A cohesive selection of art and design from a private Paris collection will go up for auction this Thursday, June 24, at Wright auction house in Chicago. The sale is not only a chance to purchase works by the likes of Elmgreen and Dragset, Xavier Vielhan, Sophie Calle, and Paul Evans (at price points from $500-$100,000), but a chance to see how a personal collection comes together. Since we here at Whitewall live to see how people live – at home – with their art and design, we spoke with Wright’s Michael Jefferson and Erica Barrish about the upcoming sale just a few days before it went live.
WHITEWALL: On June 24th you’ll be auctioning a single-owner sale of contemporary art and design at Wright auction house. The previous owner seemed to have a poignant collecting vision. What about this group of objects interested you?
MICHAEL JEFFERSON (Senior Specialist for Modern and Contemporary Design): We’ve set ourselves up to be the source for single-owner sales that cross the line between decorative arts and fine arts. Our approach is different from a lot of our competitors in that we do try to transfer to our clients the lifestyle that this person took on by living with their pieces. With this particular client, we quickly understood his aesthetic choices and then created the catalogue to complement that.
ERICA BARRISH (Senior Specialist for Post War and Contemporary Art): One of the reasons that we were so entranced by the collection is that many of the artists represented in the collection were people like Sophie Calle, Xavier Veilhan, Aya Takano, who are some of the most important artists working today.
WW: The layout of the preview in some ways mimics the layout of the owner’s private home. Do you think it’s important for your clients to see or envision themselves - their own aesthetic and idea of collecting - in the works that are up for auction?
MJ: I think so. You know, there’s always different ways or reasons why people collect, and we’re not just trying to sell style and a look. I mean, obviously, there’s substance behind it –
EB: And quality.
MJ: There is a certain allure to being seduced by someone’s collection, seeing how they live with it, and there’s really a creative transference of ideas there. You can see that in the way our client lived with this large Aya Takano painting that we have, for instance. It almost was like a billboard on the double-height part of his house. That is something creative beyond just the artwork itself. Somebody can say, “Wow, look how that looks in the context of this space,” and it adds to the discussion about why people collect in addition to buying simply for quality and pedigree.
WW: In the catalogue you made a point of not differentiating between art and design objects. Why?
EB: I think there is marriage between the two elements. I think that in many ways the design does act like the art and vice-versa. I think there’s sort of this great elegance that mimics the back and forth between the flat objects, the 3-dimensional objects, and those that are meant to be lived on and those that are meant to be interacted with.
MJ: You find parallels [between the art, design, and furniture] and for us, it was a point of discovery in the same way that the owner discovered how these things interact with each other. It’s just a way of transferring the moment of discovery through the catalogue to the potential next owners.
WW: Are there any highlights from the auction that you want to mention?
EB: I would say the most important work is by Aya Takano. It’s that large painting that’s the story of two Japanese gods coming together and giving birth to the island of Japan. It is one of the seminal works that Aya has ever done. She is an artist that has been celebrated by people like Murakami and been included in numerous international exhibitions. This is a large-scale almost, mural-like work and certainly something to be celebrated. Another really wonderful standout in the sale is a sculpture by Elmgreen & Dragset. There’s a beautiful piece by Sophie Calle, the French artist, who represented France in the 2007 Venice Biennale. This is actually a work that’s from that series where a number of different writers, dancers, artists, performance artists, etcetera, were asked to interpret the break-up letter that Calle had received from her then-boyfriend.
