According to Loughnan, Mossgreen has collaborated closely with artists, dealers, collectors and consultants to establish a carefully considered, long-term approach to the series development.
“We have worked to evaluate our estimates in a move toward correcting the gap between many Australian artists’ gallery and auction values,” she says in the catalogue introduction.
The auction features key works from many of Australia’s most significant artists including Bill Henson’s important and never before offered Untitled #122, (Lot 1 ) where a young adolescent couple are captured “in perfect chiaroscuro by distant city lights”.
Another work from this series holds one of Henson’s higher auction records.
Two significant video pieces from Daniel Crooks are further buyer attractions. Pan No. 2 (one step forwards, one frame backwards) (Lot 2 ) is a ‘time slice’ video that blurs a city scene of skateboarders, pedestrians and traffic into a hypnotic dance-like scene.
On Perspective and Motion Part 1 (Lot 17 ) (the first in a two-part series) segments and warps a busy streetscape.
David Noonan’s Untitled 2008 (Lot 2 ) is a significant work from his 2008 Markus series and depicts a melancholic clown-like figure screen printed onto the artist’s signature collaged linen and jute.
Kill….2007, (Lot 25 ) a Richard Bell colourful work of synthetic polymer paint on canvas that proposes vengeance for the massacre of Australia’s indigenous people is featured on the catalogue front cover.
An important work for both the auction and artist’s oeuvre, it follows Bell’s practice of engaging in humour and activism surrounding racial politics in Australia and focuses attention on the assumptions and false narratives that exist in the country’s indigenous history.
Other artists to feature in the auction include Annette Bezor (Tension 2, 1999), (Lot 24 ) Janet Laurence (Green Space III, House Hedge, Scented Rose, Tasmania, 2003), (Lot 23 ) Brook Andrew (Suitcase, #1, 2007) (Lot 15 )and Gordon Bennett (Notes to Basquiat: Head, 1999) (Lot 27 ).
