Price Check! Here’s What Sold—and for How Much—at Art Basel Miami Beach

Here's what art dealers say they sold at the fair (though watch out for number-fudging and other kinds of general sneakiness).

Art Basel 2017.

There’s a reason why Art Basel in Miami Beach has been dubbed the art world’s Black Friday. Judging from gallery reports, the pace of sales—replete with six- and seven-figure blue-chip works—went at a reasonably fast clip during the fair, which closed on December 10.

As usual, sales reports are slippery—some purchases may have been finalized long before the fair, while others might only be hypothetical, still awaiting the all-important paperwork (and cash). Prices, however, are far more reliably telling, giving a valuable snapshot of where individual artists stand in the art-market matrix today. As a result, some dealers prefer to report ranges or the “asking price,” to obscure the actual price and, for instance, cover up any favorable treatment that another buyer of a comparable work may not have received.

So take all of this with a grain of salt.

That said, to hear it from galleries, a considerable number of works sold for over $1 million during the week. Among them was Bruce Nauman’s eerie ceiling-hung Untitled (Two Wolves, Two Deer) (1989), which had a price tag of $9.5 million and was sold by Hauser & Wirth to a collection in Asia.

Ellsworth Kelly,<i>Sumac</i> (1959). Courtesy Lévy Gorvy.

Ellsworth Kelly’s Sumac (1959). Courtesy Lévy Gorvy.

Another top price—and hardly surprising given the artist’s current rock-star status—was for a just-completed Mark Bradford triptych, Moon Rocks (2017), also sold by Hauser & Wirth, for $5 million. Mnuchin Gallery also had a red dot for another, much earlier Bradford work with a $3 million asking price, Fly in the Buttermilk (2002).

There’s a lot more where that came from. Here is a (partial) roundup of notable sales at the fair as reported to artnet News, helpfully listed by price:

Bruce Nauman's Untitled (Two Wolves, Two Deer) (1989). © ARS, NY and DACS, London, 2017. Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth.

Bruce Nauman’s Untitled (Two Wolves, Two Deer) (1989). © ARS, NY and DACS, London, 2017. Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth.

Sculpture

$9.5 million: Bruce Nauman’s installation Untitled (Two Wolves, Two Deer) (1989) placed by Hauser & Wirth into a collection in Asia

$1.35 million: John Chamberlain’s Sahsimi Mendoza (1979) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$1.2 million: Ugo Rondinone’s towering tree sculpture Hunger Moon (2013)—perhaps the most-Instagrammed work at the fair—sold at Galerie Eva Presenhuber

$850,000: Donald Judd’s Untitled (1991) at David Zwirner

$800,000: Franz West’s Untitled (2009) at David Zwirner

$750,000: Urs Fischer’s statue of the artist Adam McEwen at Sadie Coles HQ

$700,000: Hannah Wilke’s latex wall work Mellow Yellow (1975) at Alison Jacques Gallery

$500,000: Carmen Herrera’s geometric red sculpture from 1962/2015 at Lisson Gallery

$250,000: Carol Bove’s sculpture at David Zwirner

$200,000: Terry Adkins’s Yuma (2013) at Lévy Gorvy, which just began representing the Adkins estate

$165,000 (approximately): Daniel Buren’s Prisms and Mirror, high reliefs, situated works 2016/7 for Sao Paulo (2017) at Galeria Nara Roesler

$175,000–200,000: Erwin Wurm’s Untitled (bag with 2 legs) (2017) at Lehmann Maupin

$141,344: Sculpture by Katharina Grosse at König Galerie

$125,000: Ivan Navarro’s Sediments (2017) at Paul Kasmin Gallery

$100,000–110,000: Ha Chong-Hyun’s Conjunction 17-05 (2017) at Tina Kim Gallery/ Kukje Gallery

$80,000: Jose Dávila’s Joint Effort (2017) at Galleri Nicolai Wallner sold to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires

$65,000: Haegue Yang’s Semi-dépliable-Andante (2011) at Tina Kim Gallery

$50,000: Sam Durant’s electric sign Speak The Truth Even If Your Voice Shakes (2015) at Blum & Poe

$11,000: Mariela Scafati’s hanging painting Pesos (2017) at Isla Flotante

Mark Bradford’s Moon Rocks (2017). Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth.

Painting

$7 million: Lee Krasner’s Sun Woman 1 (1957) at Paul Kasmin Gallery

$5 million: Mark Bradford’s triptych studded in luminous black stones, Moon Rocks (2017) at Hauser & Wirth

$4 million–5 million: Ellsworth Kelly’s historical painting Sumac (1959) capped off day three at Lévy Gorvy’s booth

$3 million: Mark Bradford’s Fly in the Buttermilk (2002), a painting named for critic Greg Tate’s description of Jean-Michel Basquiat, sold at Mnuchin Gallery

$3 million: A painting by Joan Miró at Di Donna Galleries

$2.9 million: Yoshitomo Nara’s Young Mother (2012) at Pace Gallery

James Rosenquist's Coenties Slip Studio (1961). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac.

James Rosenquist’s Coenties Slip Studio (1961). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac.

