~BACON TRIPTYCH . . worth $85 Million ?
meanwhile, up in the higher echelons of the art world, far far from the ‘mean’ streets of East Williamsburg . . this is what the art world looks like.
it’s auction action week..
SO, is that package of BRITISH BACON . . worth $85 million ?
that’s what CHRISTIE’S is going to try to find out to-nite.
they are putting a FRANCIS BACON triptych from 1969, up for auction with a starting price of $85 million .. “the highest asking price in auction history.”
last year SOTHEBY’S asked $80 million for EDVARD MUNCH’S ‘The Scream’ and realized a record sale of .. $120 Million.
first of all, you have to realize, it’s all about the numbers .. uptown.
the bigger the numbers .. the better the bragging rights.
numbers is really the name of the game, uptown.
it’s pretty much really all these these guys know.
it’s not a bad thing to know, but it’s not about . . the art.
though, according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL “Millions can hinge, for example on a painting’s palette: If an artist slathers something in gold or red, auctioneers say they will invariably price it higher than similar paintings covered in gloomier hues.” listen up, my grad students.
and duh, “SEX also sells”.
what did you think ?
‘Three Studies of Lucian Freud’ 1969, by FRANCIS BACON.
being myself, a humble denizen of the cutting edge, the underground, I really don’t find all of this so exciting. though Edvard Munch’s ‘Scream’ is good .. it was unrecognized and underground for a long time. Francis Bacon, not so much.
in fact: meh.
there’s eggs, and then there’s free range eggs.
I would find the auction action .. so much more interesting if these guys were also great collectors. and by that I mean guys who could go for a walk on the wild side, the Lower East Side. you know, downtown . . . and be able to stick in their thumbs, and pull out plums.
who cares about who bought BASQUIAT for $30 million, tell me about the early collector who had the savvy, guts and brains .. to buy in at $10,000. $50,000. $120,000.
FRANCIS BACON, left and LUCIAN FREUD, right .. in the streets of London, 1974.
what a bunch of posers.
am I allowed to say I can’t stand these guys. I hate their paintings. they are so damn academic, and they never ever .. take off. they are like, grad school .. grade.
alcoholic grad school .. grade.
the only British artist I hate worse, is DAVID HOCKNEY.
no wonder DAMIEN HIRST was able to come along, live wire that he was, and wipe the floor. tap out the register.
and, then here we go again with the ‘repressed’ male homosexuality merry-go-round. didn’t I just read that about .. about NORMAN ROCKWELL.
b-o-r-i-n-g.
from the WALL STREET JOURNAL, about FRANCIS BACON:
“A charismatic man who battled alcoholism and asthma, he split his time between the bars of London’s Soho neighborhood and the expansive studio he was given at London’s Royal College of art. That studio, for the first time, gave him enough space to work on three canvases at once, set up side by side.
BACON was the provocative darling of London’s art circles, but historians say he was smitten — platonically and possibly more so – with FREUD, his younger friend and peer. Freud was wiry and witty, the grandson of Sigmund Freud and a painter known for his psychologically charged portraits . .”
it’s all about the bacon .. and where it splatters, no matter how you cut it.
see: Bringing Home the Bacon .. WALL STREET JOURNAL