Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.
Happy Wednesday! Here’s a round-up of who’s moving and shaking in the art trade this week.
- P·P·O·W to Represent Owen Fu: The artist recently had a solo show with the gallery in New York, which will represent him alongside Antenna Space in Shanghai.
- Nicola Vassell Takes Representation of Na Kim: The artist is known equally for her book covers and her paintings of people, some of which were on view at the New York gallery in January.
- Jessie Washburne-Harris Named Global Director at White Cube: The Pace Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery alum will oversee the gallery’s long-term growth in the United States, as ARTnews reported on Tuesday. Nearly two years ago, White Cube opened its first New York gallery.
- Chris Sharp Gallery Adds Mark A. Rodriguez to Roster: The artist is known for sculptural works that consider commodification and notions of good taste.
- Berry Campbell Takes on the Estate of Louisa Chase: The gallery will present its first solo exhibition for the artist, who died in 2016, in April of next year.
- Mexico City Dealers Launch Artist Residency Program: Misa Yamaoka and Yuna Cabon, of Third Born gallery, will kick off the program with an exhibition by Anna de Castro Barbosa.
The Big Number: $136 million
That was the combined total across Christie’s, Phillips, and Sotheby’s evening sales in Hong Kong this past weekend. That figure was well below the $208.6 milliontallied at the equivalent sales last fall. That latter number, however, was boosted by Christie’s inaugural auction at its swanky new Hong Kong headquarters in the Henderson, which alone brought in $134 million on 43 lots. By contrast, this year’s 20th/21st century sale at Christie’s, which opened the weekend on Friday, achieved $72.7 million on 38 lots—a 46 percent drop—and fell more in line with the equivalent March sale, which totaled $73.3 million.
Read This.
Is the next big market star a woman active in the 17th century? Quite possibly. The New York Times recently delved into the history behind the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien’s newly opened Michaelina Wautier survey, the most high-profile exhibition devoted to the artist, whose work is so little-known that some pieces onview spent decades gathering dust in storage. According to the Times, Wautier is not only being reappraised within institutional walls but has also become an unexpected force in salesrooms, with her paintings sextupling their estimates at auction. All this momentum led Maja Markovic, a director at Christie’s, to tell the Times that Wautier’s rise has been “meteoric.” That comes despite the fact that when art historian Katlijne Van der Stighelen first proposed a Wautier show, she was told it would be “from a financial point of view, disastrous.” —Alex Greenberger, Senior Editor
