March 3, Bergamot Station Arts Center
By Henry K. Long
Santa Monica Auctions bids farewell to its B-7 space at Bergamot Station, but will keep its smaller A-5 space. The final auction at the B-7 gallery will take place on Sunday, March 3, while it celebrates its 35th year in business. Featuring modern and contemporary works from mid-career and established artists, all mediums will be included.
Robert Berman, owner of the Santa Monica Auctions talks about this weekend’s auction, “In 1989, Hockney was on the cutting edge of conceptual art. He sent out faxes to his friends one by one with instructions on how to put them together. One was sent to Billy Wilder. Wilder kept it in a portfolio and eventually sold to a California collector who put it together and it is now being sold at the auction.”
Another notable work up for auction is “The Valley” is a group of etchings by Keith Haring with text by William S. Burroughs. The portfolio consists of sixteen etchings drawn by the artist. Another suite The Seven Deadly Sins, 1991 This is the complete set of 7 woodcuts (framed) with screen-print in colors, on ANW Crestwood. Berman went on to cite a sought after print by Roy Lichtenstein entitled “Pointed Finger” (1973), which is one of 300 hundred. The public can bid on works by prominent artists such as Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Joe Goode, Paul McCarthy, Peter Alexander, and many more.
“We have quite a few works by the Los Angeles artist who has been doing interpretations or appropriations for some time. Gregg Gibbs did his own interpretation of the Brillo Boxes by Andy Warhol.” In the mid-1960s, Warhol raised eyebrows by creating consumer-product imagery into the realm of sculpture. Calling to mind a factory assembly line, Warhol employed carpenters to construct numerous plywood boxes identical in size and shape to supermarket cartons.
Berman continued, “Gibbs also did a piece called Peace Christ which is the interpretation of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci which sold for more money than any other painting in the history of art in the world. The original work was sold for $452,000,000.”
Other works by Gibbs include an appropriation of the famed artwork The Son of Man (French: Le fils de l’homme), a 1964 painting by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. Another work dubbed Target Practice is a tribute to the well-known work Target with Four Faces (1955) by the legendary artist Jasper Johns who was known as one of the first artists in the 50s to paint common objects found in mid-century American life.
The auction takes place on Sunday, March 3rd at its B-7 gallery at Bergamot Station Arts Center located at 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica. Attendees can bid live, by phone, or by absentee via internet bidding. The auction preview is currently on view now at the B-7 gallery at Bergamot Station (Tues-Fri 11-6pm) and will remain open until 8pm on Saturday, March 2nd, 2019. For more info, contact info@smauctions.com at (310) 315-1937. Find out more about the Santa Monica Auctions, or see the full catalog, visit http://www.smauctions.com/
