Phillips has done it again
PHILLIPS [formerly Phillip de Pury & Company] has had an interesting couple of years. They decided to move their Meatpacking District offices to a scary building in midtown, their former chairman, and one of reality TV's best and brightest, Simon de Pury, stepped down, and there have been endless rumblings about self inflicted mercurialism within the organization [we, of course, can not verify the latter because the art market is effectively unregulated, totally opaque, and entirely relationship driven—and that is the way they like it].
That aside, Phillips is a group of fighters. They have a strong team, 200+ years of experience, a sense of cultural hipness that its older siblings, Christie's and Sotheby's, can only dream of, and they are tired of third place crusty hand me downs—so they have decided to ditch paintings and sell fences, trash, melted plastic, pre-chewed chewing gum, and headless elementary school students at their upcoming New York City Contemporary Art sale!
And if you don't like it, Christopher Wool has their back.
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Phillips has not completely abandon paintings, there is a moving (if only by virtue of the background music) Warhol up for sale.
