Selected Works from an Important Private Collection of Contemporary Art
Join us at 20 Connaught Street in the heart of London to discover works that capture the spirit of the Noughties. The decade’s contemporary art scene was forged in the rebellious Nineties, with the YBAs stumbling out of the Groucho Club and into the tabloids. Tracey Emin’s unmade bed, and her gloriously unfiltered appearances on BBC2, sent shockwaves across the shires, while Charles Saatchi’s Sensation at the Royal Academy scandalised Britain with its confrontational and boundary-pushing art.
The Nineties, too, saw contemporary art departments at the major auction houses grow from one- and two-man bands to the whole-floor occupying behemoths they are today. But it was really in the early 2000s, the Noughties, that all this Nineties energy doubled back into itself and exploded: the art world’s champagne supernova.
Y2K! Selected Works from an Important Private Collection of Contemporary Art, to be offered in our Edinburgh and London spring contemporary sales, emerges directly from this moment. Acquired at the height of that expansion, the collection reflects the decade in which the art world redrew its own map. Suddenly there were galleries everywhere, all at once.
Pioneers of the industrial East End of London like Maureen Paley found themselves surrounded by new spaces. White Cube moved to Shoreditch in 2000, which itself was filling with galleries that were anything but white cubes (the ‘Dream Bags and Jaguar Shoes’ effect). The same was true for New York, L.A., Brussels, Paris (to an extent) and Hong Kong. The Noughties was the decade that the art world became truly global, not just centred on London, Paris and New York. There seemed to be a new art fair starting in a new city every other week. And then Gagosian would open an outpost there.
Frieze went from magazine to phenomenon to sine qua non. Basel became hip (to an extent). The works in Y2K! reflect this globalisation, with artists from all four points, bought from start-ups as well as established players.
Illustrated: ANDREAS GOLDER (RUSSIAN 1979-) | PAAR - 2006 | £700 - £1,000 + fees
