Fabulous art market story by Richard Polsky this morning at Artnet. It’s hard to argue with his point about pricing drawings by young artists like Marcel Dzama ($1,100 — he thinks it’s appropriate).
But I’d like to say I believe six-figures for Robert Ryman is out of order. (Polsky doesn’t — he thinks Ryman’s passed the 20-year-and-still-here test and so $100,000 is ok for a new work — apparently they can go for $250,000 at auction.) I think the jury’s still out on a painter of white whose austere canvases’ main characteristic seems to be their prominent positioning of Ryman’s name front and center.
When Libby and I saw Ryman’s 1993 retrospective at MOMA, we both had an instant gag reaction. In fact, we’re still looking for help in explaining why this artist can command so much museum wall space with work that seems so vacuous. (image is untitled drawing 2003 by Marcel Dzama from Richard Heller Gallery)
