from Europe and Asia, as well as six
figures’ worth of sales. At a time when many dealers are not
comfortable overtly pushing sales on clients who may be confronting
illness or other stresses, “It’s more of nuanced
approach and the democratic nature of is that anyone can see the
price. People can dig in if they want.”

$40,000: Keegan Monaghan, Outside (2019) at James
Fuentes

$20,700: Reginald Sylvester II, 003 (Transfer
Painting) (2020) at James Fuentes

$15,000: Jessie Homer French, Seasonal Fires (2013) at
mother’s tankstation

$12,000: Kyle Thurman, Suggested Occupation 36
(Salvatore) (2020) at David Lewis Gallery

$12,000: Kyle Thurman, Suggested Occupation 40 (the other
rumor) (2020) at David Lewis Gallery

$7,000: Zsófia Keresztes, Easy targets, heavy bites
I (2020) at Elijah Wheat Showroom

$5,500: Max Wade, Red Pan (2019) at Sid Motion
Gallery

$5,500: Max Wade, The Smell of Dens (2019) at Sid
Motion Gallery

$5,500: Max Wade, Sea Saw Sea (2019) at Sid Motion
Gallery

DALLAS ART
FAIR

Although the digital edition of the Dallas Art Fair, which
closed on April 23, stayed south of the loftiest sales heights
achieved at Art Basel’s inaugural online-sales effort—most
exhibitors came armed with works priced at $25,000 and under—a
cross-section of participating dealers came away satisfied. A
spokesperson for James Cohan Gallery in New York relayed that
“strong interest in, and an engaged audience for” the artists they
featured led to positive takeaways from the fair, including
“several” sales. Dealer Susan Inglett admitted “the virtual
experience will never replace IRL—not as much fun, no personal
connection, and no BBQ—but that being said, we ‘met’ some new
folks, and that’s why we all go to art fairs!” In fact, Inglett was
so encouraged by the event, where she found buyers for works by
Robyn O’Neil and Hope Gangloff, that her gallery is now building
out its own online viewing room.

$100,000: Franz Kline, Untitled (n.d.) at
Hollis Taggart

$75,000: Joan Snyder, The Summer Becomes a Room (2018)
at Canada

$50,000: Katherine Bernhardt, Phone
Home (2019) at Canada

$47,500: Richard
Pousette-Dart, Untitled (ca. 1940s) at Hollis
Taggart

$35,000: Summer Wheat, Faucets (2020) at SOCO
Gallery

$30,000: Adam Parker Smith, Setting Sun
(Fade) (2019) at The Hole

$25,000: Fred Tomaselli, March 16, 2020 (2020) at James
Cohan

$25,000: Eric Shaw, Sip Stream (2020) at The Hole

$22,000: Robert Janitz, Skip to Content (2019) at
Canada

$18,000: Katherine Bradford, Two Guys Green Blue (2019)
at Canada

$15,000: Morgan Blair, Here at
Penetron… (2020) at The Hole

$12,000: Jonathan Chapline, Foyer (2020) at
The Hole

$12,000: Scott Reeder, Bread & Butter (Tropical Beach)
(2020) at Canada

$12,000: Scott Reeder, Bread & Butter (Boat) (2020) at
Canada

$11,500: Ted Pim, Young and Numb (2019) at
Half Gallery

$9,500: Robert Moreland, Untitled Switchback
II (2020) at The Hole

$7,500: Joakim Ojanen, Activities for
Everyone (2020) at The Hole

$7,000: Eric Yahnker, Pandemic Lovers (After
Magritte) (2020) at The Hole

$7,000–$13,000 each: Three works by Emily Mae Smith at Rodolphe
Janssen

$6,500: Anders Oinonen, Hedberg (2014) at The
Hole

$6,000: Oleksiy Sai, Open Space 2 (2008) at Voloshyn
Gallery

$5,000: Aurel Schmidt, Cookie (2020) at The
Hole

$5,000: Aurel Schmidt, Trash Doll
(Caviar) (2020) at The Hole

$5,000: Koichi Sato, Def Oscar Gamble (2020)
at The Hole

$5,000: Koichi Sato, Keith
Hernandez??? (2020) at The Hole

$5,000: Koichi Sato, Patrick Ewing? (2020) at
The Hole

$4,500: Scott Kahn, Kitchen Table (2020) at
Harper’s Books

$4,500: Robert Moreland, Untitled Three Green
Bars (2020) at The Hole

$3,500: Ruby Sky Stiler, No Title (2020)
at Nicelle Beauchene

$3,250: Mark Leonard, Still Life IV, January (2020)
at Louis Stern Fine Arts

$3,000: Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Royal Cloth
II (2019) at Nicelle Beauchene

$2,500: Bianca Beck, Untitled, 2019 at Rachel
Uffner Gallery

Under $10,000: Isaac Mann, Three in One (2019) at
Thierry Goldberg

Under $10,000: Isaac Mann, The Cloud (2019) at Thierry
Goldberg

Under $10,000: Bony Ramirez, Will the Sun Shine Over Me
(2019) at Thierry Goldberg

Under $10,000: Bony Ramirez, Feeding a Child of the
Ocean (2020) at Thierry Goldberg

Under $10,000: Bony Ramirez, The Red Rope (2018) at
Thierry Goldberg

Under $10,000: Bony Ramirez, The Desire of Power (2019)
at Thierry Goldberg

Under $5,000 each: Three untitled paintings (each 2020) by
Marjorie Norman Schwarz at Gallery 12.26

ART BASEL HONG
KONG

The online version of Art Basel Hong Kong seemed to be effective
for mega-dealers like Hauser & Wirth, which, despite early
technical glitches with the platform, managed to sell a work by
Jenny Holzer for $350,000 within the opening hour, with more sales
to follow. Less voluble about transactions were smaller and midsize
dealers, for whom it was more challenging to conduct the requisite
outreach and less effective to cross-promote on their own digital
platforms.

