In its September issue, Art+Auction compiled a list of the 25 most collectible midcareer artists working today. This month, ARTINFO will publish one installment from the feature per day. Click here to read Art+Auction editor-in-chief Eric Bryant’s introduction to the list.
McArthur Binion | B. 1946 | United States
Collector Dennis Scholl first encountered collages by the Mississippi-born, Chicago-based abstract conceptualist at Kavi Gupta’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2013. “I was captivated by the overlay of translucent colored wax on pages from his personal phone book from his time in New York in the 1970s, which contained the numbers of Brice Marden and Martin Puryear, among others,” says Scholl. With its blend of autobiography and form, Binion’s multifaceted practice draws on his roots as an African-American growing up in the Deep South; his rigorous training at Cranbrook Academy of Art, from which he received an MFA in 1973; and the solace he found in the gritty New York art scene of four decades ago. While Binion enjoyed a modicum of success in the ’70s and ’80s, with works purchased by the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his collector base was largely limited to the Chicago area until an early 2012 exhibition, “Perspectives 177,” at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. There, says curator Valerie Cassel Oliver, his work drew the attention of Chicago gallerist Kavi Gupta and Mary Sabbatino of New York’s Galerie Lelong, which is presenting a show of 20 new collages from Binion’s “DNA” and “Self-portrait” series, running September 10 through October 17. The works sell in the $25,000-to-$80,000 range.
