Nowadays

Nowadays presents an exciting collection of contemporary art and photography, offering up a taste of what is fresh and current on today's market. The sale shines a spotlight on some of the most sought-after contemporary artists, showcasing dozens of hard to find and new to auction works. Take a closer look at some of the innovative art available in the upcoming sale. 

Who is Henry Codax? One of the most intriguing "artists" on the Nowadays roster isn’t quite an artist at all. In fact, the man is a work of fiction: inspired by the writings of French literary theorists like Roland Barthes, Codax's body of work is authored by a character of sorts, a ghostly pseudonym. The paintings included in the sale, Untitled (Rouge) and Untitled (Yellow), like the rest of Codax's immense monochromes, take issue with the relationship between text and the art object. They shun written accompaniment of any kind and untie themselves from traditional ideas of creatorship, acting instead as pure aesthetic. These works are paintings without a painter, beautiful voids ready to be inscribed with discussions of our conceptions of authorship and art. Despite its distaste for the status quo, Codax's avant-garde conceptual work is no stranger to attention: it was named the epicenter of "the secret world of art" by The Observer in 2012. 

Valentin Carron has a talent for finding the absurd in the everyday. Two pieces included in the upcoming sale, Le Dédain and Untitled (Cross), exemplify his ability to imbue recognizable or iconic images with new, often humorous, meaning. Unlike the small-scale crucifixes the artist is used to seeing affixed to necklaces and church signage in his rural Swiss hometown, Cross is positively massive. Standing a whopping 11 1/2 feet tall, this work certainly fills a room. Importantly, here and throughout his oeuvre, Carron manages to refrain from sacrificing reverence in his acts of iconoclasm. Cross and Le Dédain simultaneously admire and mock the objects that act as their inspiration.

Dan Christensen’s Nerine marks another standout. The composition’s intense focus on color makes the artist’s strong ties to Color field painting and Abstract Expressionism movements clear. Effervescent and original, Nerine highlights Christensen’s ability to explore the limits of pictorial form. In recent years, his work has sold well above estimate at Sotheby's and Christie's.

Also featured in the sale are works by one of the most notable artist couples on the post-war art scene, Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof. The included works, Resnick's Untitled (Group of Four Figures) and Passlof's Emily, certainly speak to each other. The gestural brushstrokes in each bring a mellow yet forceful sense of movement and emotion to the compositions. Here, the artists bring their Abstract Expressionist sensibility to figurative painting, underscoring the versatility that became part of their legacies. The pair's art can be found in the permanent collections of major museums across the world, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Peter Coffin’s Untitled (Pirate), one of Nowadays’ more playful pieces, pays homage to childhood literary classics like Treasure Island. This polished cast aluminum figure pushes pop culture’s conception of the buccaneer to its breaking point, sporting a pet parrot, two eyepatches, two hooks for hands, and two peg legs. Another version of this spirited sculpture sits in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

These are just a few of the dozens of cutting-edge pieces included in the 126-lot sale, which also includes works by Chakaia Booker, Anja Schwörer, and Michael Loew. Browse the rest of the collection online or in person at Capsule during exhibition hours, which will take place on Monday, September 19 and Tuesday, September 20 from 11:00 AM until 3:00 PM. 

Nowadays goes live on September 22 at 1:00 PM ET.