Davide Salvadore, Sentinel, 2009. Blown, cut, and laminated glass. $200,000. courtesy: habatat galleries
Late last Sunday afternoon, with just 10 minutes left before the 2009 SOFA Expo became history, a collecting couple rushed back to Habatat Galleries display area at Chicago’s Navy Pier to tell sales manager Corey Hampson that they were going to take it.
“It” was the most expensive artwork for sale at the annual expo — a $200,000 assemblage by Davide Salvadore, by far his largest work to date, and certainly his most expensive.
“They had just bought a house and said they couldn’t do it even though they really wanted to,” said Hampson in a telephone interview with the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. “They wanted to consider it for the future. I told them, ‘Think it over, if you’re truly in love with it, come back, and if not, just wait.’”
With the sale of Salvadore’s Sentinel, an assemblage of blown work that took three months to blow and an additional three months to develop the composition, Habatat Galleries capped off what Hampson calls “the best SOFA ever.” Though it may have started slow, it ended up being stronger, with results that outpaced even banner years such as 2006 or 2007.
“There was very selective buying,” said Hampson. “Collectors were more hesitant this year, but you saw them making more precise purchases. We had a lot of things put on hold first, but once those holds turned into red dots, it became a very, very successful show.”
Hampson said that almost every artist Habatat brought to Chicago sold at least one piece. Among the stand-outs, in addition to Salvadore, was Josepha Gasch-Muche, who sold three pieces, and Jan Borowski, a 27-year-old Polish glassblower who sold four of his hot-sculpted fanciful glass sculptures, one listed for $25,000.
Asked if he detected an interest in emerging artists’ work at a lower price point, Hampson agreed but with qualifications.
“It’s not emerging artists or a lower price point per se,” he said. “It is the work of those artists who have just ‘emerged,’ offering refined work that collectors haven’t yet been exposed to, but also a high level of quality.”
Hampson noted a real interest among established collectors for European work, citing a recent trip to France by the collectors group the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass that has spurred requests for work by artists such as Barbara Naning, Raymond Martinez, and Antoine LePerlier.
“I think freshness is what’s happening,” said Hampson.
For more, see the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet’s coverage of SOFA CHICAGO here, here, and here.