Arianna Di Cori
The Republic
Street art at auction. It was inevitable that in the explosion of the last few years, the sea of legal events, exhibitions in galleries and then in major museums such as the recent one on Banksy at Palazzo Cipolla, works belonging to this heterogeneous current would begin to peep out at Italian auctions too, as is now the practice at English and French auctions.
It happens at Arcadia, a young Roman auction house that in its third initiative, scheduled for Monday 20 June at 9pm, will present 150 lots including objects and paintings by seven street artists, also all from Rome: Alice Pasquini, Mirco Marcacci, Maupal, Diamond, Solo, the very young Jerico and newcomer Mauro Sgarbi.
This is the second time that street art has entered the auction circuit in Italy, but it is the first event of this kind completely unrelated to the urban context: the previous one, in 2012, organised in Rome by Urban Contest in the spaces of Minerva Auctions, made use of the collaboration of the Lanificio and sold works created on the occasion of the 'San Lorenzo Estate 2012' .
In this case, on the other hand, the works come from a single collector - who has chosen to remain anonymous - and will be presented in the 18th-century setting of Palazzo Celsi alongside works by masters such as De Chirico, Guttuso, Morandi, Schifano, Victor Vasarely and Antonio Sanfilippo, Claudio Abate's photographs, as well as prints by Andy Warhol, two fractals by Pistoletto and many other more or less well-known modern and contemporary artists. Scrolling through the pages of the catalogue it immediately stands out how the estimated sale prices for street art are no lower than average: Solo's "Scent of a Wonder Woman" is between 3 and 4 thousand euro, slightly less than Schifano's painting (4-5 thousand euro). The estimated range for Pasquini's 'Cash Cow', a rubber ball distributor painted in acrylics, is between €3,500 and €4,500, as are some of Claudio Abate's large prints.
Mirco Marcacci is presenting two medium-format works, an enamel on canvas and an evocative ink on bulletproof glass, both estimated at between 2,000 and 2,500 euro. Jerico's two works, in his impressionist style, range from 1,000/1,500 to 2,000 euro, slightly less for Mauro Sgarbi's two canvases. Mauro Pallotta, aka Maupal, known for his 'Super Pope', the poster depicting Pope Francis/superhero that was even retweeted by the Vatican's official account, presents a pair of painted steel mesh panels for 5/7 thousand euro: for the same amount you can take home Pistoletto's fractals plus a Warhol print.
Naturally, four zeros reign among the Sanfilippo, D'Orazio, Guttuso, De Chirico; Vasarely's oil comes close to one hundred thousand euros. It is not so much the provocation behind the auction concept, although it will be curious to see collectors' reactions. In the intentions of Arcadia and the mysterious patron is the intention to make people reflect on some of the facets of an art that encloses thousands of codes, difficult to inscribe in a real movement.
Almost 50 years after the beginning of graffiti art, street art has become a way of expressing oneself through a medium, the wall, which more than ever in the age of social immediacy, becomes a means of communication. It is no coincidence that more and more easel painters are beginning to try their hand at muralism. As long as the two fields do not encroach on each other, as in the case of the controversial "strappi" (i.e. works on walls literally detached and taken indoors, as happened in an exhibition in Bologna in March), one can serenely draw a line between what is done in the street and therefore "street" and what the artists themselves create indoors: contemporary art. Born underground and therefore fast, athletic, caducous, today street art has acquired a qualitative exoskeleton that makes it an attractive investment in the contemporary scene. And perhaps, among the seven artists, the one who most embodies this dual aspect is Diamond, who presents two works.
One is a refined and maniacal drawing of a woman on paper, 1 x 1.3 metres, made entirely with a bic pen and costing several days to create, the antithesis of a work on a wall, priced at three to four thousand euros. But even more emblematic is his painting on aged paper: a pram from which an arm irreverently draws a tag. A celebration of the primordial gesture, the claim to identity at the basis of all that is street art today.