$2.7 million: James Rosenquist’s Coenties Slip Studio (1961) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$1.75 million: Sigmar Polke’s Transparent #8 (1988) at Michael Werner

$1.5 million: Alberto Burri’s Bianco Plastica B 1 (1967), made from plastic, acrylic and combustion on celotex, at Mazzoleni

$1.2 million: Neo Rauch’s Tank at David Zwirner

In excess of $1.2 million: Pierre Soulages’s Peinture 130 x 97 cm, 28 Octobre (1966) from first-timer Applicat Prazan gallery

Above $1 million: Pierre Soulages’s painting from the Outrenoire series at Lévy Gorvy

$1 million: Yayoi Kusama’s Standing at the Flower Bed (2013) at David Zwirner

$900,000: A work by Paolo Scheggi from 1967 at Tornabuoni Art

$850,000: Urs Fischer’s painting at Sadie Coles HQ

$400,000: Roberto Matta’s The Birth of the Dream (1953) at Robilant + Voena

$450,000: George Condo’s Giant Head Composition (2017) at Sprüth Magers

$300,000–500,000: Paintings from the ’60s and ’70s by Frank Bowling at Hales Gallery

$350,000: A.R. Penck’s tskrie 4 (1984) at Michael Werner Gallery

$275,000: Dana Schutz’s Self-Exam (2017) at Friedrich Petzel Gallery

Mary Corse’s Untitled (2017). Photo: courtesy of Lehmann Maupin.

$250,000–300,000: Two Mary Corse paintings from DNA Series (2017) at Lehmann Maupin. Corse has a big year ahead of her: she has a major solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum and a presentation at Dia: Beacon, both slated for spring of 2018.

$250,000–275,000: Jonas Wood’s WKS NPP #6, DKG NPP #1, DKG NPP #2, Maritime NPP #8 (all 2017) at David Kordansky Gallery

$225,000: Markus Lüpertz’s Susanne (2017) at Michael Werner Gallery

$150,000: Stanley Whitney’s East Orange (2017) at Galerie Nordenhake

$150,000: Robert Colescott’s Magic Act II: Reverse Miscegenation (1970) at Blum & Poe. The Colescott estate is a new addition to the gallery’s stable.

$130,000–140,000: Liza Lou’s Relief 3 (2017) at Lehmann Maupin sold to a trustee of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

$120,000: Jennifer Guidi’s large-scale Elements of All Entities (Universe Mandala SF #6G, Green, Black Sand) (2017) at David Kordansky

$110,000: Henry Taylor’s Sungtae Kim – Drinking coffee in my chinatown Studio (2012) at Blum & Poe

$100,000–110,000: Ha Chong-Hyun’s Conjunction 17-05 (2017) at Tina Kim Gallery/ Kukje Gallery

$100,000: a Josh Smith painting at David Zwirner

$75,000: an untitled painting from 2017 by Lesley Vance at Bortolami Gallery

$65,000–75,000: Angel Otero’s Chasing the Tear (2017) at Lehmann Maupin

$60,160: Sam Moyer’s stone, marble, dyed canvas mounted to MDF, Georgia (2016
), at Sean Kelly Gallery

$45,000: Two paintings by Julia Wachtel, Making History and Black and White (both 2017) at Elizabeth Dee Gallery

$42,000: a large oil on linen painting by Julia Rommel (2017) at Bureau

$35,000 (approximately): Keltie Ferris’s Gray Matter (2017) at Mitchell-Innes & Nash

$35,000: William N. Copley’s Untitled (1964) at Paul Kasmin Gallery

$22,000 each: Several paintings from the ’80s by Judith Bernstein at The Box

$10,000–60,000: Portraits by Nathaniel Mary Quinn sold out at Rhona Hoffman Gallery

$5,000: Silvina Der Meguerditchian’s Ellis Island (2017) sold to a Chicago-based collector at Kalfayan Galleries

Jonas Wood's WKS NPP #6 (2017). © the artist and David Kordansky Gallery.

Jonas Wood’s WKS NPP #6 (2017). © the artist and David Kordansky Gallery.

Works on Paper, Photographs, and Editions

$1–1.5 million: Sol LeWitt’s gouache on paper 100 Cubes (1991) at Paula Cooper Gallery sold within the first hour of the VIP preview to a large public collection in Europe.

$875,000: Lee Krasner’s Untitled (1962) at Paul Kasmin Gallery

$700,000: Robert Longo’s charcoal on paper Untitled (Trumpsville) at Metro Pictures

$100,000: a Thomas Ruff photograph at Konrad Fischer Galerie

$95,000 each: Photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans at David Zwirner

$94,405: Two editions of Thomas Struth’s inkjet print Chemistry Fume Cabinet, the university of Edinburgh (2010) at Galerie Greta Meert

$80,000: Carrie Mae Weems’s The Blues (2017) at Jack Shainman Gallery

$65,000: Two unique vintage prints by Ana Mendieta at Alison Jacques Gallery

$45,000 each: All 100 editions of KAWS’s set of nine silkscreens, THE NEWS (2017), sold at Pace Prints for a total of $4.5 million

$30,000–40,000: Alex Prager’s Anaheim (2017) at Lehmann Maupin. Prager’s solo show at the gallery’s Hong Kong location opens in January.

$25,000–35,000: A small 1979 work on paper by Gerald Williams, the co-founder of AfriCOBRA, at Kavi Gupta Gallery

$30,000: Catherine Opie’s debut photograph for her The Modernist series at Regen Projects

$8,000: Several photographs by Kwame Brathwaite from the 1960s (printed 2017) at Cherry & Martin

$8,000 (approximately): Edgardo Antonio Vigo’s letterpress on paper Argentina 1974 (1974) at Richard Saltoun Gallery


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