16 November - Bruce Nauman at Sperone Westwater

LAUNCHPROJECTS - While in New York we attended a private reception at Sperone Westwater for the latest Bruce Nauman exhibition For Children/For Beginners. The brand new Bowery space is a 25 by 100 footprint that includes 12 by 20 foot “moving gallery” - a very large elevator - approved as an "amusement ride" by the city of New York. The space is chic and a bit daunting to behold and the clean white interior worked well for Nauman’s site-specific audio and video installations.

Nauman’s installations enveloped the gallery, a projection of his hands filled the massive front wall with his voice calling out commands for his fingers to follow. I loved that it was his voice this time that commanded the room and his movements. The moving gallery was comprised three precarious (yet surprisingly comfortable) stools with only an elevator operator and the sounds of Terry Allen following Nauman’s instructions to play on the piano. The dynamic cacophony moved us slowly to the third floor where a clean white room held an audio installation of voices repeating over and over For the Children.

Nauman’s work perpetually poses challenges, creates tension, and heightens awareness through disorientation, frustration, awe, confusion, anger, and humor. The new Sperone Westwater exhibition space engages audiences in a similar manner. We found ourselves uncomfortably laughing at the opening as we heard voices and saw glimpses of people moving throughout the space, yet bodies and voices disappeared as we arrived to each floor to meet them. The gallery unquestionably boasts a white-cube Nauman/Hitchcockian mystique yet inherent in its design is a sense of isolation and frustration – even the staff has to have a surveillance camera base operator to find one-another throughout the day.

Fitting that the space dedicated to Nauman’s ongoing explorations dealt with the same limitations of space, comfort, and possibility; but it begs the question how other artists – painters, for instance – might manage such a maze of levels, heights, and vertiginous spaces.

Pictured: The gallery from the street; In the elevator with Juliet Myers, the installation from the second floor balcony

15 Nov - Christies, Sotheby's, and Phillips

LAUNCHPROJECTS - We returned last night from New York where we attended auctions, Bruce Nauman's opening at the new Sperone Westwater Gallery, met with clients, gallerists, and saw many great exhibitions and works of art. All three auctions were exciting and indicated that the market is truly in recovery mode, the three auction houses combined came to the sum of $632 million, almost triple the $216 million a year ago.

Phillips de Pury was the first of the three auctions and made the most stunning increase in sales over it's results last year, increasing its total nearly 20-fold to $137 million total. The stunner of the auction was a black and white painting of Elizabeth Taylor by Andy Warhol fetching $63.4 million, the second-highest price ever for a Warhol at auction.

At Christies, Roy Lichtenstein’s 1964 painting of a pouting redhead sold for an artist record $42.6 million - it seemed as though as buyers stuck predominantly with 1960s pop art. The evening was excruciating long (two hours, 75-lots), yet 93 percent of lots found buyers. At Sotheby's, a Warhol painting of a Coca- Cola bottle sold for $35.4 million yesterday, making the artist the star of New York’s contemporary art auctions across the board. As art advisor Mary Hoeveler told Lindsay Pollock reporting for Bloomberg, “Warhol has been the driver of the postwar- and contemporary-art market since the decline...The appetite at the very top seems insatiable. You can name your price.”

One of the most fascinating aspects of this week's auction was that much of the success of Phillips de Pury's auction can be attributed to collector and private dealer Philippe Segalot who curated “Carte Blanche,’’ a smaller section of the Phillips evening sale. Segalot stocked the sale with names he champions and lined up bidders in exchange for a cut of the buyer’s fees. With the success of the joint venture it seems likely that there will be more "curated" auctions in the future. Auction catalogs already look like exhibition catalogs with critical essays and art historical references - this new approach promises to further blur the boundaries of the gallery, museum, and auction worlds.

Pictured Above: Roy Lichtenstein's record busting "Ohhh...Alright..." at Christie's from seller Steve Wynn, Tobias Meyer with Warhol Coke bottle at Sotheby's press preview. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

8 Nov - Bruce Nauman+ NYC

LAUNCHPROJECTS - Ben and I leave tomorrow for New York to attend the contemporary art auctions, meet with clients, and attend the preview for Bruce Nauman's exhibition at the new Sperone Westwater space.

In my excitement, I have been re-reading Please Pay Attention Please: Bruce Nauman's Words. Although Nauman has granted relatively few interviews over the course of his career, he granted Janet Karynak and the MIT press almost complete autonomy and access in preparing this collection. It provides fantastic insight into his thought process, his opinion of the art world and his place in it, and his transformation from emerging artist to absolute between 1965 - 2001.

The following is the first paragraph of a paper I wrote on Nauman a few years ago (click on the link below for the entire essay).

One of the most influential and innovative artists of the century, Bruce Nauman (born in 1941), remains a distinct and critical voice in contemporary art dialog. Nauman explores the intersection of art and life through installation, photography, performance, object making, and video. Nauman’s work is a provocation, a call to attention, an intentional shifting of perspective. As art critic and curator Robert Storr describes Nauman’s effect on his audience, "If they're not puzzled, they're not getting it" (Moorehead).

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE ESSAY