Sotheby’s Presents Contemporary Curated with Grammy-Award Winning Music Producer SWIZZ BEATZ ** View Swizz’s Favorite Works from the Sale Here

New York Auction Led by: Kerry James Marshall’s Resplendent Study for the RECORD-BREAKING PAST TIMES

NEW YORK, 13 September 2018 – Sotheby’s is pleased to share highlights from our Contemporary Curated auction on 25 September in New York. Reflecting a dynamic ensemble of works from the Post-War and Contemporary periods with many exceptional highlights appearing at auction for the first time, Contemporary Curated is the foremost destination for new and seasoned collectors to acquire works by both established and emerging artists across varying price points.

This season, Swizz Beatz lends his exceptional creative vision and passion for collecting art to select his favorite works from 300+ lots on offer. The internationally acclaimed music producer and entrepreneur’s top picks include works by Sam Gilliam, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Mark Rothko, Richard Serra, Avery Singer, Wolfgang Tillmans, Kehinde Wiley and more.

The Contemporary Curated pre-sale exhibition opens to the public on 20 September, alongside works from the 13 -28 September Contemporary Art Online auction.

THE CURATOR | KASSEEM DEAN (SWIZZ BEATZ) “The sky is not the limit, just the view.”

SWIZZ’S PICKS
Both established and emerging Contemporary artists are represented in the 16 works selected by the internationally acclaimed Grammy-Award winning music producer, global entrepreneur and graduate of Harvard Business School, Kasseem Dean (Swizz Beatz). Works by African American and Latin American artists feature prominently in the exceptional group curated by Dean. Below is a look at some of his top picks from the sale.

Kerry James Marshall Study for Past Times 1997 Estimate $900,000 – 1.2 million

Following the $21.2 million sale of Kerry James Marshall’s pivotal Past Times in May 2018 – shattering the artist’s auction record and cementing a new top price for any work of art by a living African American artist sold at auction – Sotheby’s is honored to offer the artist’s Study for Past Times (estimate $900,000/1.2 million), an intimate composition that grants rare access into Marshall’s process.

Completed in the aftermath of his now iconic Garden Project series, Study for Past Times combines the most thought provoking and aesthetically engaging features of Marshall’s most celebrated larger scale paintings, with a level of insight into his compositional and conceptual developments that are seldom afforded by his grander examples.

The perimeter of the Study is lined with numbers scaling from one to thirteen, referring to the grid system that Marshall used to scale the painting. Thus, the study is perfectly proportioned to the canvas as he used an arithmetical preparatory approach to plan his scene. Countering this exactitude, Marshall preserves marks that lay out the development of the scene from idea to execution; faint lines ensconce his figures throughout the sprawling work on paper, while every ruled line is countered with a splash of expressionistic color.

The present work is emerging from the collection of Joel Straus, the art advisor who curated the monumental Past Times into the McCormick Place Art Collection. Straus felt so strongly that the Study allowed a rare insight into Marshall’s work, that he aspired for it to be in his family’s personal collection and acquired it from the artist directly.

Keith Haring Untitled 1983 Estimate $600/800,000

Another of Swizz’s selections from the sale is a powerful, vibrant wooden sculpture that epitomizes Haring’s artistic playfulness and cultural criticism, Untitled from 1983 takes the form of one of Haring’s iconic figures, its body caught somewhere between a graceful dance move and a warrior-like stance. Haring utilizes this duality, engaging notions of pleasure and violence, to speak to the nuance of contemporary society and the shared human condition.

The present work was executed in collaboration with Kermit Oswald, Haring’s close childhood friend, who provided the wood on which the artist incised his vision. Haring was both a keen observer of, and a significant participant in, shifts in contemporary street culture, and strove to find new ways to integrate the spirit and vitality of hip-hop in particular into his artistic practice. Untitled is born of this influence, elegantly compressing the vibrancy and movement of breakdancing into a solid stationary form.

ABOUT SWIZZ BEATZ
Instagram: @therealswizz
From Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Madonna, to Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Metallica and more, Kasseem Dean (Swizz Beatz) has worked with some of the greatest talents in entertainment and music, contributing to the sale over 350 million records worldwide. A natural observer and strategic thinker, he has collaborated with Reebok, Christian Louboutin, Aston Martin, Lotus, Audemars and Piguet. In 2015, Dean joined global spirit giant Bacardi Group as its Chief Creative for Culture, where he oversaw several brands in the company’s portfolio and developed the No Commission art and music festival.

Dean attributes his love for art to his experience with graffiti while growing up in the Bronx. This early passion led him to begin collecting in his twenties and in 2014 he formed The Dean Collection, a contemporary art, family collection and artist support platform. Today, Dean sits on the Board of Trustees at the Brooklyn Museum, NY and Serpentine Galleries, London.