Christopher WOOL outsells Jeff KOONS…

The two men have much in common: same age (60), same nationality (American), same influences (Andy WARHOL and Pop Art in general), but their works are very different. Whereas Jeff KOONS, the Prince of Kitsch, enjoys working in different media and regularly switches between photography and sculpture, Christopher WOOL remains essentially focused on canvas. The former has a high media profile, is accustomed to criticism and controversy and has been the subject of a recent retrospective that has moved from the Whitney Museum in New York to the Centre Pompidou in Paris and to the Guggenheim in Bilbao. The latter only has a few major exhibitions on his CV, and yet this year, Christopher WOOL beat Jeff KOONS in the ranking of Contemporary artists by auction turnover!

Wool’s prices have seen almost exponential growth. For example, the recent resale of Untitled (Fool) (1990) that was initially acquired in February 2012 for $7.7 million at Christie’s in London and subsequently resold on 12 November 2014 in New York for $14.1 million, i.e. twice the previous price… in just two years.

And yet Christopher WOOL’s works are not rare on the market: in the first semester of 2015, sixteen of his paintings were submitted for sale without any negative impact on demand. One of them, Untitled (Riot) (1990), fetched $29.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York on 12 may 2015, setting a new record for the artist and underscoring the market’s intense enthusiasm for the artist.

Since then, collectors’ appetites have spread bey-ond his paintings and now the value of his prints has started to rocket. On 11 June 2015, a work entitledRun Dog Run (1991) composed of 3 prints measuring 88x70cm (from a limited edition of 125 copies) fetched $124,400 at Phillips in London.

If we look closer, we notice that the market is particularly focused on a specific period in Wool’s career, i.e. when he started using silkscreen techniques to place large-scale letters of the alphabet on canvases, forming words, sometimes orders, sometimes humorous, sometimes coarse (1989-95).

These works, which collectors believe are Wool’s best, were created at a critical moment in his career: in 1989 Wool was given a major exhibition at Max Hetzler’s Berlin gallery, which was simultaneously supporting a substantial section of the new generation of German painters, including Albert OEHLEN, Martin Kippenberger and Günther FÖRG. So, at just 34, Christopher WOOL was already recognised by international experts as being at the pinnacle of his art.

Nevertheless, Wool’s market is gradually turning towards his later works, i.e. after 1995, when he began to attract attention in the United States, particularly at a first large-scale show at the MOCA in Los Angeles in 1998. Thereafter, his career moved into a much faster gear. In 2000, Wool rejoined the Skarstedt Gallery in New York. Three years later he presented a major exhibition (Crosstown) at the Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre in Scotland, which published a first catalogue raisonné of his works. In 2005, one of his paintings crossed the million-dollar threshold in a public sale.

Since 2006, the artist has been supported by Larry Gagosian on the West Coast and by Simon Lee in London and his work has been presented in several major cities around the world: Porto in 2009, Cologne in 2010, Paris in 2012 and New York in 2013, at the Guggenheim. During the latter exhibition (and not far from it, at 20 Rockefeller Plaza) Christie’s sold one of his major works, Apocalypse now (1988), for $26.4 million (12 November 2013), demolishing his previous auction record of $7.7 million.

Today Christopher WOOL’s works are among the most sought-after at Contemporary art sales, in the same price bracket as works by Jean-Michel BASQUIAT and Jeff KOONS. A considerable part of his extraordinary and rapid success can be accredited to the support provided by powerful galleries, and particularly by Larry Gagosian.