REPUBLIC LINK
The Republic
Rome, from Alice Pasquini to Diamond: street art goes up for auction
At Palazzo Celsi on 20 June, Arcadia presents 150 lots, including works by masters such as De Chirico, Morandi and Warhol. The works come from a collector who has chosen to remain anonymous.Street art at auction. It was inevitable that in the explosion of the last few years, the sea of legal events, exhibitions in galleries and then in major museums such as the recent one on Banksy at Palazzo Cipolla, works belonging to this heterogeneous current would begin to peep out at Italian auctions too, as is now the practice at English and French auctions.
It happens at Arcadia, a young Roman auction house that in its third initiative, scheduled for Monday 20 June at 9pm, will present 150 lots including objects and paintings by seven street artists, also all from Rome: Alice Pasquini, Mirco Marcacci, Maupal, Diamond, Solo, the very young Jerico and newcomer Mauro Sgarbi.
This is the second time that street art has entered the auction circuit in Italy, but it is the first event of this kind completely unrelated to the urban context: the previous one, in 2012, organised in Rome by Urban Contest in the spaces of Minerva Auctions, made use of the collaboration of the Lanificio and sold works created on the occasion of the 'San Lorenzo Estate 2012' .
In this case, on the other hand, the works come from a single collector - who has chosen to remain anonymous - and will be presented in the 18th-century setting of Palazzo Celsi alongside works by masters such as De Chirico, Guttuso, Morandi, Schifano, Victor Vasarely and Antonio Sanfilippo, Claudio Abate's photographs, as well as prints by Andy Warhol, two fractals by Pistoletto and many other more or less well-known modern and contemporary artists. Scrolling through the pages of the catalogue it immediately stands out how the estimated sale prices for street art are no lower than average: Solo's "Scent of a Wonder Woman" is between 3 and 4 thousand euro, slightly less than Schifano's painting (4-5 thousand euro). The estimated range for Pasquini's 'Cash Cow', a rubber ball distributor painted in acrylics, is between €3,500 and €4,500, as are some of Claudio Abate's large prints.
Mirco Marcacci is presenting two medium-format works, an enamel on canvas and an evocative ink on bulletproof glass, both estimated at between 2,000 and 2,500 euro. Jerico's two works, in his impressionist style, range from 1,000/1,500 to 2,000 euro, slightly less for Mauro Sgarbi's two canvases. Mauro Pallotta, aka Maupal, known for his 'Super Pope', the poster depicting Pope Francis/superhero that was even retweeted by the Vatican's official account, presents a pair of painted steel mesh panels for 5/7 thousand euro: for the same amount you can take home Pistoletto's fractals plus a Warhol print.
Naturally, four zeros reign among the Sanfilippo, D'Orazio, Guttuso, De Chirico; Vasarely's oil comes close to one hundred thousand euros. It is not so much the provocation behind the auction concept, although it will be curious to see collectors' reactions. In the intentions of Arcadia and the mysterious patron is the intention to make people reflect on some of the facets of an art that encloses thousands of codes, difficult to inscribe in a real movement.
Almost 50 years after the beginning of graffiti art, street art has become a way of expressing oneself through a medium, the wall, which more than ever in the age of social immediacy, becomes a means of communication. It is no coincidence that more and more easel painters are beginning to try their hand at muralism. As long as the two fields do not encroach on each other, as in the case of the controversial "strappi" (i.e. works on walls literally detached and taken indoors, as happened in an exhibition in Bologna in March), one can serenely draw a line between what is done in the street and therefore "street" and what the artists themselves create indoors: contemporary art. Born underground and therefore fast, athletic, caducous, today street art has acquired a qualitative exoskeleton that makes it an attractive investment in the contemporary scene. And perhaps, among the seven artists, the one who most embodies this dual aspect is Diamond, who presents two works.
One is a refined and maniacal drawing of a woman on paper, 1 x 1.3 metres, made entirely with a bic pen and costing several days to create, the antithesis of a work on a wall, priced at three to four thousand euros. But even more emblematic is his painting on aged paper: a pram from which an arm irreverently draws a tag. A celebration of the primordial gesture, the claim to identity at the basis of all that is street art today.
REPUBLIC LINK