Numbers are in for Phillips de Pury’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale. Held last night (3/4), amidst the buzz of Armory week, results were lukewarm. More than a third of the 34 total lots went unsold, with total sales reaching $2,192,850 (with all buyer’s fees). Here’s the rundown:

Phillips de Pury Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Thurs., March 4
All results include buyer’s premiums: 25% on the first $50,000, 20% on the portion of the price from $50,000 to $1,000,000, and 12% on any portion of the price     which exceeds $1,000,000.

Total Sale: $2,192,850
Lots Offered: 34, Sold: 22 (64.7%) Unsold/Withdrawn: 12 (35.3%)
Lots Exceeding High Estimate: 4 (11.76%),   Within Estimate: 18 (52.9%)
Results for 5 Highest Estimated Lots: Above Low Estimate: 3, Above High Estimate: 1, Unsold: 1

Kelley Walker – Black Star Press, 2005. Silkscreened chocolate on digital print on canvas laid on board, 36″ x 28″ each. Sold: $254,500

Highest Grossing Lots (with buyer’s premium)
1. Lot 11: $458,500 – Steven Parrino ($400,000-$600,000)
2. Lot 5: $254,500 – Kelley Walker (Estimate: $150,000-$200,000)
3. Lot 19: $206,500 – Tom Wesselmann (Estimate: $200,000-$300,000)
4. Lot 7: $176,500 – Doug Aitken (Estimate: $150,000-$200,000)
5. Lot 4: $146,500 – George Condo (Estimate: $80,000-$100,000)

Doug Aitken – i am in you, 2000. Video installation of five projections of three dvds. Sold: $176,500

View Complete Sale Results here

Phillips will hold its next NY sale tomorrow, March 6. With a focus on emerging artists and editions, NOW: Art of the 21st Century offers collectors opportunities at much more modest entry points.

Anonymous Gallery opens an exhibition to benefit Haiti on March 7. The show is shaping up to be quite an opportunity to pick up work by some very respected artists, while supporting a worthy cause.

Participating artists: Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, Crash, Lee Quinones, Dondi White, Tauba Auerbach, Swoon, Futura, Jose Parla, Todd James, Eric Haze, David Ellis, Doze Green, Faile, Bast, Greg Lamarche, Kostas Seremetis, Rostarr, Chris Mendoza, Yuri Shimojo, Kenji Hirata, Cope2, Indie 184, Erik Foss, Henry Chalfant, Dan Witz, Ricky Powell, Shelter Serra, Eric White, Jamel Shabazz, Michael Holman, Eve Sussman, Joseph Ari Aloi, Kenzo Minami, Daze, Aaron Sharp Goodstone, Taylor McKimens, with more to come.

The gallery is also participating in SCOPE NY, and will feature works by Eric Haze, Greg Lamarche, and Kostas Seremetis, along with operating a mobile pop-up-shop out of an airstream trailer, where they will be selling artist products and editions.

N’Ap Boule – A Benefit for Haiti
Opening Reception – March 7
Anonymous Gallery at Collective Hardware
169 Bowery
NY, NY 10002

Anonymous Shop at The Standard Hotel
13th and Washington Street

#3. Toilet Humor Art

If I were to create a list of reasons to love Andrew Jeffrey Wright, I think part of it would look like this. The new 9 x 12 print in an edition of 72 is available for $35 bucks here.

Our friends at NY Art Beat have upped the anti with a new iPhone app that gets our seal of approval as a must have for any on-the-go-art enthusiast.  Listing 600 events from 1000 galleries and museums across New York City, the application provides users with the ability to search by GPS location, opening reception/starting/closing dates, most popular events, as well as providing access to press releases.

Available till the end of February for .99¢, and $1.99 thereafter, so act fast and go get it now. The application follows their already popular Tokyo Art Beat version, which is already the #1 selling app in the Lifestyle category of the Japanese iTunes store.

It wouldn’t be a week without some sort of news from the Shepard Fairey camp, and this one is jam packed.

Fairey was named Visionary of the Year and lent design and decoration to children’s charity The Art of Elysium’s 2010 Annual Heaven Gala (pictured above). Fairey is participating in their annual benefit auction, and has donated several items to the fundraising event. The most exciting lot is a personal portrait sitting with the artist.  The winning bidder will be entitled to a visit with Fairey for a photo shoot, which the artist will use to create a one of a kind 30″ X 44″ mixed media canvas. The prize is valued at $30-$40,000 for the in person sitting and final artwork (or $20-$30,000 if photos are sent). Other lots include unique 40″ x 60″ canvas depicting his Burmese Monk image, estimated at $20,000, and a rather quirky one of a kind collaged 7 foot lamp, valued at $7,500 (both pictured below).  Both the portrait sitting and Burmese Monk can be bid on live via CharityBuzz until March 4, 12pm EST. If interested in the lamp, download an absentee bid form here

The opening of the third and final stop of his museum retrospective, Supply and Demand, set record attendance numbers at the Cincinatti Contemporary Arts Center this past week. Naturally, while in town, Fairey and crew were also out making their mark on the streets. (Lots more photos of the exhibition preparation, opening celebration, and outdoor campaign at the end of this post.)

(All museum and street images via Obey Clothing)

Next, Fairey’s design firm, Studio Number One, has lent their hand to titling sequences for the new Basquiat feature film, which can be seen in the trailer below.

