Straight on the subway from Sotheby's to Phillips. They've moved to midtown since I was last here. They used to have a cool meatpacking district location but I guess there's more money in midtown. Which is a good a time as any to get sidetracked with an old banking joke which was 'boutiques are cool in Soho, not in Midtown'. It might only be funny if you worked on Wall Street ...
Anyway Phillips has always been the younger brother to the big two but they appeared to have scored a coup with a big Rothko which was given its own room (actually more like a shrine, see above) at their hq. It didn't really float my boat but hey what do I know - it sold for a tad over $56 million. That it accounted for 43% of Phillips total take tells you that there wasn't any other really massive works. A pretty crazy Koons, tick. A big Hirst spinner, tick. A Warhol Jackie Kennedy, tick. By this stage I was interested in seeing some younger works as this is where Phillips usually differentiates itself so it was down to the basement in the slow elevator. And if that is not enough suspense for you I am going to pause now and take this post back up when I am back in Sydney!
Points: I'll give the 3 to Jeff Koon's Big Bikini (top) which neatly fits in with my penchant for supersized attractions! 2 points to Andres Serrano's Black Jesus (above) although I am sure if push came to shove I would really take the Piss Christ for the sake of its infamy. I will give the 1 point to Mark Ryden, not so much for this work but as a reflection of how much I loved his work when at grad school.
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