When it comes to sales at Art Cologne, the time honored refrain has been “wait for the weekend.” That might still be the case at the top end of the classical modern spectrum, with dealers like Zurich’s Salis + Vertes noting strong interest and reserves on German Expressionist masterworks by artists like Max Ernst and Emil Nolde, but no completed sales. For the most part, however, in blue chip and emerging booths, sales were stronger than any of the gallerists consulted could remember compared to previous years.
Hauser + Wirth started strong, with nine pieces from their special presentation of text-based works by the Belgian artist Philippe Vandenberg selling within the first hours of the fair for prices ranging from €3,800 to €50,000. (The artist created one of the sold works by spelling out the word “home” in his own blood.) Director Florian Berktold says he was particularly pleased “to see the amount of interest for Christoph Schlingensief’s captivating film, “Say Goodbye to the Story (ATT 1/11).” It has been a while since his work has been seen in Germany and our ‘Kino 3,000’” — a theater the gallery created within their booth to show the film — “is really popular.” One edition of the Schlingensief is on hold for an undisclosed German museum, he says.
David Zwirner sold two works by Thomas Ruff from the artist’s newest series, currently on view at the gallery’s 19th Street location in New York, “PHG 01” and “PHG 02,” both from 2012. By Friday, the gallery had already swapped the works for a third Ruff in expectation that it would sell with similar ease. Yayoi Kusama’s “Cosmic Space” from 2008 also sold during the preview. Collages by Marcel Dzama, an artist new to the gallery, piqued intense interest, with one sold and five others reserved by Friday afternoon. The gallery also reported a strong reserve on what is arguably the booth’s centerpiece, Neo Rauch’s “Fang” (1998).
Katharina Hinsberg’s popular installation, “mitten” (2012) — a room-filling series of balls made of red molding clay hung along strands and priced at €90,000 — attracted serious interest from two German museums, according to the artist’s gallery, Edith Walandt. Meanwhile, six of Hinsberg’s works on paper sold for €1,000-€2,000 each.
Helsinki’s Galerie Forsblom sold an imposing steel sculpture by the French conceptual sculptor Bernar Venet, “Interminate Line,” 1987, for €180,000, and a new oil by young Spanish artist, Secundino Hernandez, for €13,000. At the same time, at Galerie Buchholz, Isa Genzken’s sculpture “Orang-Utan,” 2008, created from a stuffed animal, toy horse, and other materials, went for an undisclosed sum.
London’s Annely Juda sold Anthony Caro’s small sculpture “Writing Piece ‘One’” (1979) to a German collection for €39,000. Four of the gallery’s wooden sculptures by Roger Ackling also sold to a European collector, for €2,000-€4,600 a piece. The Cologne-based dealer Gisela Capitan had strong preview sales as well, with works by Günther Foerg and John Stezacker going early on. Several photographs by Eifie Semotan went to a new client, as did a handful of pastel-colored Karla Black paper sculptures.
First-time Cologne participant Ingleby Gallery sold six works from its New Positions project by emerging artist Kevin Harman. For “1 Pixel Portrait Studio,” Harman developed a special camera and an iPad app with a professor at Edinburgh University that averages out the tones present in anyone photographed into a single color. The resulting Lamba prints, which are drymounted to aluminum, are available in three sizes, for £500, £1,000, and £2,000, or as a full set for £3,000. “I would have been thrilled if even one person was curious enough to commission a portrait, but already in the first day the interest in the project and engagement with what I’m doing has been overwhelming,” says Harman.
New Contemporaries galleries continued to report strong sales. Heike Tosun of Berlin’s Soy Capitan says that she was pleasantly surprised by her first appearance at the fair, having already sold two works. “The number of new clients coming by has been really encouraging,” she says. “Especially as a young gallery, there is always the risk that you might not sell at all, but enthusiasm and engagement with the works has been high.” The works sold included her booth’s centerpiece, “Malerwinkel,” 2013 — a series of eight found paintings of the Königsee, the most painted (and copied) vista in Germany, with four of the canvases. The work went to a German-Dutch collector couple for €8,500, while Eli Cortiñas’s “Game Control II (Oh Marcel, Marcel!),” 2011, sold for €1800 to a German collector.