Finally, the controversy over Fairey’s Obama portrait continues. The artist is now the subject of a federal grand jury criminal probe. Authorities are investigating whether Fairey violated federal laws prohibiting evidence tampering and perjury in connection to his copyright battle with the Associated Press. In October the artist released a public statement admitting, “in an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images.”  As noted by Copyrights and Campaigns, the criminal investigation hinges on whether or not Fairey (along with his wife) violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)and 1621. Section 1512 makes it a crime to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the integrity or availability of the object for use in an official proceeding,” while section 1621 declares that any person who “willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true…is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”

Fairey has filed an injunction hoping to postpone the civil suit with AP. The injunction argues

“Plaintiffs submit that there is a compelling case for postponement. Mr. Fairey is now the subject of a criminal investigation…It appears that the AP is, at minimum, encouraging and supporting that criminal investigation. Mr. Fairey’s criminal defense counsel believes that a deposition at this time would prejudice him and impair council’s ability to properly represent Mr. Fairey. Therefor, if a deposition does take place while the criminal investigation is pending, counsel would advise Mr. Fairey to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”

While we here at TAC have supported Shepard’s fair use claims in creating his Obama portrait (which now sits in the National Portrait Gallery), we will wait for the facts to further develop before weighing in on the separate criminal investigation, and confine our comments to reporting the findings as they emerge.

Read on for more pictures from Cincinnati opening night and installation
(All museum and street images via Obey Clothing, auction images via Art of Elysium)

The recently sold Randall School building was purchased from the by the Rubells in partnership with the Telesis real estate firm from the Corcoran School and Museum. The joint venture will see the site developed into a new Rubell museum, a hotel, and private residencies. (Image via)

Famed Miami based collectors Don and Mira Rubell have just announced plans to open up a new museum in Wasington D.C. to showcase their ever expanding collection of contemporary art. The location will serve as a satellite to their Miami museum, and was purchased for $6.5 million from Corcoran College and Gallery of Art in partnership with real estate investment firm, Telesis. Part of the building will also be developed into a hotel and private residences.

This isn’t the Rubell’s first foray into the D.C. area. In 2002, the couple bought the Capitol Skyline Hotel. The seven story building was designed by their friend, architect Morris Lapidus, known for the Fontainebleau Hotel and other Miami Beach properties. Around the same time, they began focusing on D.C. artists. “The reason we even bothered to find a business [in D.C.] is that the art is amazing,” noted Mera Rubell in a December interview with Art in America. “A hotel is a natural place to create a kind of home. I want artists there—it’s exciting for my existence here whenever I’m here.”

(Image: Jenny Yang via Art in America)

The Corcoran is slated to host an exhibition organized by and culled from the Rubell’s collection. 30 Americans focuses on African American artists in the Rubell’s personal collection and was first on view at their private Miami museum in December of 2008.  Last week, Tyler Green’s Modern Art Notes raised concern over the arrangement. Clarifying that works in the exhibit are owned by the Rubell family and not by their foundation, he notes:

“The last line of the Washington Post story on the deal is a classic case of burying the lede: “Officials said the exhibition is not related to the sale.” Really? When an art-museum-and-school is preparing to exhibit a family’s private collection at the same time it is cutting a real estate deal with the owners of that collection (and curator(s) of the show), the arrangement deserves significantly more journalistic examination than a toss-off at the end of a story.”

Spokespersons for the Corcoran affirm the exhibit and property sale are not related. Yet, if the recent hoopla over the New Museum’s upcoming exhibit of museum trustee Dakis Joannou’s personal collection is waranted, perhaps the Rubell’s dealings with the Corcoran are also worth further examination.

Barry McGee will be exhibiting under his Lydia Fong monker at Alice Gallery (Brussels, Belgium), alongside Danish artist HuskMitNavn (Remember My Name). While both are known for their work in street and fine art settings, The Last Night marks the first collaboration for the artists. The joint exhibition opens March 25.

Your television is one step closer to the psychotic visions of multimedia artist Ben Jones. On his own and as one-third of art collective, Paper Rad, Jones’ paintings, comics, animations, and sculptural creations have been exhibited internationally at many notable museums and galleries, including the New Museum, MOMA, Tate Britain, Peres Projects, Deste Foundation, and Deitch Projects. Now Jones is in the running for a new series on the Adult Swim cable channel. Do your part and vote online for his pilot, Neon Knome here. The world will be a better place.

Check out NY Times’ profile and video interview with Ben here

UPDATE: The world is not ready.

Medicom Toy has just released a new limited Bearbrick design by our close and much admired friend, Tomokazu Matsuyama. The two figure set was produced in an edition of 300 and includes both 100% (2.5″) and 400% (10″) sizes. Though the product is exclusive to Japan (available here), savvy collectors will undoubtedly find their way to this limited release.

For our review on Matsu’s current exhibit in San Francisco, read here

Internationally recognized for his painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography, skate-icon and artist Ed Templeton has several significant projects in the works.

Most immediately, Templeton opens a new photo exhibit at Roberts + Tilton (Los Angeles) this Friday, Feb. 26. The works on display are culled from the artist’s personal archives, and were shot spontaneously from the inside of cars over a span of 15 years. Speaking of the project, Templeton says, “I never went out driving just to shoot pictures. Each one of these was shot going from point A to point B for some other reason, organically; they represent the in-between. Most of it is from my frequent visits to LA from my home in Huntington Beach, 1 hours’ drive south. But there is also a lot from taxi rides in Paris, Moscow, London, Barcelona, and St Petersburg.”

Next up , Templeton’s photography will be included in the 2010 Photography Biennial at MAMAC (Liege, Belgium), which runs Feb 28 – April 25. Lastly, his first solo museum exhibition, The Cemetery of Reason, opens at S.M.A.K. (Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art) in Ghent, Belgium on April 2, and will include works across multiple disciplines.

Ed Templeton – The Duality of Femininity, 2009 (Courtesy of Roberts + Tilton and Tim Van Laere)