Out & About

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Christie’s expects its Donald Judd sales tomorrow and Wednesday to go far beyond the seller’s expectations.

The seller of the 36 works, with estimated value between $30,000 and $3 million, is the Judd Foundation, established by the artist to preserve his buildings and art in Marfa, Tex. and at 101 Spring St. The foundation is hoping for $20 million from the sale to create an endowment.

“Frankly, I think the sale will generate much more,” the co-director of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s, Brett Gorvy, said yesterday. Bidding will be from private collectors, not museums, with strong Asian interest and very strong European interest, Mr. Gorvy added.

The auction will certainly benefit from Christie’s investment in presale marketing activities. “The shipping of the work from Texas, putting it in a warehouse and photographing it – we had a photographer on duty for two weeks straight,” Mr. Gorvy said. And then there was the two month’s rent of the exhibition space, on a high floor of a commercial building in Rockefeller Center, and the build-out of the space: All the walls were created expressly for the exhibit, designed by the artist’s son, Flavin Judd.

So far, the results have been remarkable. In the month it’s been up, about 700 people have been passing through daily, with the numbers up to 1,000 over the closing weekend.

On Saturday morning, art dealers and private collectors roamed the space, which streamed with sunlight.

“The setting couldn’t be more interesting,” an architect, Craig Konyk, said. “The mirror of Manhattan relates to the work,” he added, noting the parallels between the sculptures and the buildings outside.

What does the sale mean for the foundation? “The goal is to create an endowment that gives us operating funds so we can build the infrastructure we need,” the executive director of the foundation, Barbara Hunt McLanahan, said.

The foundation has hired an architect, Adam Yarinsky, to create a restoration and design plan for its building at 101 Spring St., which Judd purchased in 1968. It contains installations by Judd as well as works by Dan Flavin, John Chamberlain, and Claes Oldenburg. It is also the last remaining single-use cast iron building in SoHo. Other items on Ms. McLanahan’s list: considerable conservation work, the maintenance of 16 buildings in Marfa, Tex., publishing a catalog raisonne and the artist’s writings, and conducting symposia and public programs.

The foundation will turn to fund-raising and grant writing to fund some of these projects. Last month it received $250,000 from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to put in new fire suppression systems at 101 Spring St. “We’ve only just begun, really,” Ms. McLanahan said.

***

“This a sexy, intimate event,” Simone Levinson said at the Tribeca Ball on Thursday night. While she was probably referring to the gorgeous men and women spinning around her on the dance floor, Mrs. Levinson could easily have been describing the institution the ball supports. The New York Academy of Art on Franklin Street is a small school that produces figurative painters and sculptors whose works are lush, colorful, and imaginative. Most importantly, they all feature the human figure. In fact, the school takes the study of anatomy so seriously that it invited students to do live drawing at the event (guests stayed clothed, for the record, but the women certainly exposed enough skin to produce some fine sketches). Often parties and their causes seem so distant, but not on this night.

agordon@nysun.com


The New York Sun

© 2024 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use