Well , lve been away a few weeks, and apart from the personal attacks on Taxidermys favourite sons George John and Bill, nothing much has happened --Come to think of it ,if someone wasnt mounting an attack on any, or all three of these three guys, THAT would be unusual.
Now the purpose of this post--Christies Auction Art or craft ?
l ask you all to go to www.christies.com, and have a look at the auction scheduled in London in a few days time on the 27 th and 29th June.
Its the Contemporary Art sale.
Go to lots 19 and 69......go on , go have a look now , were not going anywhere.
For those who do not have access, the lots mentioned are as follows
Lot 19--'The Ballad of Trotsky"-Taxidermied horse , leather saddlery , rope , pulley, by Maurizio Cattlehan.
The image is of a horse in harness , suspended from the rafters, head down looking at the ground. Estimate--300-400,000 pounds sterling .
Or in USD , $440,000.00 TO $580,000.00
Lot 69--Misfit, A lying St. Bernard dog with a sheeps face, by Thomas Grunfeld.
Estimate 15-20,000 pounds or USD $22-29,000 .
Thats right ladies and gentleman, you shall have to look twice , before you realise whats going on ,--- but the auction is next week.
Personally l hope its a raging success.
These types of prices wont hurt our standards of living( or lack of them ), but it may change our way of thinking .
Simply put , a Piccasso can fetch up to 100 million in New York, whereas a sign writer gets $45 bucks an hour.Both use paint , and brushes. One is regarded as art, the other a craft.
Your comments please.
Christie's auctions are where the surplus of the modern doge falls prey to the whim of a moment. It can't hurt the field, but you are broadcasting to a nation of people who are just beginning to learn about Ebay. The average American thinks Christie's is either a strip joint, or a bistro frequented by lawyers and foxxxes.
The auction of past taxidermy efforts is always good news, but not necessarily a harbinger of good things to come. Picasso would have liked this forum, because he was stringent about viewing two sides at the same time. If Peggy Guggenheim had been a typical housewife, maybe the post impressionists and the cubists would have never been known to the western world. Good post. (I just wonder how many will understand it.)
taste, very much like this forum. Some call Taxidermy working with dead animals and others view it....bringing a dead form back to life. Well, I could go further,fishing poles are loaded...gotta go...on the job training ya know..
Gary
don't know much about that foreign money but if that horse weighs 300-400,000 pounds hits gonna take a heap of that sterling to pay just fer the shipping, hide must be full of that heavy metal preservative, or its a chrome tan, now to pay anything for a lying dog is ridiculous, traded a garden tiller and an old vw with out a reverse gear in it for a coon dog once, that thing lied every time it treed, it was a coon hound and when it barked there was either nuttin up the tree or a possum, don't make sense buying a dog thats guaranteed to lie.
(*)
...but you're still my hero.
I found the piece "Turisti" particularly interesting. Ten lowly pigeons, complete with "birdcrap", expected to fetch 60,000 - 80,000 pounds! If my calculations are correct, that works out to approximately $8,700 - $11,600 US per bird! I doubt that even Rummans or Savides gets THAT much!
Interesting post Gary.
I think the horse could make a dramatic visual impression...perhaps as restuarant decor.
Maybe Margret has a client that would want it.
Nancy M.
a prime example of what some rich dude will spend to show the other rich dudes who's boss. My ex-wife loved auctions, God rest her soul...(She ain't dead yet, but there is always hope.) She would bid her behind off on the most useless crap, just to show another man's wife whose husband had the most credit cards.
Maybe a celebrity auction will be held for our industry's products. Rin Tin Tin, Roy Rogers horse, Trigger, Gene Autry's horse and a host of other famous critters have been mounted for the curious to see.
Maybe a new category at the World Competitions would include memorial statue and pigeon sanctuaries, complete with dozens of rock doves and a little old lady with a bag of faux popcorn. Maybe the one with the most realistic wino propped against the base would take it all.
Forget the Barre's and the Whistlers, bring on the long dead and not forgotten. It doesn't have to be art to be featured at Christie's, just one of a kind that only one rich feller or gal can own, for Gawd knows what reason........lol
Thank God you didn't mention John Wayne, those would be fight'en words.Nobody messes with "The Duke"! As far as plastic......nuff said!
The mind that is willed by knowledge, keep busy hands and a healthy heart.......AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH.......period guy...DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT!
^^ ^^
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<be nice>
lisa
ok