“Medium Cool.” Don’t adjust your screen. It is supposed to be blurry.
The latest round of record-breaking NYC auctions on November 12 set a new high (source posted the wrong pic) for Marfa/New York-based Jeff Elrod, painter of digital-abstract scribbles. His 2014 painting “Medium Cool” fetched $305,000. It is 85 x 60 inches, UV ink on canvas. It was estimated at $50,000-70,000.
Let’s look at Elrod’s shooting star of the past two years. Elrod’s paintings at a Journal Gallery show (Brooklyn) in 2012 ranged from $18,000-35,000. Then his show at London’t Simon Lee in 2013 reportedly sold out, in the range of $50,000-70,000. Elrod is at Luhring Augustine now as well (NY) and had a solo show in the springtime; the day before that show opened one of his paintings (from 2000) sold at a Sotheby’s daytime auction for $173,000.
This doesn’t mean his retail is is now $300,000, but the new auction price certainly drives up his primary market price.
Protip to artists for the moment: make digitally inspired, disgruntled, abstracted, recognizable work.
