Shortlist 7 - Phillips New Now (NYC)
(Alex Da Corte, Katherine Bernhardt & Joe Bradley)
Alex Da Corte (B. 1980)
Hood
Shampoo on framed mirror
27 ½ x 27 1/2 inches
2012
Estimate: $10,000 to $15,000
My Recommendation: Bid up to $10,000
Result: $12,000 (hammer)
Interested in Alex Da Corte?
Artist Profile
Camden (NJ) born, Venezuelan raised, and recipient of a Yale MFA in sculpture (2010), conceptual artist Alex Da Corte has been a fast-rising star in the art world for the last decade. His multi-colored, dreamlike works and installations make the familiar new again, in unfamiliar ways. He playfully and surrealistically fuses influences from pop and mass culture (often kitsch), design, and art history. This lot is a fine example of one of his shampoo paintings which nicely represents his artistic approach. Da Corte has taken the everyday shampoo and fetishized it in a new way. The randomness and unknown outcome of the pour falls within the grand tradition of abstract painting – while the mirror as canvas brings the bathroom, and our vanity, to life right before our eyes.
Artist Market
Da Corte’s auction record is $63,000 (Oct ’20), but his larger and more ambitious works are selling for more at his galleries. He is repped by blue chip galleries: Matthew Marks (NYC and LA), Luxembourg and Dayan (NYC and London, and Sadie Coles (London). It really doesn’t get much better than that for someone 40 years old. This particular shampoo painting is a nice one – a good atmospheric pour and color combo. These works don’t have the strongest market right now, and another shampoo painting failed to sell at Phillips earlier in February at $12,000. That being said, I’m a big believer in the artist in general, and a disciplined buy will pay off with patience down the road. A winning bid of $10,000 (hammer) will get you this work for about $14,000, which is a great price to have of an artist who will be around for a long, long time, and whose market I feel will continue to mature and rise in the next decade.
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Katherine Bernhardt (B. 1975)
Untitled, 2017
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
84 x 84 inches
Signed and dated on reverse
Estimate: $18,000 to $22,000
My Recommendation: Bid up to $37,000
Result: $48,000 (hammer)
Interested in Katherine Bernhardt?
Artist Profile
For the past 15 years, Bernhardt has developed a style that I call Sloppy-Pop (patent pending), in which she depicts models, commercial products, everyday items, Moroccan rugs, the Pink Panther, ET the Extra-Terrestrial, the Kool-Aid man, Garfield, and fetishized objects such as cigarettes, watermelons, palm trees, hamburgers, and many more. Bernhardt paintings are quickly executed and relay the joy of image and mark making. Many of her canvases have an all-over type composition with objects arranged in a seemingly playful, yet structured way that gives the work exceptional balance. Her art is playful and colorful, yet also a relevant commentary on our consumer culture.
Artist’s Market
Bernhardt creates works quickly, is prolific, and sells at various galleries throughout the world. She is represented by leading contemporary galleries: Canada in NYC, Xavier Hufkens (Belgium), and Nanzuka (Japan) and has had shows at other prestigious galleries including Venus Over Manhattan, Salon 94, and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise (which merged with Gladstone in 2020). Bernhardt’s auction record is $125,000 and her largest works sell for that price at galleries. These all over composition paintings that Bernhardt has been doing for several years now are a lot of fun and popular with collectors. It all comes down to personal taste about which items you like (toilet paper, bananas, windex, cigarettes, parrots, plants, tacos) and what color(s) you like. This example is a good one with a nice red and the birds/parrots (depending how you look). A winning hammer bid of $37,000 will get this piece for you all in $55,000, about a 10% discount from retail.
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Katherine Bernhardt (B. 1975)
SIX
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 48 inches
Painted in 2014
Signed and dated on reverse
Estimate: $12,000 to $18,000
My Recommendation: Bid to $25,000
Result: $26,000 (hammer)
Interested in Katherine Bernhardt?
Artist Profile
For the past 15 years, Bernhardt has developed a style that I call Sloppy-Pop (patent pending), in which she depicts models, commercial products, everyday items, Moroccan rugs, the Pink Panther, ET the Extra-Terrestrial, the Kool-Aid man, Garfield, and fetishized objects such as cigarettes, watermelons, palm trees, hamburgers, and many more. Bernhardt paintings are quickly executed and relay the joy of image and mark making. Many of her canvases have an all-over type composition with objects arranged in a seemingly playful, yet structured way that gives the work exceptional balance. Her art is playful and colorful, yet also a relevant commentary on our consumer culture.
Artist’s Market
Bernhardt creates works quickly, is prolific, and sells throughout the world. She is represented by leading contemporary galleries: Canada in NYC, Xavier Hufkens (Belgium), and Nanzuka (Japan) and has had shows at other prestigious galleries including Venus Over Manhattan, Salon 94, and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. Bernhardt has done a lot of these cigarette paintings over the years, and it’s a great motif, in that it is both coveted and harmful – as we are powerless to reach for another one. Pleasure and pain united, with pleasure winning out. Her auction record is $125,000 and her largest works sell for that price at galleries. A winning hammer bid of $25,000 would get you this work, all in, for under $37,000, right in line with her gallery prices for a work of this size.
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Joe Bradley (B. 1975)
Venus
Oilstick on canvas
78 x 62
Executed in 2009
Signed, titled and dated on reverse
Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000
My Recommendation: Bid to $60,000.
Result: Bought In (BI)
Interested in Joe Bradley?
Artist Profile
For 20 years, Joe Bradley has made works that ironically and critically deal with painting’s grand tradition of abstraction, figuration, and color. In his own original way, Bradley quickly cemented his reputation as an inventive artist with his vinyl cut out paintings in 2006, and then these Schmagoo paintings in 2008-09. Since these series and the Whitney Biennial in 2008, Bradley became an emerging art world star. He has continued to make works that are strangely beautiful, often in a gritty, seemingly casual way, but Bradley’s methods are always calculated. For example, in some of his abstract paintings, Bradley laid the canvas down on the floor, allowing debris and dirt from his studio to become an integral part of the work. In all his series, Bradley’s work deals head on with the tradition of painting, and comments on the changing fashions of the art world itself.
Artist Market
Bradley is represented by Gagosian and Canada gallery in NYC, and his colorful abstract paintings regularly sell at auction (and on the primary market) for $500,000 to 1 million. Bradley’s auction market has softened a bit in the past 3 years – these types of dips are common for artists that have risen quickly early on in their career, as Bradley has. Sometimes the market is hot for an artist, and sometimes they are not. These Schmagoo paintings have had volatile auction results, as collectors have favored other series more recently. 5 to 10 years ago, these Schmagoos had a few auction results of $200k - $300k, but more recently there was a sale in 2019 of just $75k. Although I can see, like everyone else, that these aren’t the most colorful and exciting works in his oeuvre, I do feel they are important, and are the type of works that people in a museum will say, “I could do that.” That folks, is a very good thing from a collector’s standpoint. I feel strongly that the market will come back for the Schmagoos as Bradley continues to create great art in the years to come. I also feel his softening market right now is a nice buying opportunity. He’s a great artist with great galleries and collectors behind him, and this Venus painting, in particular, falls nicely within the tradition of woman paintings (DeKooning), and is an ironic take on the bodacious female image. A bid just above the high end of the estimate ($65k), will get you an important painting by Joe Bradley for under $100k.
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