Kinetic Art – an important art movement of the mid-20th century – was the subject of a landmark sale at PIASA on Wednesday 25 November. 120 works by leading Kinetic artists were available for art-lovers and connoisseurs. Domitille d’Orgeval, who co-curated the exhibition Dynamo (devoted to Kinetic Art) at the Grand Palais in 2013, had assembled works by Julio Le Parc, François Morellet, Gregorio Vardanega and Alberto Biasi, which all yielded significant results in the PIASA saleroom.
Top price of €70,600 went to François Morellet’s Contorsion N°12 (lot 26), where red neons dance on the painted canvas as if the artist were ‘playing with the support itself, on the wall or in space,’ as the catalogue put it.
Another remarkable price was €61,820 for a Gregorio Vardanega Untitled from his key period of 1957/8 – probably one of the earliest original works to remain in his studio until 2006 (lot 14). Another work from the same series, entitled Relieve Electronico, is now in the MNBA in Buenos Aires.
Other excellent sales included €36,060 for Julio Le Parc’s Continuel Mobile from 1963 (lot 2); €37,350 for Chryssa’s Newspaper (lot 90); and €28,340 for Alberto Biasi’s Politipo (1968) against an estimate of €5,000-7,000 (lot 68).
*All prices include buyer’s premium.
