Non-traditional art selling season opens in New York

Des O'Sullivan brings the latest news from auction houses and galleries at home and abroad 

Arcadia, the first collaborative inter-disciplinary NFT to come to auction, at Christie's in New York next Tuesday evening.

In this era of shredded Banksys, the New York art sales over the next two weeks will be presented in an innovative way that has broken away from traditional sale categories like Impressionism and contemporary art.

Artists from Banksy and Basquiat to Peter Doig and from El Anatsui to Cindy Sherman and Arcadia will kick off the non-traditional art sale season in New York at Christie’s 21st-century evening sale next Tuesday (November 9).

Andy Warhol's portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat at Christie's New York next Thursday evening.

Arcadia is an NFT — non-fungible token — that allows people to buy the rights to online art by contemporary visual artist Andres Reisinger, Grammy award-winning musician RAC and poet Arch Hades.

Combining music, visual art and poetry, this is the first collaborative interdisciplinary NFT to come to auction.

RAC, who was born in 1985, is the oldest of the three.

Pablo Picasso: Mousquetaire a la pipe II at Christie's in New York next Thursday evening.

A year ago few of us had heard of NFTs — now they are big business. In March US artist Beeple (aka Mike Winkelmann born 1981) made worldwide headlines when an NFT of his digital artwork Everydays: The First 5,000 Days sold for $63.9 million. Beeple is back at Christie’s on November 9 with an NFT called Human One.

By September Christie’s had shattered the $100 million barrier for NFT sales.

Sotheby’s has launched twice-yearly sales of NFTs. The jury is out on whether this is merely a temporary craze or a more permanent feature of the art market.

Untitled IV by William de Kooning at Sotheby's in New York on November 15.

The buyers of NFTs, including cyberpunks and cryptocurrency gazillionaires, tend towards the non-traditional.

Christie’s say their global 20th/21st-century auction series reflects evolving market demands and collecting habits. It is also helping to discover new works, physical and digital.

The sale on Tuesday offers 39 lots with established contemporaries like Richard Prince and Christopher Wool being sold alongside new market darlings like Nicolas Party, Harold Ancart and Xinyi Cheng.

On Thursday evening Christie’s will offer The Cox Collection: The Story of Impressionism. With masterpieces by Caillebotte, Cezanne and Van Gogh this is billed as one of the greatest American collections ever to appear on the market. Dallas based Edwin Cox, who died aged 99 a year ago, spent his career in oil and gas exploration and was CEO of his own investment company.

The auction will be followed immediately by the 20th century evening sale.

This ranges from Impressionism in Paris in 1880s to Pop Art in New York in 1980s with masterpieces by Picasso and Monet and a Warhol portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

On November 15 Sotheby’s will offer Part One of the Macklowe Collection which they describe as one of the most important collections of any kind ever to appear on the market. 

The sale will include masterworks by Alberto Giacometti, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol. 

The Macklowes are a spectacularly rich warring New York couple in their 80s. A judge has ordered the sale of the collection as part of their protracted divorce proceedings.

Sotheby’s Modern evening auction is to take place on November 16 and this will be followed two nights later by an evening auction called Now focusing on art made in the last 20 years.