While the online version of the fair proved that people are
willing to transact in the seven figures online (something that may
not have happened in the context of a virtual fair before, though
it certainly had in private JPG exchanges), it remains to be seen
whether a fair as large as Art Basel Hong Kong can serve as any
kind of genuine platform for discovery—or offer sustaining sales
for smaller dealers.

“These online viewing rooms augment reality,
especially when they include information that wouldn’t
already be available to read or explore, and because of this
current moment, this digital mode of communication has become
essential—but they don’t replace the experience in the flesh,” says
Tim Blum of Blum & Poe. “We find sales trends to be akin to models
from the past.”

Others were more blunt. “Art Basel Hong Kong online was a very
interesting experiment because I think what it showed us was that
it doesn’t work,” the dealer Dominique Lévy recently told CNN
Money. “Everyone rushed to see what it was, but it’s not
friendly: you go on a website, you are forced to look at art on a
digital way. you aren’t having a conversation, you aren’t having
fun, you aren’t seeing your friends…. I think the only sales
that were made was when you made the outreach before. Therefore,
you don’t need an online art fair.”

$2.6 million: Marlene Dumas,
Like Don Quixote (2002) at David Zwirner

$2 million: Luc Tuymans,
Tree (2019) at David Zwirner

$1.3 million: Georg Baselitz, Die andere
Seite vom Ölfleck (2019) at Gagosian

$850,000: Carmen Herrera, Camino
Negro (2017) at Lisson

$750,000: Mary Weatherford, Splendor in the
Grass (2019) at Gagosian

$600,000: Josef Albers, Study for Homage to
the Square: Late Silence (1960) at Hauser &
Wirth

$560,000: Hong Ling,
Splendid (2019) at Soka Art

$500,000–1 million: a work
by George Condo at Almine Rech

$500,000–600,000: Cecily Brown, In the sort of a kind
of a something mapped (2019–20) at Paula Cooper Gallery

$500,000: Liu Ye, Book Painting
No. 21 (Karl Blossfeldt, The Complete Published Work, Taschen GMBH, 2017) (2018) at
David Zwirner

$500,000: Tetsuya
Ishida, Derelict Building Worker’s Chair (1996) at
Gagosian

$482,000: Antony Gormley, Slump IV
at Galleria Continua

$450,000: Zeng Fanzhi,
Untitled (2019) at Gagosian

$400,000: Mamma Andersson,
Incantation (2020) at David Zwirner

$360,000: Noah Davis, Untitled
(Man on Couch) (2009) at David Zwirner

$350,000: Jenny Holzer, XX
8 (2015) at Hauser & Wirth

$300,000: Jennifer
Guidi, An Instance of Becoming (2019) at
Gagosian

$275,000: Yoshitomo Nara, Untitled,
(2018) at Blum & Poe

$260,000: Jia Aili, Youth and
Ultramarine (2019) at Gagosian

$250,000: Josh Smith, Karma Palms
#4 (2019) at David Zwirner

$150,000: Yoshitomo
Nara, Untitled (1997) at Blum & Poe

$150,000: Antonio Dias,
Trama (1968-1977) at Galeria Nara Roesler

$140,000: Pipilotti Rist, Wasserschatz
(Schwarzlicht) (2019) at Hauser & Wirth

$110,000: The combined total for
five works from Yeoh Choo Kuan’s series A DAY AND FOREVER
#7, #8, #9, #10 and #11 (2019) at Richard Koh Fine Art

$100,000: Lucas Arruda, Untitled (from the
Deserto-Modelo series) (2018) at David Zwirner

$55,000: Friedrich Kunath, The
Last Perfect Day (2019) at Blum & Poe

$50,000–100,000: a work by Rudolf Polanszky at
Almine Rech

$48,000: Asuka Anastacia
Ogawa, Walking (2020) at Blum & Poe

$45,000: Tony
Lewis, Notion (2019) at Blum &
Poe

$45,000: an Issy Wood painting at Carlos/Ishikawa

$35,000: Zhang Lingnan,
Lost in Trek 2020 at Soka Art

$32,000: Samuel Levi Jones,
Invisible (2019) at Galerie Lelong & Co.

$25,000: Zhang Yingnan,
Journey (2019) at Soka Art

$25,000: Zhang Yingnan, Night
Breeze (2020) at Soka Art

$20,000:  Zhang
Yingnan, Amber (2013) at Soka
Art

$15,000: Teppei Takeda, Painting
of Painting #34 at Maho Kubota Gallery

$15,000: Teppei Takeda, Painting
of Painting #36 at at Maho Kubota Gallery

$10,000–25,000: A work by Kim
Tschang-Yeul at Almine Rech

$10,000–25,000: Woody De Othello,
Pushing Away Keeping Out (2020) at Jessica
Silverman

$10,000–25,000: Woody De Othello,
Looking Out on the Inside (2020) at Jessica
Silverman

$10,000–25,000: Woody De Othello,
Oval Clocking 2020 at Jessica Silverman

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the Online Editions of the Dallas Art Fair, Art Basel Hong Kong,
and David Zwirner’s ‘Platform’ appeared first on artnet
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