CIGAR AFICIONADO
"A New Kid in Town"
By Judd Tully
In the red-hot auction arena of contemporary art, price is often a prohibitive factor for potential collectors. Last May in New York, for instance, a wax-and-resin effigy of a fully costumed Pope John Paul II by the Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan fetched a record $886,000 at Christie’s, and a rare Abstract Expressionist painting by Jackson Pollack sold for almost $8 million at rival Sotheby’s. But now, a boutique-sized Manhattan auction house has entered the contemporary fray with decidedly lower-priced offerings and a strategy to draw in new buyers.
"We see ourselves as filling a market niche that is typical of what we do for prints and photographs," says Daile Kaplan, vice president and director of photographs at Swann Galleries, who has spearheaded the move to contemporary art with Todd Weyman, the director of works on paper. "We’re looking at material that’s going to sell in the $5,000 to $120,000 range instead of the half-million to six million dollar price range." The focus, says Kaplan, will be "multimedia and multifaceted," with photo-based artoworks, individual photographs, lithographic multiples, drawings, and sculpture by late-twentieth century artists "We’re casting a wide net of what we mean by contemporary art," she notes.
While other artistic movements are well defined, contemporary art is "definitely a gray area," says Kaplan, who moonlights on the hit PBS television series "Antiques Road Show." "Everyone has a different idea of what they think it is, but I’d describe it as a style and a practice that is recognizable because of the tools, the subject matter, and references employed. So looking at a date isn’t as useful as drawing on these other attributes."
For a copy of the complete article, contact Daile.